The Office of Residential Life is re-forming a program house council for the eight program houses, said ResLife Associate Director Kate Tompkins.
The last program house council was created in 2005 when Residential Council, a student advisory board for ResLife, enacted new program house guidelines that required all program houses to join the council, The Herald previously reported. The program house council had been “dissolved” before she began her position at ResLife five years ago, Tompkins said.
A meeting with members from the program houses was held Monday afternoon as the first step in the creation of a council, Tompkins said. The meeting was meant to gauge interest from the program house community and see how they would like it to function, she added.
Technology House President Kristen Michaelson ’16 said she was very happy that a program house council was being formed. “I hope the council opens up new lines of communication between the program houses for the mutual benefit of all program house members,” she said.
“The (program) housing council holds the huge potential to facilitate partnerships and collaborations among houses,” said Maya Faulstich-Hon ’17.5, co-president of Social Action House.
But while she understood the benefits of having such a council in the future, Faulstich-Hon said she did not think a council was an urgent need for program houses.
Tompkins envisions the council to be similar to the Greek Council.
“Larger decisions that impact all houses will go through this council first,” she said.
The types of decisions the council would be able to make are still up in the air, Tompkins said. Much of that will depend on what members of program houses interested in forming the council want from it, she added.
Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article stated that Kate Tompkins is the assistant director of the Office of Residential Life. In fact, she is the associate director of ResLife. The Herald regrets the error.
