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The House System is the basis of undergraduate student residence at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Caltech's unique House system is modeled after the residential college system of Oxford and Cambridge in England, and is also similar to the fictional houses of Hogwarts in Harry Potter. Like a residential college, a House embodies two closely-connected concepts — it is both an organization with which students are affiliated, and a physical building where a majority of its members reside and which serves as the center of social activity for its members. The Houses resemble fraternities at other American universities in the shared loyalties they engender, but are unlike fraternities in that every student is required to join a House, and usually remains affiliated with that one House for the duration of their undergraduate studies. Caltech established the House System in 1931, recasting the existing fraternities as Blacker House, Dabney House, Fleming House and Ricketts House, now known as the South Houses. Expanding student population was accommodated in 1960 with the North Houses: Lloyd House, Page House, and Ruddock House. A new state-of-the-art residential facility named Avery House, was opened in 1996, but was not initially considered part of the House System, and freshmen were not allowed to live there. Like most of the buildings on campus, Avery House and the South Houses are in California Mission style, and resemble cloistered monasteries with enclosed courtyards; the North Houses are of Modern design. The current state of affairs is in flux. Beginning in the 2005–2006 school year, frosh were allowed to live in Avery. Also in 2005, work began on a major renovation project for the aging South Houses, whose residents have been relocated to a temporary modular housing complex. The renovations are scheduled to be completed by the end of the 2006 calendar year. House summary Blacker House
Dabney House
Fleming House
Fleming Cannon The Fleming Cannon, a Caltech landmark, is fired to mark important events, such as the end of rotation, Ditch Day, the end of the year, and graduation. It is a thunderous noise that can be heard and felt all over campus. After returning to campus in 1980, the Fleming Cannon was stolen by Harvey Mudd students in 1986 (as detailed in this article). At the demands of both college administrations, the Cannon was returned to Fleming House approximately 8 weeks after the prank. It was rumored that Harvey Mudd would attempt to steal the cannon again in 2006 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their original theft. However, the cannon disappeared a day before the anniversary only to show up at MIT, just in time for Campus Preview Weekend, during which many rising freshmen visit MIT. A (seemingly fake) moving company by the name of Howe & Ser Moving Co. has taken credit. (The name is a double pun: When substituting "and" for the ampersand, it reads "how we answer", while substituting the Latin et for the ampersand gives "Howitzer".) Displayed prominently in front of MIT's Green Building, the Fleming Cannon sported a giant, gold-plated MIT class ring around its barrel. A day after the prank was disclosed, Fleming's members began planning a recovery operation on the night April 7th. They immediately mounted a large-scale operation, sending 23 members to Boston within 24 hours. The Flems were greeted at MIT by a group of students and police who watched as the cannon was loaded into a truck. Afterwards, a friendly barbecue celebrated the event. For more information, see Fleming House's webpage dedicated to the cannon and this story in the LA Times. Lloyd House Lloyd House is smallest of the three North Houses. The North Houses were constructed in 1960 with funds provided by the Lloyd Foundation and other donors. Lloyd House was named in memory of Mr. Ralph B. Lloyd and his wife, Mrs. Lulu Hull Lloyd. Mr. Lloyd was a member of the Board of Trustees of Caltech, 1939-1952. Members of Lloyd House are called Lloydies and the house color is gold. The motto is "I live and die for those I love." House Government Lloyd House is governed by a student-elected, student-run Executive Committee, or "Excomm," of 9 members: President, Secretary, Superintendent, Treasurer, Social Director, Athletic Director, and 3 representatives at large. The Social Director and Athletic Director are aided by the Social Team (5 members) and the Athletic Team (3 members). There are 8 Upperclass Counselors (UCC's) and various appointed positions, such as Librarian, Historian, and Pool Monkey. The Purple UCC's roommate is responsible for maintaining the house pornography collection. He is given the unofficial title of "Ima Palmer". Physical Layout Lloyd House (Building Lloyd is divided into seven alleys: Purple, Kaos, VI (Virgin Islands), Fingal's, Valhalla, Inferno, and Tropic. Each alley is decorated with theme-appropriate murals. Some key murals include: the expansive Purple mural in the theme of Japanese tsunami waves, the Escher mural in Kaos, the tropical mural in VI, the "Enjoy Crack" mural that mocks the famous Coca-Cola slogan and contains a reference to Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, and the newly painted modern art in Tropic. The "shed" used to be a stand-alone building in the courtyard that housed the house's big screen TV. Now the "shed" exists inside in a room adjacent to Valhalla that used to be part of the MOSH's office. Famous Lloydies Crippling Depression, a satirical comic strip that was published regularly in the California Tech, the student newspaper, was drawn and written by Lloydies. Lloydies are known for their elaborate pranks. The classic prank of the 1961 Rose Bowl was pulled off by the "Fiendish Fourteen," members of Lloyd House. Flashcards that were intended to cheer for the