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CREATING LIFE FROM A SPONGE: THE PRE-HISTORY OF SIMMONS HALL 6. THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS  The process of recruiting -- probably the most important task the Founders Group had to undertake -- was one that developed slowly and steadily over a long period of time. It started early in 2000, with the realization that Simmons Hall would not be completed by fall 2001. Faced with the fact that the Founders Group members from the class of 2002 would no longer be the senior leadership of the dorm, we realized we needed to recruit new members from the class of 2003. And that's what we did-- after doing a couple of informative sessions in the winter, in the spring we sent out a general request for interest, and then invited students from the class of 2003 to apply to be on the Founders Group by answering a small set of questions, to see how they would approach some of the challenges the Founders Group would have to face. Five people sent in applications-- they were Ross Benson, David Foxe, Vikash Gilja, Grace Kessenich, and Ankur Mehta. After some thought, we figured, "What's the point of being selective?" and we invited all of them to join the group. They became our new front guard-- they were expected to support us in our work and our discussions, and to pass the word along and help recruit new potentials.  We also decided to take a broader approach to our recruiting work. In February 2000, we made what was probably the most long-lasting and significant contribution to the future of Simmons Hall. Catching on to the popularity at the time of public e-mail lists like mit-talk, housing-talk, and ifc-talk, we created a list called -- well, you know what it was called -- that people from all around campus could subscribe to in order to get news about the new dorm (still not yet called Simmons Hall) and to openly discuss their ideas about what it should be like. While there was some discussion at different points, for the most part this served as a publicity list with me sending out most of the posts. Throughout the 2000-2001 academic year, Simmons Hall recruiting progressed rather slowly. With the opening still two years away, it was hard to get people too interested in the project. While we did do one big event -- the very popular "Waffle and Sponge Party" -- we mostly tried to build interest through word-of mouth.  Jumping ahead about a year, we come to the end of the summer in 2001. This was a historic moment, because it was the last year of "rush" as we knew it at the time -- when dorm rush and fraternity rush happened at the same time. We at Simmons Hall were a little bummed that we didn't have a dorm to rush for. But that wasn't going to stop us.  Thus Fake Rush 2001 was born. We had about 7 people, we had t-shirts, we had a flyer to hand out, and we had a booth at the Residence Midway. "Fake Rush" mostly consisted of us milling around campus, getting the word out and goofing off at other dorms. Did this generate any real interest? I still don't really know. But we did have a good time, and we could say that Simmons Hall participated in the last true rush ever. Right at the beginning of 2002 there was a period I tend to think of as the "decline and fall of the Founders Group." A number of events occurred all around this time that, taken together, rendered the Founders Group obsolete. In January, Anne McCants, the Chair of the Founders Group and presumed Housemaster of Simmons Hall, first started to talk about dissolving the Founders Group. I learned that simultaneously, a new group was being formed called the Simmons Implementation Group, which would be led by the Housemasters but would mostly comprise of administrators from the Deans' Offices. This worried me, not necessarily because I didn't trust the administrators, but because it seemed like the purpose of this move was to cut students out of the decisionmaking process, and I saw that as a dangerous move. Some action needed to be taken to maintain student control, but unfortunately we were facing another challenge-- of the five '03 members of the Founders Group, only two had decided that they would move into Simmons Hall. So in January, just before the Founders Group was officially dissolved, I and the two remaining 2003 student members--- Ross and Vikash-- started a new group called the Simmons Hall Steering Committee. This group would be comprised of students who intended to move into Simmons Hall, and they would be responsible for all the things that a typical dorm government would be responsible for-- room assignments, GRT selection, rush, social activities, &c. They were also responsible for publicizing the dorm and handling the recruiting effort. The group started with about a dozen members and was expected to expand over time, which it did somewhat. Ross and Vikash were made the co-chairs of the group, from which I stepped off shortly after starting it, knowing that I wouldn't actually be moving in. I remained to help in an advisory role. The final event came when Anne McCants announced that she was accepting a position as the chair of the history faculty, and that she would withdraw from her anticipated Housemaster position. This meant that none of the original Founders Group members would end up living