MIT LHS Announcements -- Teaching Opportunity and MIT Policy Updates

[Victoria Preston]

Hello all, and happy summer term!

*Re-Recognition Success!*
Many thanks to everyone who helped us successfully be re-recognized as a
student group on campus; this status allows us to reserve spaces for our
weekly lessons and socials and apply for large event funding.

As a student group, we adhere to MIT policies and practices. To this end,
we specifically would like to point towards two resources for our members:
the MIT nondiscrimination policy
<https://referencepubs.mit.edu/what-we-do/nondiscrimination-policy> and the MA
state hazing law <https://asa.mit.edu/asa-policies/ma-hazing-law>. While we
share these resources at the annual request of MIT, we also want to
emphasize that discrimination of any kind is unacceptable in our community,
and that any activities that could be construed as hazing will not be
tolerated. If any community members have concerns along these lines, we
very much invite you to reach out to the MIT LHS leadership team, MIT's
Association of Student Activities, or MIT's Division of Student Life. As
always, we appreciate everyone's efforts to keep our in-person events fun
and approachable, and online discourse civil and supportive.

*Teaching Opportunity*
Silent Rhythms (http://silentrhythms.org/) is a local non-profit operating
since 2008 with a mission to teach people of all abilities how to dance.
They have recently launched a virtual Dance-ASL project (
http://silentrhythms.org/dance-asl-classes/) which captions and interprets
short (15-30min) dance classes taught by local dance instructors. They are
interested in doing a swing series, and wanted to reach out to this group
for interested teachers! If you would like to learn more or engage with
this effort, please reach out to Kerry Thompson (
kerry at silentrhythmsboston.org) for more information!

*Updated Covid Policies*
In addition to students, MIT will be requiring faculty and staff to be
fully vaccinated by the fall. MIT is tentatively assuming that full
in-person operations will resume *September 7th, 2021*, and is currently
planning on 1/weekly Covid-19 tests for all on-campus employees/students
for some portion of the fall as a means of monitoring community health.
Masking and social-distancing is not specifically going to be required for
the fall, however, MIT will be following MA-state and federal
recommendations on this matter going further and will have more complete
recommendations as September approaches.

Additionally, MIT is hoping to welcome visitors back to campus in the fall
for visits, tours, meetings, workshops, etc. There is no specific guidance
yet for community members engaging with student groups on campus, but this
is a positive first indication that we may be all back to dancing again
soon! You can read more about MIT's policies and plans here:
https://now.mit.edu/.

*Congratulations to the Class of 2021*
Many warm congratulations to graduating members of our community!
Commencement can be viewed online this Friday from 12-3PM EST. More
information here: https://commencement.mit.edu/special-classes/class-2021.

Many well wishes to all of you, and we'll be in touch as plans for the fall
solidify.

Kindly,
Victoria + the LHS Leadership Team
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