SP residents cooked the Tonkatsu in Japanese interest group event

Have you ever wanted to update or share your rock music library but find no one around you is a rock fan, or wanted to go to a football game but couldn’t find anyone interested? If so, it is time to try out the SP interest group mailing list!

An interest group is a collection of SP residents who share a particular interest and use the group’s email list to update one another on events related to their common interest. One can also create events and find people who may be interested via the interest group. There are more than 200 interest groups in SP, providing you a good opportunity to make new friends and enjoy the things you love to do!

Taiwanese-style BBQ in SP courtyard

We have had several incredible events hosted through the interest group. For instance, there was the hiking trip every season organized by the hiking interest group, Japanese Tonkatsu night (a Japanese dish, consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet and fresh shredded cabbage) and karaoke night by the Japanese interest group and Taiwanese BBQ hosted by the Taiwanese interest group. Residents have also used the food interest group to go to festivals together, such as the New England Dessert Showcase and the Phantom Food Festival. You like drawing? No problem! This year, the drawing/art interest group hosted drawing sessions for SP residents to try out some different drawing skills. They are also plenty of interest groups with outdoor activities. Bike trips plus ice cream outing were hosted through the biking interest group. They have been to Walden Pond, Kimball farm, and more places waited to be explored.

Hiking trip hosted by hiking interest group

The best of all, you can get subsidy for interest group events from SP. If you have a group of 3-5 people, everyone can get $5 subsidy; $8 per person for a group of 6-8 people, and $10 per person for a group more than 8 people. The more people attending the event, the more subsidies you can get! Moreover, extra subsidy will be provided to people who create the events, so do not hesitate to host events using the interest group!

You may wonder how can you join different interest groups and be part of those wonderful events. Here are some tips: Go to SP website and click “My account” on the upper left corner, and check the interest groups that you would like to participate in. Once you are part of an interest group, you can email its members to create events and contact Michelle Chen (Interest group chair) for subsidy (Note: you have to advertise your event through the interest group mailing list in order to request for subsidy).

Hope to see you utilizing the SP interest groups!

By Michelle Chen, SP Interest Group Manager

The month of Movember, formerly known as November, will be getting a little hairier than usual this year. The “Mo” (Australian for mustache) inspired the Australian-originated Movember organization which raises awareness for men’s health and money for prostate cancer research through the growing of mustaches.  Yes, you read that correctly, mustaches.  Last year, Movember raised over $80 million for research.  Those are some powerful mustaches! This year, Sidney-Pacific is organizing the first, MIT campus-wide Movember effort where students will come together and pledge not to shave throughout the month of November.  Students form teams on the Movember.com website and each student asks friends and family to donate to his growing stache.  All proceeds are donated to Movember, a 501-(c)(3) charity, which is partnered with the National Prostate Cancer Foundation.  Sidney-Pacific has reached out across campus to recruit as many Mo Bro’s and Mo Sista’s as possible. Over 90 students have come together through 10 teams representing AeroAstro, TPP, Biological Engineering, HST, Sloan, along with a handful of the undergrad fraternities and we have raised $1300 so far! At the end of Movember, when the mustaches are fully ripe, all participants will celebrate with a Movember Gala Parte on December 1^st in Boston.

Prostate cancer affects 1 in 6 men during their lifetime.  Because we all care about 6+ men, it is important that we address this issue and work together to attack the challenge of finding a cure.  Movember addresses this problem through raising awareness for men’s health and money for research. In support of these efforts, the MIT Movember goal is to raise over $3000 toward this crucial cause.  Help support MIT staches by finding the MIT Network on Movember.com, because we cannot grow them without you.

