Undergraduate Town Hall Meeting with Provost Reif, February 25 at 8pm in W20-400

[Martin F. Holmes]

Dear Undergraduates,

As a means of improving transparency and interaction between students and
administrators, the Undergraduate Association is pleased to invite you to our
first open town-hall meeting on Monday, February 25 at 8pm in W20-400.  This
meeting will feature a discussion with Provost L. Rafael Reif, one of MIT's
three senior officer's reporting directly to the President.  Food will be
provided.

This will be a terrific opportunity for you to meet one of MIT's most senior
administrators and to ask any questions related to:

*Increase in Undergraduate Enrollment
*Financial Aid Competitiveness
*Academic Improvements and GIR Changes
*Research Policies
*Global Opportunities
*Quality of Advising
*Developing Statement of Principles
*Capital Projects and Planning (dorms, labs, etc)
*More!

In the past, questions and suggestions from students have had a tremendous
impact on our guest administrators.  Many of them have championed our causes to
the President on the issues you care about most.  If you have any interest in
these broad Institute issues, I urge you to attend tomorrow's meeting.

You can learn more about the Provost here:  http://web.mit.edu/provost/

Finally, we hope to collect student feedback about a range of questions that you
will find at the bottom of this email.  Your responses to these questions will
be shared with the President, Provost, Chancellor, and Executive Vice
President.  This, too, is a great way to help shape Institute policies.  If you
have responses to any of the questions below, please send them to
ua-admin at mit.edu by March 3.

Thanks for your time!  I look forward to seeing you and hearing from you!

Sincerely,
Martin Holmes
UA President

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A)  What is the current state of the MIT community?  What are its strengths and
weaknesses?  How should MIT think about micro-community and macro-community?  In
what ways can MIT foster community?

B)  What would an ideal relationship between students and administrators
look like?  What level involvement and participation should students have in the
decision-making process?  What types of decisions require student input?

C)  As access to educational information becomes more readily available across
the world, what will bring college students to MIT in the future?  Furthermore,
what will draw students into the classroom as more information moves online?

D)  If you had a sizeable amount of money to use to improve any aspect of
student life or learning at MIT, what would you spend it on?

E)  Do you have any thoughts or opinions on the current MIT financial aid model?

F)  Do you have any thoughts or opinions on the current state of advising at
MIT?