A Radical Idea for MIT Dining

So why do all of the 4 dorms need to offer breakfast? Let’s say 30% of the students want breakfast. That’s pretty much one dorm’s worth. Why not move all those students to one dorm????? The only flaw in this is the UA rhetoric that students should not choose dorm based on culture or dining – but I think that they already do. I chose Baker because it has a dining hall. People in EC chose EC because it did not have dining. I think that is perfectly fine – it is an essential part of the choice of where you want to live – it’s an essential part of the culture of the dorm. So why don’t we just let people shuffle around to what they want? I think that people would be far happier if they were able to explicitly choose which dining plan they want.

The Housing Office should put out a mandatory choice of what option people want – like they do with the freshmen survey. Responses would be mandatory and binding (see below):

I want to live in a Breakfast, lunch and, dinner dorm at $5,000/year
I want to live in a Breakfast and Dinner dorm $3,800/year
I want to live in a Dinner dorm $1,800/year
I want to live in a cook for self dorm $0/year.

Then HDAG would look at the results. If ~300 people chose option one, then one dorm with ~300 beds would become the B,L,D dorm. (At that dorm, the selected meals would be mandatory.) The students would help select which building that would be, taking into account the size of people that chose that option, and where a disproportionate share of the votes for that option came from. (Perhaps restrict the choice of buildings to only affect the 4 dorms with house dining now. Perhaps exempt McCormick, idk. But in making the choice of what to offer where aim to affect the minimum number of people. Actually that last option sounds best. Just calculate how many people would have to move based on what you offer where, and maximize that. EC, say, almost everyone would want to continue to self cook, so making EC self cook would minimize moves.) They would then do this for each level of service, starting up new house dining or shutting down house dining halls even, if need be. Whatever makes the least people move.

Then once HDAG decides which dorm offers which service, there would be a form of the readjustment lotto. You could only choose the dorms in the category you picked (in order to make the initial choice important; or maybe this is unnecessary, you can choose any dorm [in which case it is the normal readjustment lotto]), plus maybe (I have not thought this through) your current dorm, by which you would be accepting whatever service they offer. There would be no guarantee they could move you in, but since the housing office knew approx. how many student wanted each option there would be approx. the right number of beds under each option.

It is good for the housing office because they know very well how many people demand each option, so they can vary the number of beds in each option to demand. And then the students can choose which actual dorm to live in among the ones which offer what you want. Students would be for the most part happy because they got the service they wanted. They may have to move around, but at least they would be very likely to have the dining service they want. Culture at the new dorms would readjust and might become stronger, because almost everyone there wanted that meal plan. Cultures would also become more distinct because there would be more variation between the dorms. And its all based on the assumption that dorm culture depends on dining. And since we would target minimizing students who move, determining what service goes where is a mathematical problem, hopefully devoid of arguments of survey and representation bias.

Thoughts? Please forward. Permission to republish granted.

Question

(Question asked how select what each dorm offers?)

Well the whole point is that you don’t prespecify which dorm has what. The sole goal is the MINIMIZE THE NUMBER OF MOVES. Since we are minimizing the number of moves, what is chosen for a building is what most of the people WHO ARE IN THAT BUILDING NOW want (except in extreme cases). If your current building “voted” to have something you don’t want, you could choose to stay and accept it, or choose among the dorms which offer your selected option.

Since the moves algorithm would not apply to W1 and W1 is really the only place that offers lunch, it might end up being the lunch place. If, however, only ~50 people in all of MIT want the all you can eat lunch, that tells us that perhaps AYCE lunch would not be a good choice anywhere, even at W1.

We should also split hot breakfast and grab and go breakfast into 2 distinct options. There would still be an option to hold just dinner (not even grab and go breakfast) and a no-food at all option.

(Also I am operating under the assumption that the cost of a dining hall is mostly fixed. I’m guessing 80% of the cost is there if they serve 1 meal or 300. This is why we want to reduce the service that is offered to only what people want.)

Defending the Plan

(Another email response; this time in response to an East Campus resident)

At its core all it is a binding survey asking people what they want with actual prices and then allowing them to move around (which they already can do). The only new thing is that the housing office will now vary the number of beds under each system based on demand – not just going with the default of all 4 dorms B,D.

EC people will see no change whatsoever. The algorithm takes care of that – so no need to argue for a special exemption. If you go to MIT, you should be able to see that the choice which would minimize moves is to continue making EC cook for themselves.

The other “new” thing is the radical truth that students pick dorms based on dining options – maybe not cost – but options of what they can buy. The thing is, students must pay for these options. Mandatory is important because I estimate dining is about 80% fixed cost – 1 meal or 300/night. So what you want to do is to concentrate the people who demand dinner into a single place – we kinda do it already – people in Baker chose a meal plan - but it would make people far happier than paying $2,000 for a plan they don’t want. If tons of Baker people vote no dining, than it would minimize moves for Baker dining to close. If tons of Baker people wanted B,D we would have that. And a minority does not want it, moving out is not so bad. Problem solved – minimize cost and maximize happiness.

