Matt Hampel | matth.org

Looking to join a buying club this fall, starting 1 September. Know a lot of 3-4 person households who could benefit, too.

Photos of a bulk room serving ~20 people:

A library of food?

It’s much easier to eat new things if they’re readily at hand, in large quantities.

(hm, a bit blurry)

I was sent a link to an older UM School of Information project today, and I just had to share it with you. It’s called Community Lab, and here is its abstract:

Despite extensive experience, eliciting contributions in an on-line community is still largely a matter of trial and error. This project will develop theory to predict contribution behavior in on-line communities and will help transfer that theory into practice by using it to develop a set of on-line community design guidelines. The project brings together three teams of researchers (from the University of Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Minnesota) with diverse areas of expertise (including economics, social psychology, and on-line recommender systems).

The research team will start with existing theories of voluntary contribution to collective efforts, conduct a set of experiments to test the validity of these theories in the domain of on-line communities, and develop a new, synthesized theory. The experiments will be conducted in the MovieLens community with thousands of active users and an average of 30 new users joining each day. The key scientific significance of this work lies in using Social Science theory to guide design. An interesting broader impact of that approach is the development of a cadre of graduate students with interdisciplinary research experience who will be ready to guide the next generation of on-line community research.

I think this is the sort of project that’s emblematic of the way the School of Information often chooses to approach problems.

The first sentence (”eliciting contributions in an on-line community is still largely a matter of trial and error”) is pretty true in my experience. Of course, we don’t yet know what kind of contributions the study is talking about — monetary, content, time, civic engagement…

But things get bad pretty quickly. The project intends to:

… develop theory to predict contribution behavior in on-line communities and will help transfer that theory into practice by using it to develop a set of on-line community design guidelines.

Which is both a noble and a futile goal. The field of sociology is pretty much past the phase of making general covering laws to apply to underspecified objects. It’s just ridiculous to assume that actors among groups (a) act the same, even if the statistics suggest that they are similar, (b) have similar motivations, and (c) that forms of interaction will be generally appropriate for different groups.

I highly doubt there are significant high-level parallels between the action of the Arabic bloggers Juan Cole reads, the commenters on ArborUpdate, and product reviewers on amazon.com. It might be useful to identify a shared repertoire of actions (I’ll be working on that issue in a more focused form this summer). But we certainly won’t get that from this study, because they are “testing” their (ostensibly generally applicable) theory on one community devoted to…. movie recommendations.

I don’t doubt, though, that they’ll have a good idea of how that one movie recommendation site works when they’re done.

On literature review and theory background, the abstract says:

The research team will start with existing theories of voluntary contribution to collective efforts…

Which is fairly well borne out. Out of 120 or so citations, a couple are for genuine social action research. And throw in a bit of the Tragedy of the Commons and Bowling Alone for good measure. Also cited is … a study of the efficiency of on-campus housing. I’m printing that one now, will report back on how it’s relevant. (perhaps because one of the authors was on the project?)

It seems that the real intent of the project is in the last line:

…the development of a cadre of graduate students with interdisciplinary research experience…

(The 1.2 million continuing NSF grant through UMN that is funding this project is apparently tied to several other initiatives. I’m curious what came out of it)

College students are connected, diverse, and social. We have friends across the world, and they enjoy visiting us. In the dorms, though, their options are limited: all access is controlled by swipe cards and key codes. Rooms, especially single-occupancy rooms, are small. Cafeteria meals are expensive.

So, create a communal space where several travelers and their hosts can stay for a sensible amount of time. Offer beds, tables, chairs, and warmth. Encourage the socialization, not isolation.

Lend the guests restricted access cards, so they can use the bathrooms or enter the building. Provide reduced-cost meals for visiting and prospective students — more than the deficient three per semester currently offered in the standard meal plan. Create a set of reasonable guest rules, and enforce them well.

See also: Why upperclassmen do not return to the dorms (21 Dec. 2007)

The benefit of living in U of M Student Housing is being around people I know and like. But there comes a point when we all want the responsibility and humanity of being in a home — a place where the rooms aren’t always locked, where you can cook dinner, paint your room, and where you don’t get “written up” for playing your music. University Housing doesn’t offer that — and that’s why we all leave.