Washington Huskies football team were changed to read Caltech. The Hollywood sign was changed to read "Caltech" in 1987 by a group of Pageboys and Lloydies. Every year, Lloydies climb onto the top of Millikan Library to construct the Lloyd Christmas Tree, a monumental structure of numerous Christmas lights strung together to resemble a 10-story Christmas tree topped with a 12-feet-tall "L." The latest prank was the pranking of MIT's prefrosh weekend, which is probably best attributed to Lloydies. A common folklore that has been passed down throughout the years is that of the Purple LSD lab. It has been said that sometime in the 70's, a group of chemistry majors living in Purple blocked off some of the alley for a special project. The product of their project, was dubbed "Lloyd-grade" LSD, to denote its extraordinary purity. The rumor goes that it was one of the largest sources of LSD at the time. Nearly the entire senior class (only 3 seniors are mentioned in the yearbook from 1970) was expelled when the FBI invaded the house. Page House Upon the arrival of the North Houses in the 1960's, members of Ricketts house splintered off to populate the newly constructed Page House. Members of the house are known as Pageboys (even the women), and the house crest includes the "mechanical horse" with a banner reading spe labor levis, a Latin idiom meaning "May the work be light" (and is often followed by "And the drinks be heavy"). House construction was funded by J.R. Page, former vice president of the First National Bank in Los Angeles, and chairman of the Caltech board of trustees from 1943 to 1954. While Page lacks the architectural history of other houses, or the affluent contributions of benefactors, its large size plus popular social activities provide the house with a large influx of money heavily used for party construction, the purchasing of hot tubs left and right, and buying nice Christmas and end-of-year presents for the cleaning crew. The largest (room-wise) of the houses, Page has been home to KCAL, the Interhouse Roller Coaster, and also used its access to the basement so that Pageboys could cover the concrete with dry ice, a prank copied in the movie Real Genius. In response to other houses quixotically claiming certain items to be off limits in regard to pranks (rendering them Non-RF-able), the Page House president at the time named that The President be unprankable as well. Not getting the joke, the Interhouse committee allowed it, and to this day, the only two items in Page House that cannot be the target of pranks are the craps felt and a poster of President Nixon. The poster is passed on to each House President shortly after s/he is elected. All student rooms in Page are designed as doubles; however, when vacancies arise, upperclassmen may live in rooms as singles. According to house bylaws, the newly elected Page House president may choose to reside in any room as a single. Other popular rooms include the "long doubles" upstairs and downstairs, and Page 201, which has easy access to the arcade roof between Page and Lloyd House, also known as The Bridge. The FU, across from the Library, is Page House's entertainment room, complete with dozens of bean bags. Its name originates from a prank in which Fleming painted a large "F" on its door. Rather than painting over it, Pageboys simply painted a "U" below it. The FU was formerly a triple, and before that was the RA apartment, which is now located downstairs. The Library itself is Page House's greatest and most notorious landmark, and although its collection is always being removed to be recycled elsewhere, its contents are meant to reflect the works and contributions of contemporary Pageboys and all who pass through its hallowed halls. Favorite Pageboy activities include grilling on The Bridge, champagne at Millikan to celebrate the end of quarter, and Intrahouse, in which all eight alleys in Page partake in the annual tradition of applying primer and painting pictures that are combination of funny and creepy and always rife with innuendo. The painting in between alleys 6 and 7 covers "the fruit wall", a favorite target for PVC-borne projectiles, particularly fruit which tend to vaporize on contact. In addition to Intrahouse, there is the annual Stranding Of the Freshmen ("It's coooold on Mount Wilson!"), the Wait Staff Initiation, and Grease Frosh, in which Pageboys make liberal use of Caltech's grounds and upkeep fund by selecting a designated freshman in each alley (referred to as that alley's Grease Frosh), who is then sent scampering about the Beckman lawn in the effort to evade upperclassmen who are trying to tackle an opposing alley's Grease Frosh before theirs are tackled. Pageboys then rinse themselves in Gene Pool, producing a nice, visible Crisco and lard film on the surface. Until 2003, they first rinsed in Millikan Pond, but the location has changed due to administrative request. Finally, all the Pageboys rinse off completely in the Fleming showers. Ricketts House Ricketts House (or Ricketts Hovse) is one of the four original (South) undergraduate student houses at Caltech. Its construction was funded by Louis Davidson Ricketts. Members of Ricketts House are called Skurves (or Scurves) due to a play on the similarity of the name Ricketts to the disease rickets and the fact that scurvy is another vitamin deficiency disease. Ricketts traditions include fire related activities and the brakedrum. Prior to 2003, the Ricketts courtyard housed a large concrete firepot, in which massive fires were often enjoyed during cool Pasadena evenings. However, due to tightening of Pasadena fire codes and the Caltech administration's recent restrictiveness, the firepot was removed. The brakedrum is a contest between the freshman class and the sophomore class over ownership of the brakedrum. Ricketts House was known for athletics and student government