It is true that the reason the admins is doing this is for admissions. Dining was my biggest concern coming in – and like (the EC author) it all worked out (except I did not learn to cook). But now MIT can go and say, we got a B,L,D dorm, a B,D dorm, a D dorm, and plenty of no meals dorm.

I think what a lot of people don’t think about is the COST of providing all these options in many places across campus. By aggregating the breakfast eaters and providing breakfast to them, and them alone, we are minimizing cost. And they are likely to share a common culture, stronger, perhaps, than some of the current West Campus houses. And MIT now offers that option to the people who want it, just like they offer Baker Dining to those that want it.

Clarifications

I think there has been some misunderstanding of my proposal. Let me go through some scenarios, because I think they will help explain the proposal:

Let’s take EC. The vast majority (say 95%) of people in EC would vote to continue not having a dining hall (unless there are some closet dining fans). Since it would be move minimizing (5% would need to move to be happy vs 95%) to not offer a dining hall at EC, Pritchett would stay closed. The 95% who voted for no dining would stay in EC and be happy, no issues. The 5% who voted for another plan could choose to stay in EC (even though they would not get their dining choice) OR they would have a virtually guaranteed spot in a dorm with the dining program they want. They could then choose among the dorms that offer the option that they want – according to the other factors of culture.

(I have not decided if they could choose among any dorm, ie ones other than their current one or all of the dorms with the dining level they desired. The downside is that by changing their minds they are taking away a bed in a dining level from someone who voted for it, which would not be fair, since space was allocated for them at their desired dining level. Now since students can already choose to stay in their current dorm and thus no bed is guaranteed, this may not be as big an issue. As I am thinking about this, I think that we should allow people to move anywhere (just like we already do).)

Then let’s say 300 students in the dorm system voted for hot breakfast and dinner. The dorm which would require the least students to move would be offer this plan. The least number of moves would most likely be in whatever dorm had the strongest demand for hot breakfast and dinner. Let’s say it is Baker. I (as a Baker resident) can now choose to stay in Baker and buy into breakfast, or I can move elsewhere with a spot open for me in one of the dorms that has my dining option. I choose which new dorm that is based on culture. However, there would at least be room for me somewhere, so I would be able to move out and not pay for something I don’t want. This is because the number of beds available at MIT under each dining level would roughly match the demand for each dining level. Under the HDAG plan many students said that they would move out. But where would they go? And who would fill their empty beds? It is pretty clear that almost no one would be able to move out because MIT had vastly over supplied the number of hot breakfast + dinner beds.

If only 50 students voted for hot breakfast we would have a decision to make. We could decide that the demand was too small and those students would have to settle with cold breakfast. Or, if the administration felt obligated to offer hot breakfast we could squeeze it in somewhere (minimizing moves) and force other people their eat that hot breakfast. Or we could offer the students to aggregate in a certain dorm and then MIT could do optional hot breakfast, eating the loss to meet student demand. Again the student would have a choice: stay where I am and take the program that makes the majority of the people in my dorm happy or move to a dorm that fulfills my dining wants.

If the plans the Institute can offer without the subsidy are too expensive, then many students who currently live in a dorm with a dining hall choose to not have a dining hall. Then to match the number of beds with no dining hall to demand, one of the locations would close. Again it would be the location that would be move minimizing and again, students could choose to stay or move to a dorm with the dining level they like.

Some have pointed out that it’s not dining that defines a dorm’s culture. Well fine. If you want to stay in your dorm, you can stay. You would be subjected, however, to the dining level which minimized the number of other people who would have to move out of your dorm. I think that is perfectly fair. You either have a virtually guaranteed spot in the dining level of your choice, or you can accept the dining level which will minimize the number of other people who would want to move out of your dorm. If you want the dining level your current dorm picked, awesome, there would be no change. And if you would prefer your desired dining level above your current community, you have a spot for you in one of the dorms with your desired dining level. You could then choose the particular dorm at that level based on all the other factors of culture.

I also realized that under this system we might not even need mandatory. If all of the people who want breakfast would live in one dorm, then the system would do better. The problem is that I estimate ~70-80% of the cost of a house dining meal is fixed. Those costs are the same if they serve 5 meals that night or 500. That is why mandatory makes some sense. But the basic idea is that if you want breakfast, you need to pay for breakfast. Aggregate the breakfast eaters together (well what I am proposing is to offer them the choice of keeping their current dorm vs having a spot in a dorm that has breakfast) This is much better than having every option everywhere were students have to pay for it if they eat it or not. Having breakfast everywhere is not fair either because everyone is paying the cost of offering breakfast in 4 places, if they want it or not. Also, right now everyone else who buys food on campus subsidizes House Dining to the tune of ~$600,000/year. I don’t think this is fair. Why should you, EC student, be paying for my house dining when you buy pizza at Stata?

My plan minimizes the cost of the service be providing it only in the places people want. It minimizes the people paying for service they do NOT want. It then gives students a choice of their desired dining level OR their current community (whose dining level was chosen so that it minimizes the total # of people who would have to move out of all dorms). It strengthens west campus culture by increasing the distinction between the dorms. And lastly if you agree with the majority of your house on dining level, then you are happy right where you are. Perfect!