At the end of year 1, nearly everyone who doesn’t become a Resident Adviser moves out. University of Michigan Housing wonders why — and wants to encourage students to stay.

Well, here’s why we’re leaving:

• The building feels like a hotel. Like an Econolodge, I have to insert my card and type a PIN number into my door, which then automatically locks after five seconds. Unlike an Econolodge, I pay $9,770 a year, not including laundry and other extras. And a “year” isn’t 12 months — it’s eight.
• No or inconvenient common spaces. Some residence halls have tiny, locked rooms. Others have big, empty rooms that require the keycard and a four-digit PIN number. Neither have entertainment systems of any kind.
• Rooms and common spaces do not have wireless internet, so we can’t go work with our friends. Only the Halfass (the cafe, downstairs) and the Benzinger library has wireless — the first is always filled with loud, the second generally so quiet you can’t work well with others. Not even the computer lab has wireless.
• The RC recently held its 40th anniversary, and hundreds of alumni returned. Housing administration refused to unlock the doors, citing “security reasons” (see the next point). The RC ended up hiring a private guard for the entire weekend.
• Building security is a joke. We have to swipe cards to get into the building, the library, the computer lab, and “our” rooms. But one door to the building was unlocked for over a month, allowing anyone free access. Repeated requests for maintenance were ignored. And if someone is waiting at any door, any student will let them in. It’s common courtesy — a facet of civilization that Housing Security wants us to refuse. (The four-digit PIN we need to key into our rooms is not actually secure. It is stored on the card — so if you have someone’s card, you have their PIN.)
• Having Housing Security patrol your “home” is alienating — especially when it’s a different armed officer every night. The officer never attempts to introduce him or herself, either. And how could they, when over 900 people live in the same building?
• No public kitchen space. Cooking is a bonding activity, entertaining, and a learning experience. But Housing purposefully removed the community kitchens from East Quad.
• Students who work in the Cafeteria are not allowed to cook. Actually, they are, if putting frozen vegetables in the steamer counts as cooking.
• The Halfass (our student-run burger joint) once had a unique, alternative menu. Now it has been standardized to have the same institutional fare as the other dorms.
• You can’t take your food from the cafeteria outside to eat. It used to be possible. I tried — even offered to give my MCard as collateral. No go.
• No running water in rooms. Some rooms have sinks left — but when they break, Housing removes them, instead of fixing them.
• Housing staff would rather deny than allow, and administration fights with the programs it is intended to serve. Desk staff and building administrators are generally kind, caring, and compassionate. But the next level up — Housing administration — defaults to denying any request.
• Bathrooms are locked 24-7 (the access card and 4-digit pin are needed to enter). What home has locked bathrooms?
• The facilities reflect their military origins (East Quad, for example, was once a military dormitory). Stall toilets, stall showers.
• All areas are poorly lit. The bathrooms especially — and you can see the patch holes in the wall were lights once existed.
• Prohibited items, a partial list: (how many of these do you have in your home?)
  • wireless networks and wireless network hardware
  • routers
  • hardware firewall
  • candles, incense, oil lamps—lit or unlit
  • coffeemakers without an automatic shutoff
  • halogen lamps or bulbs (all types, including clip-on, torchiere and desk styles)
  • hot plates or any cooking appliance with exposed elements
  • natural, cut trees, branches and/or greens (such as holiday trees, wreaths and garlands)
  • pets, except some fish
  • space heaters
  • toaster ovens
  • toasters
• Residents are not involved in any real administrative functions. The student “government” only hosts parties. Real involvement would mean a seat — and a vote — on the Housing board.
• We are told to “eat healthy” — but the standard meal plan doesn’t even include a simple breakfast.
• Residents used to be able to paint their rooms, creating memories and a connection to the space. No longer. (other colleges allow this, provided that the student either finds someone to accept the room next year, repaints the room themselves, or pays for the repaint)

Many of the complaints I have are against policies that are quite reasonable for a massive, profitable hotel operation. They are not, however, the values of a home. And that’s where the fundamental difference between Housing and the Real World of Living exists.

(historical photos: Kitchen space: John Knox, used under a Creative Commons license; Old Halfass menu: my photo)