By Emily Calandrelli, SP Outreach Chair

SPEC 2011-12. Left to right: Brian Spatocco (Chair of the Halls), George Tucker (VP of Information), George Lan (President), Ahmed Helal (VP of Residential Life) and Holly Johnsen (VP of Resources)

The Sidney-Pacific Executive Council (SPEC) and the House Council would like to warmly welcome all of our new residents. You’re joining an amazingly diverse, active graduate community of almost 700 students. In order to serve and unite a community this large, SP has a wide variety of traditions and institutions, some of which we’d like to introduce here:

Hall Councilors and Hall Dinners: Sidney-Pacific is divided into 13 halls, and hall councilors are like your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. If you have any questions, concerns, or issues, they’re a great first resource to turn to. Plus, they organize monthly dinners and outings – basically, excuses for everyone in your hall to come together, hang out, and enjoy some free food. During orientation, each hall will be holding a mandatory hall meeting for all of its new residents to go over housing policies, roommate agreements, etc. Afterward, both new and returning residents are invited to the first hall dinners of the new academic year – please talk to your hall councilor for more details.

Sidney-Pacific Orientation: The next few weeks of Orientation are very exciting, and there are many can’t-miss events:

• First, SP traditionally kicks off its orientation with Open Doors Night, an event where 30-40 residents, both old and new, host small room parties for an evening. It’s a great chance to break the ice, meet your new neighbors, and maybe even show off some of your culinary skills. We’re currently recruiting hosts. Contact your Hall Councilor for more information!
• Then, we have our three staple large events – the Glow in the Dark Dance Party, the Orientation Brunch, and the Rock ‘n Roast BBQ. These are open to the entire graduate community and usually attract crowds of up to 400-600 people. SP is generally known around campus for its large social events (we have 2-3 every semester, in addition to orientation), so keep your eyes open for announcements during the semester. Some of the great events we held just this past year include: the Wine & Chocolate Party, a Halloween masquerade, an Iron Chef competition, Dumplings of the World night, and an Asian Street Food festival.
• In addition to our large events, SP organizes a number of smaller events, such as trips to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Aquarium, an “arts crawl” through Downtown Boston, and sailing on the Charles. All of these great events are organized by members of the Sidney-Pacific House Council. For the full list of events, please check out the orientation calendar in this newsletter, the official SP orientation guide, or our online Google calendar (http://bit.ly/sp-mit-calendar).

SP residents enjoying the monthly brunch on a Sunday. (Courtesy of SP Photofile Committee)

Monthly Brunch: Every month, Sidney-Pacific and Ashdown each provide a free Sunday brunch (12:00 – 1:00 PM, MP Room on the 1^st floor) that’s open to the entire MIT community. From scrambled eggs to chocolate-chip banana pancakes, and from roasted potatoes to fresh seasonal fruits, our brunches are not to be missed. Just don’t forget to bring your own silverware – we’re all about sustainability here! We have an enthusiastic, committed team of residents who volunteer every month to cook brunch mostly from scratch for over 300 people. As always, volunteers get to skip the lines and eat first. If you’d like to help out behind the scenes, come down to the MP Kitchen anytime between 8 AM – 12 PM.

Weekly Coffee Hour: Every Wednesday night (9:00 PM – 10:00 PM), SP residents are invited to the MP room for free fresh fruits, snacks, and of course, coffee – there’s tea and other drinks, too. Occasionally, we’ll have specialty menu items (such as a seasonal soup) or additional programs (such as a bike auction or a hobby fair). Once a month, we partner with a student group for a larger, culturally-themed coffee hour; last year, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo (Mexico), Holi (India), Chinese New Year (China), Chuseok (Korea) and many other holidays with those respective cultures’ special cuisines.

Sidney-Pacific Inter-Cultural Exchange (SPICE): Even though SP residents represent more than 40 different nationalities, we believe that merely assembling a “diverse” group of people is not enough. The benefits of diversity come from actively sharing and learning about each other’s different cultures, beliefs, and worldviews. SPICE is a dinner discussion program that facilitates this cultural exchange. At the beginning of the year, residents who sign up for SPICE are assigned to groups of 10-12 people. Over the course of the year, these groups meet about every other week for a subsidized dinner; at each dinner, members of the group discuss a particular topic, such as “How does your family celebrate various holidays, such as the New Year?”or “What do you and your family consider to be taboos?”