in the 1950s, but in the past decades Ricketts has been known less for these activities, and more for activities which push the motto "Take me as I am" to the limit. In 2005, the administration pressured Ricketts to make their website private because many of the pictures and quotes on the website were considered to be potentially offensive. Ruddock House Ruddock House was constructed in 1960 in honor of Albert Billings Ruddock, the Chairman of the Caltech Board of Trustees. Approximately 175 Caltech undergraduates are members of the House, and approximately 90 reside in the House. Members of Ruddock House are nicknamed "Rudds." During the week, student waiters serve family style dinners in the dining room; one notable dinner tradition is the throwing of bread rolls. The hallways, referred to as "alleys" by undergraduates, are adorned with various murals including reproductions of M. C. Escher works, a Monopoly Board, Simpsons characters, and a two-story mural of an astronaut. This mural, called "The Spaceman" by Rudds, is based on a photograph of Ed White's spacewalk during Gemini 4. The painting was made completely by Phil Cormier ('79) in a day's worth of work. Interestingly, a few years later Rusty Schweikert, Jr. (whose father walked in space on Apollo 9) was elected house president. Another Rudd connected to the space program is Phillip Engelauf ('78), who later became a flight director at JSC. OPI After the unfortunate demise of a campus-wide undergraduate party tradition, Interhouse, Ruddock began the tradition of OPI. OPI, standing for either "Our Private Interhouse" or "(Our) Own Private Interhouse," traditionally occurs during the winter term of the academic year. One of the most notable aspects of the OPI is the amount of time and effort put into construction and artwork for the sets of the party. Recent years' preparations have included flooded hallways to represent canals in Venice and two-story constructions inspired by the Roman Colosseum and Mayan Temples. Avery House
House Memberships There are two ways to gain membership in a House: Rotate in at the beginning of one's frosh year, or become a member afterwards. Rotation Rotation is the process by which frosh choose (and are chosen by) the House they will be affiliated with. Upon first arriving at Caltech, the frosh are given a random room assignment in a random House, and then spend a week eating lunch and dinner in all of the Houses, getting an opportunity to meet people in all of the Houses. These meals and meetings are an opportunity both for the frosh to get to know the feel of the different houses and for the upperclassment to meet and rate the frosh so both can see where they might belong. At the end of this week, the frosh rate (as of 2005) exactly five of the Houses on a scale of 1 to 10; based on this, and the opinions of the Houses' existing members, the frosh are placed into a House which will be their home physically and socially for the next few years. This selection process contains similarities to the fictional Sorting ceremony in Harry Potter, in that pains are taken to maintain a certain level of mystery. This secrecy is often due to the frank—and sometimes personally uncomplimentary—discussions within the House selection committees, which are sometimes divided into factions (most notably in Page House). Also, the selection process is constrained: there are only a limited number of openings in each House, and it is impossible to simultaneouly meet the preferences of all of the Freshmen and Houses. Although typically the Houses try to make new members feel welcome as a part of the community, occasionally either a Freshman or a House will be assigned their lowest preference, which is sometimes problematical. Despite the constraints, this two-way selection process of joining a House, and social interaction after joining, gives each House a distinctive personality that is often remarkably stable over decades. Alumni often retain fierce House loyalty and can often guess the House membership of other Caltech graduates due to personality clues. Other Memberships There is a second way to obtain membership in a House: apply at some point after Rotation. The process varies from House to House, but in general one makes an announcement at dinner to the effect of "I would like to be a member of <foo> House," and the House conducts a vote (the nature of the vote, again, varying). Some Houses (in particular, Blacker, Fleming1, Lloyd, Page, and Ruddock) have two tiers of memberships: Full members and social members. However, Page does not allow dual-full membership, therefore if you become a full member of Page you must give up any other full memberships. Anyone who rotates into the House is automatically a full member; individuals who would like to become members afterwards can choose between full and social membership. The relative difficulties in attaining full and social memberships differ from House to House, as do the relative privileges that each membership type affords; the only universal truths are that full membership is harder to attain than social, and that full members may live in House-associated property while social members may not. Historical fraternities The Caltech houses were formed from members of disbanded fraternities in 1932. The fraternities were as follows: Footnotes 1: While Fleming nominally has social memberships, they consider all undergraduates to be social members automatically (and they don't require social members to pay dues). So in effect, Fleming does not have social memberships. 2:"Let the Deed Shaw", archaic for "Let the Deed Show", is also the motto for Fleming College, in Peterborough, Ontario. The crest and motto derive from the noble House of Fleming of Biggar, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. | |||||||||||||||
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