MIT alum (<10 years) here. While i didn't live in senior haus myself, I lived in a dorm very much related to SH, had many friends there and overall jolly time (^^).
One thing under-emphasized in all these SH shut down stories is the "rampant" drugs availability across the dorm. For non-MIT folks: SH was the go-to dorm to acquire any drug you wished. If you went to their parties (steer roast being the main one), kids were rolling on all sorts of substances (outside, inside, in their rooms, everywhere), and anyone with half a brain could get their fix. And, imho, this was not a "small minority"...
Now, the twist here is that all their (official) parties had campus police all over, and they knew exactly what was going on in there. Oh, and did I mention the MIT president's residence was right next doors (across a fence)?
So as long as the flow of substances into the dorm was somewhat monitored by the campus police, with them being (theoretically) able to track & control the environment, all was fine.
Fast forward a couple years, students are getting stuff on silk road with bitcoins, anonymously from unknown sources. Campus police loses their control, and even worse, this may leak to city/state/federal cops, which is obviously the last thing MIT (or the cops) want.
Seems like a non-unreasonable decision (from the administrator's POV) to shut it down. You obviously can't admit the years-long substances-situation publicly, but it just-so-happens that it correlates negatively with graduation rate/GPA/you name it. Boom, easy, done.
Now, don't get me wrong, I had a great time at SH, and would prefer to see it stay there. But please stop romanticizing how MIT was going against disadvantaged students, minorities, etc.etc.
MIT alum (<10 years) here. While i didn't live in senior haus myself, I lived in a dorm very much related to SH, had many friends there and overall jolly time (^^).
One thing under-emphasized in all these SH shut down stories is the "rampant" drugs availability across the dorm. For non-MIT folks: SH was the go-to dorm to acquire any drug you wished. If you went to their parties (steer roast being the main one), kids were rolling on all sorts of substances (outside, inside, in their rooms, everywhere), and anyone with half a brain could get their fix. And, imho, this was not a "small minority"...
Now, the twist here is that all their (official) parties had campus police all over, and they knew exactly what was going on in there. Oh, and did I mention the MIT president's residence was right next doors (across a fence)?
So as long as the flow of substances into the dorm was somewhat monitored by the campus police, with them being (theoretically) able to track & control the environment, all was fine.
Fast forward a couple years, students are getting stuff on silk road with bitcoins, anonymously from unknown sources. Campus police loses their control, and even worse, this may leak to city/state/federal cops, which is obviously the last thing MIT (or the cops) want.
Seems like a non-unreasonable decision (from the administrator's POV) to shut it down. You obviously can't admit the years-long substances-situation publicly, but it just-so-happens that it correlates negatively with graduation rate/GPA/you name it. Boom, easy, done.
Now, don't get me wrong, I had a great time at SH, and would prefer to see it stay there. But please stop romanticizing how MIT was going against disadvantaged students, minorities, etc.etc.