Housemaster Dinners: We’re very fortunate to have Professor Roger and Dottie Mark, and Professor Annette Kim and Dr. Roland Tang as Housemasters to support our residential programming and development. New residents will have the chance to meet them, along with our adorable “Housemasters-in-Training” Joshua and Samuel, during our Housemaster Welcome Dinners in the middle of September. Please check your e-mail for your personal invitation. In addition, over the course of the year, residents will receive special invitations to other Housemaster gatherings, such as the Thanksgiving and Holiday dinners, dinners with professors, and so forth.

SP Interest Groups: Are you interested in hiking the nearby Middlesex Fells trails? Do you often play Settlers of Catan and other board games late into the night? Would you be interested in going on a “progressive dining” tour of the Asian restaurants in Brighton/Allston? Over the past year, SP residents have organized these and many other great activities through SP Interest Groups. Basically, these are open, opt-in mailing lists that residents sign up for to connect with other residents of similar interests. In addition, if you can get a group of SP residents together for an activity, you can receive funding – that’s right, SP will partially subsidize that restaurant or concert trip. Go to https://s-p.mit.edu/myacct/interest_groups.php to learn more.

Volunteering at SP: All of the programs and resources run by the House Council would not be possible without the help of resident volunteers like you. Come on out, get involved, and meet other SP residents. There are many ways to get involved, from grilling at the barbeque to spearheading environmental initiatives, or even writing for this newsletter. No experience is required! You can find out about ways to get involved by signing up for the Volunteer mailing list in your “My Account” settings here: https://s-p.mit.edu/myacct/resident_edit_entry.php

Our vision for this year is: “Sidney-Pacific: Make It Yours!” All of the aforementioned institutions are ways that past and current residents have taken ownership over their community – making SP their home. We hope you’ll make SP yours as well by joining us in some of these traditions. More importantly, we look forward to creating some new traditions – if you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas, please contact us at spec@mit.edu. Enjoy orientation, and we look forward to meeting you!

By SPEC

Roger and Dottie Mark, Sidney-Pacific Housemasters (Courtesy of SP Photofile Committee)

We are honored to be your housemasters, and we extend our enthusiastic greetings to all residents of Sidney-Pacific, especially to those of you who are joining us this year! We want very much to help build our community into a safe, supportive home where we can grow intellectually and socially. We strongly support the theme for this year – “Sidney-Pacific: Make it yours!” We wish that each resident would build connections with others through small group activities and the development of new friendships. Don’t be a passive resident here – jump into the active life of SP!

Housemasters are faculty mem­bers who live in community with students in MIT dorms. We are ap­pointed by the President of MIT and report to the Dean of Student Life. Our goal is to facilitate the building of community within the living group, to represent and advocate for the needs and desires of students to the administration, and to communicate the policies of the administration to the students.

It is our great pleasure to support and advise the officers of the SP student government, but they take full responsibility for poli­cies, strategies, and programming in the dorm. The officers are a dedicated and talented team, but they are not a “closed” group. We strongly encourage everyone to get to know them, and join in to help!

SP is an unusually diverse and in­ternational community, with representatives from more than 45 different countries this term!  As residents here, we have an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from each other during our time together! We are particularly excited about the SPICE (Sid­ney-Pacific Intercultural Exchange) program! We hope you will get involved in this unique opportunity to build intercultural bridges!  There are other ways to connect as well: check out the interest groups, and take the initiative to propose an activity – subsidized by the house budget! And jump in with your colleagues in helping behind the scenes with the launching of programs. There is no better way to make friends than to work together. Join the SP-Helper email list to be informed of opportunities to volunteer!

As housemasters we are eager to meet each of you, and to be available to you both professionally and per­sonally. We will certainly try to be visible at coffee hours, social affairs, and will host a number of house­master dinners in our apartment. It is our hope that each resident will attend at least one such dinner dur­ing the year. Do not feel you need to wait for an invitation, just come by any time you want!