in Simmons Hall. Immediately after Anne announced her decision, the Essigmanns were selected to take over the Housemaster role-- a great benefit for Simmons Hall, though it was clearly difficult for them to leave New House-- and a little while later, Muriel Medard and her family were selected to be associate Housemasters. Ross, Vikash and I spent much of our time over the next several months becoming acquainted with the new Housemaster team, and indoctrinating them in the ideals formed and perpetuated by the Founders Group. They understood our ideals remarkably quickly, and became, and continue to be, strong and tireless supporters of the community vision we had sustained and defended. So now we came to the home stretch-- the real recruiting. Here was the scenario: We had 350 student beds yet to be filled. We knew that the campus would end up being about 35% freshmen in fall 2002, with all freshmen living on campus and some upperclassmen still in FSILGs. So we were aiming to have about 120 freshmen in the dorm, meaning that we would need 230 upperclassmen to move in from other dorms. The Steering Committee developed an interesting-- let's call it innovative-- strategy for recruiting upperclassmen, directed by its publicity czar, Dan Ramage. There were two goals to the advertising campaign. First, the word simply needed to get out that people had the option to move into Simmons Hall. But the campaign also tried to emphasize that Simmons Hall was not going to be a sterilized, administration-controlled residence hall. We wanted to make it clear that the dorm would have a culture and character that would be shaped by the students, just like in every other dorm. Thus, the poster campaign...   We also knew it would be tough to get people interested in the place if they couldn't see the inside. Unfortunately, the dorm wasn't quite finished and arranging tours was difficult because of the pace at which work was progressing. It's clear that the Steering Committee had already developed a bit of a reputation for irreverance, but would they also engage in any illegal activities? I can neither confirm nor deny, but I did hear unconfirmed rumors of someone conducting "midnight tours"-- I think you get the idea. To officially sign up to move into Simmons Hall, students entered a housing lottery in spring 2002. When it came down to lottery time, we weren't sure what to expect. Most people didn't think we would get the 230 upperclassmen we wanted to move in. Those people -- and we were among them -- were shocked to learn that in fact 250 upperclassmen signed up to move to Simmons Hall. Those of us who were supporting Simmons Hall were thrilled. Unfortunately, our good fortune came at the expense of Next House, MacGregor, and to a lesser extent New House and Burton-Conner, from which most of the Simmons upperclassmen moved. Ultimately, it was that group of upperclassmen that formed the provisional house government and formally took over from the Steering Committee. Meanwhile, we also had to recruit freshmen. We knew that we would get a lot of interest from freshmen just because the dorm is new, and new students will tend to be attracted to what they feel are the best and most up-to-date facilities. Unfortunately, while Simmons was new, we also knew that as a result of continuing construction, it might not be the most pleasant place to live if comfort is someone's first priority. We also needed to try to project an image of Simmons Hall as not just a spanking-new building, but as a vibrant community with culture and character where people had a good time. We had to do all this with no actual residents, no idea what the community would really be like, and no official access into the dorm. One of the recruiting tools we had at our disposal was the Interactive Introduction to the Institute project, which allowed dorms the opportunity to create a video that would be viewed by incoming freshmen before they made their housing preferences. I'll let the video speak for itself. [view video at http://simmons.mit.edu/video.mov] So there it was. We got our message out, went through the housing selection process as every other dorm did, and got the 100 freshmen who would become the first "pure" residents of Simmons Hall.  Document courtesy of Vikash Gilja This brings our story just about to a close. The summer went by as summers do, the students handled some planning and budgeting work for how to get things started up, and in late August the on-campus upperclassmen and incoming freshmen finally were able to move into their new home ...  ... or not. Unfortunately, the actual completion was pushed back a few days, meaning that many Simmons Hall residents got to spend a lovely weekend in MIT's other new dorm, the Sidney and Pacific grad dorm, which had some spaces still open since grad students had mostly not yet arrived on campus. The leaders and staff at Sidney and Pacific deserve some real kudos for meeting with us in the middle of the night to make all the arrangements and spending the next few days hosting about 100 Simmons Hall refugees. As a Sidney-Pacific resident myself at the time, I was happy to assist.  Image credit: MIT News Office So finally, on August 20, 2002 the doors opened, and you know how things went from there. copyright Jeffrey C. Roberts, 2004 |