In 2012, Caltech announced it was recieveing a $25,000,000 gift from the Bechtel Foundation. While the money has gone to various projects (including a room in Annenberg), its most conspicuous use was the construction of the Bechtel Residence. Just as the opening of the North Houses caused significant debate about the House system in the 1960s and the opening of Avery did the same in the 1990s and 2000s, the construction and opening of Bechtel caused significant upheaval and to at least one full scale undergraduate protest. In the end, as of 2020 most of the more controversial proposed changes to the House system never came to fruition.
Tech Articles
- $25 million on a new House? Come on, Caltech, you can do better: article from a student criticizing the use of the gift for building a dorm over other priorities, particularly mental health. Note the irony that the article ignores the fact that students had protested for MORE housing a year earlier. (Jan 2012)
- Seven steps to a stronger community (Part 2): Part of an op-ed by an alumnus on repairing student-admin relations. Only “step 5” is relevant to Bechtel and urges that admin basically take all-frosh housing off the table. The rest of the op-ed is interesting though. (Nov 2013)
- letter from the IHC and the ASCIT BoD to President-elect Rosenbaum opposing all-frosh housing and urging that Bechtel be used for upperclassmen (Jan 2014)
- Facilities holds campus-wide meeting for Bechtel Residence: News piece on meeting held by facilities (meeting was mostly for Pasadena residents and focused mostly on the physical building) (May 2016)
- Bechtel Residence Raises Questions about Housing, Rotation: Feature Piece, mostly politically neutral but portrays the concerns of both sides well. (Possibly by students in Kipling's Class) (Sep 2016)
- Joe Shepherd: The Vice President with a Nuclear Football Profile of VPSA Joe Shepherd which focuses mostly on Bechtel planning. Written by Tim Liu, it attempts to portray Shepherd in a more positive light that students usually thought of him, and was likely intentionally an attempt to quell fears about the COUCH process. (Sep 2017)
- Guiding Principles for Undergraduate Residential Life by the COUCH (Oct 2017)
- The Siren Call of All-Freshman Housing: Op-ed by COUCH member Tim Liu warning against staunch resistance to change. Like his piece on Shepherd, it encourages students to be open-minded but some students criticized his views as too conciliatory towards admin (Nov 2017)
- Committee on Undergraduate Caltech Housing Focus Group Findings (Nov 2017)
- A Response on Rotation AND A Unified Response to the Plan for the Future of Residential Life: IHC Response critical of VPSA Shepherd’s Bombshell opening plan, especially on rotation, and lengthy op-ed from a informal student group also in opposition to the plan (Feb 2018)
- Update from the Advisory Committee on Residential Life (April 2018)
- Summary of ACRL Report 2: News Piece by a Tech Editor (April 2018)
- Bechtel Report Card: Feature piece on student reactions to living in the physical building by students in Kipling's Journalism Class (Sep 2019)
Caltech News Releases
- Bechtel Gift
- Bechtel Construction and COUCH involvement
- News Release on Controversial February 2018 plan, obviously ignores controversy
- Bechtel Opening
- Building wins Architecture Award
IHC Documents
Additional documents including IHC minutes may be available from the IHC directly.
- Responses to Changes in Residential Life Survey- Survey conducted by the IHC in Winter 2018 following the release of the Bechtel and Res Life Plan. The survey largely captured students' widespread opposition to the changes to rotation and mandatory four year housing.
- IHC Website page on Bechtel
COUCH Documents
The Committee On Undergraduate Caltech Housing (COUCH) was a temporary committee created by the IHC (although never formalized in a resolution) in 2017 to evaluate proposals for filling Bechtel. It was intended as a good faith attempt to methodologically evaluate proposals and make recommendations to VPSA Shepherd. The IHC and most students however knew that it was fighting to prevent all-frosh housing at all costs. The COUCH consisted of the IHC itself and 6 students selected by the IHC (although the term was sometimes used to refer only to the six additional students). Each of the 6 additional students led a "focus group" or subcommittee of additional students in producing a report on one of 6 proposals for populating Bechtel. The COUCH also undertook other responsibilities, including meeting with VPSA Shepherd to discuss plans for filling Bechtel. After the focus groups delivered their final reports and Shepherd released the plan for filling Bechtel, the COUCH disbanded.
Surveys
Trinity and Polaris Plans
- Trinity Plan-White Paper intended as a realistic, straight forward approach to filling Bechtel.
- Polaris Plan-The trinity plan was adapted into the Polaris Plan by the COUCH as a realistic compromise to avert the threat of all-frosh housing, while the focus groups continued with their more academic reports.
Focus Group Reports
- New Houses
- Sophomore Priority Housing
- House Colonies (Off-campus alleys in Bechtel)
- Themed Housing
- All-Frosh Housing
- Unaffiliated Housing
Caltech Administration Documents
Vice President of Student Affairs Office
- Plan for the Future of Residential Life and Opening the Bechtel Residence- the bombshell plan that led to significant backlash and full scale student protests in February 2018 despite rejecting all frosh housing
- Shepherd's Response to ACRL Report 3
ACRL
The Advsory Committee on Residential Life (ACRL, although some students pointed out CARL would have been a better acronym) was an institute committee comprised of students, staff, and faculty created by VPSA Shepherd to work out the specifics of the implementation of the February 2018 plan for Bechtel and residential life. It was intended to make recommendations to Shepherd which would be subject to his approval. A more cynical view is that the committee was intended to effectively replace the IHC at least on rotation. When Shepherd first told the COUCH and the IHC about the plan he casually mentioned that rotation would now be run by a joint committee of students, staff, and faculty. It is likely Shepherd got this idea from the 2002 "Task Force on Undergraduate Residential Life Initiatives" (TURLI) report. The ACRL itself rejected the idea of running rotation, saying "the rotation process should continue to be largely run by the IHC" in their report 3. The committee was intended to be permanent or at least long-term but collapsed following political disagreements during the 2018-2019 school year. Despite Shepherd's intention to revive it with a new chair and a new set of students, it went dormant in 2019 and was not heard from again.