Housemasters, as experienced MIT faculty mem­bers, are always available to residents for advice or counseling on academic and/or per­sonal issues, and we are particularly pleased when individual students contact us for private discussions. Graduate school can be exciting and fulfilling, but there are also times of high stress, loneliness, disappoint­ment and uncertainty. Sharing a cup of tea to talk over anything would be our pleasure – knock on the door (#568) or email (rgmark@mit.edu or dotmark@mit.edu)!

By Roger and Dottie Mark, Sidney-Pacific Housemasters

Welcome to Sidney-Pacific! We are one of the most eco-friendly student communities on campus, and we count on you to continue make a difference in our everyday lives. Here are the tips for an eco-lifestyle at SP:

Recycling:

• Don’t leave your recyclables in front of your door.
• Dispose your recyclables into the big recycling bins conveniently located in each corridor.
• Make sure you rinse the bottles and containers if needed. Contaminated items ruin other recyclables and make your corridor smelly.
• Single stream pick-ups at SP are twice a week, usually Mondays and Thursdays. Before pick-up times the recycling bin in your corridor might disappear for a day or so, be patient — it will come back! Single-stream recycling includes glass products, plastics 1-7, paper and cardboard.
• Bring reusable bags to the grocery store! Note that used plastic bags CANNOT be recycled in single stream. Observe that they do not actually have a plastic recycling number. Instead, they are collected in a special bin in the main lobby and sent back to be recycled into new shopping bags.

Composting:

• Get a compost biodegradable bag from the main lobby by the front desk and once you have filled it up, simply leave it in front of your door. The cleaning staff will take it to the compost bins located outside the building for you. Please make sure the bag is not leaking!
• If you prefer to take it out yourself, the compost bins are located behind the courtyard, at the west entrance of the parking lot. Also, don’t hesitate to use the compost bins available in every common kitchen!
• We now compost ALL food and plant waste, including meat and dairy, as well as napkins, tea bags, coffee residues and other compostable products.

Techno-cycle:

• Techno-cycle bin is located in the main lobby.
• Read the label on the bin carefully for qualifying items.
• NO light bulbs, batteries, monitors, CPUs, toner cartridges! ABSOLUTELY NO single stream recyclables!

Batteries:

• Battery collection bin is in the main lobby, located next to the techno-cycle.

Energy Efficiency:

• Use stairs when you can, challenge yourself! Walk or bike to your lab!
• Use drying racks available for check-out at the front desk to dry your laundry.
• Turn off A/C when you leave your room for the day.

Reusing:

• Use the SP-MORE service (see details in this issue) and obtain free household items donated by previous residents instead of buying new items at the store!
• You have something you do not wish to use anymore? Don’t trash it! Send an email to the SP ‘reuse’ interest group at sp-igroups-reuse@mit.edu!

Other Sustainable Efforts:

• Bring your own eating ware to the SP food events like coffee hours or brunches. Save disposable, single-use stuff and win prizes in the Green Raffle every week! Note that all provided utensils at brunches and coffee hours are compostable, do not trash them! Instead use the red bins for compost!

For more information about recycling, composting and techno-cycle:

• http://web.mit.edu/facilities/environmental/dos_donts_howtos.pdf
• http://www.savethatstuff.com/collect-organics

Questions? Contact sp-environment-chair@mit.edu

Don’t miss our visit of the recycling center on August 31^st! Look out for posters!

By Ece Glusen and Jean-Philippe Coutu, SP Environment Committee

Sidney-Pacific is changing the way we collect fines and rental fees.  From now on, residents pay fines directly to the front desk either by cash or check.  Residents will have 4 weeks to pay off fines and rental fees.  At that point, he or she will be unable to check out items until they pay off their fines and fees (spare keys will always be available).  Alternatively, if a resident has unpaid fines above $20 they will also be locked out until they resolve them.  Email reminders will be sent out before that happens, and you can always check your “My Account” page on the Sidney-Pacific website.  We’ll be rolling this system out in the next few weeks, so look out for posters and an email announcing the start of the new collection policy.  If you have any comments or questions send sp-vp-info@mit.edu an email.

By George Tucker, SP VP of Information

Hi, SPeaker readers! I’m Steven, the SP Newsletter Chair for this year. The Sidney-Pacific SPeaker is a monthly published newsletter that connects SP residents with the news around SP. As you may have noticed, we are making several changes to the Sidney-Pacific SPeaker in order to make this connection even stronger. In this article, I am going to introduce to you some of the changes and ideas we have for the newsletter this year. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated in the newsletter survey recently. Your comments and suggestions are truly valuable as they provide us directions to make the newsletter even better.

Introducing the E-Newsletter

In the survey, many of you mentioned that an electronic newsletter would be a good alternative way to deliver the newsletter. In response to that, we have worked very hard to make this become reality. It was challenging because we did not want to simply send the newsletter as an attachment in e-mails. Instead, we spent a lot of time designing a reader friendly version of the electronic newsletter. In this issue of the SPeaker, you will receive a summary of articles via e-mail. By clicking on the title link of each article, you will be directed to the newsletter website where you can read the article of interest in full. We hope this will be a convenient way for you to enjoy the articles on the newsletter and at the same time, eliminates the need to print out copies of the newsletter every month. I would also like to thank Sharon Paradesi, the Web Chair, and George Tucker, the VP of Information, for working with me to make the electronic newsletter possible.

Interactive Newsletter

One advantage of the e-newsletter is that it can be far more interactive than the traditional newsletter. We have included many new features on the newsletter website which were not possible in the paper version. One of the features you will find is the icons in the end of every article which allows you to share your favorite article on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or via email. So go ahead and read it, like it and share it. You can also comment on each article to share your opinion. We hope this will make the newsletter more fun to read than ever before.

To make the newsletter even more interactive, we plan on having polls and surveys on SP events or just SP in general in some of the future issues. Sidney-Pacific is a graduate community and to establish a strong community, it is important to have a two-way communication between the officers and residents. Therefore, we view this newsletter as a way for the officers not only to communicate to the residents but also to hear feedback and suggestions from the residents. With all of these improvements, we hope to actively engage readers of the SPeaker.

Article Variety

Many of you also mentioned that you would like to see more articles on the news impacting SP residents and on upcoming events. In addition to those types of articles, we will also try to include articles on outdoor activities you can do around SP, Cambridge, or Boston. What would be fun to do on a summer day at SP? Where are the places to go around SP during the weekends? Where to go for hiking, biking, etc.? We hope you will find useful information in those articles and give those places and activities a try sometime.

Read and Be Read

With that being said, the Sidney-Pacific SPeaker needs input from you! If you have been somewhere fun near Cambridge or tried an interesting activity, please share it with the SP community! The types of articles you can submit are not limited those mentioned above. Write to the SPeaker if you have interesting stores to share, hobby to promote and so on. We need your articles to make the newsletter fun and exciting to read! To promote submissions from residents, we are planning to award prizes to writer in future issues. If your article is chosen to be published on the SPeaker, you could win a gift card! So be sure to keep an eye out and submit your articles for prizes.

More Improvements Yet to Come

This month is the first time we are trying to make the SPeaker electronically available. We have not totally abandoned the paper version of the newsletter but we will certainly be shifting towards the electronic version if this is successful. We have worked very hard to establish this electronic version from scratch and there are certainly more improvements that can be done. You can help us to make the website better by giving us feedback on how to improve it.

Lastly, we hope you support the newsletter and our effort of making Sidney-Pacific a better community. The simplest way to support us is by simply reading the newsletter. In addition, you can give us comments on articles and submit your own articles. We hope you will find the SPeaker fun to read and get involved as a writer too.

So, do you like the electronic version of the Sidney-Pacific SPeaker? Please comment below to tell us what you think and give us some feedback!

By Shiou-chi (Steven) Chang, SP Newsletter Chair