House System at the California Institute of Technology

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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. Like a residential college, a House embodies two closely-connected concepts — it serves as both a physical building where a majority of its members reside and as the center of social activity for its members.

The Houses resemble fraternities at other American universities in the shared loyalties they engender. Unlike in fraternities, however, potentially dangerous "rushing" or "pledging" is replaced with the week of "rotation" at the beginning of the school year, and students generally remain affiliated with one House for the duration of their undergraduate studies.

Freshmen go through a process known as Rotation during the first week of classes to get assigned to a House. This process has rules associated with it to try to give freshmen a chance to choose between the Houses in an unbiased way. These rules are located on the IHC website here.

Contents 1 History 2 House Memberships 2.1 Rotation 2.2 Other Memberships 3 Overview of the Houses 4 The South Houses 4.1 Blacker House 4.2 Dabney House 4.3 Fleming House 4.3.1 Fleming Cannon 4.4 Ricketts House 5 The North Houses 5.1 Lloyd House 5.1.1 Famous Lloydies 5.2 Page House 5.3 Ruddock House 5.3.1 OPI 6 Avery House 7 Off-campus Housing 8 External links 9 Footnotes

[edit] History

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 Caltech houses were formed from members of disbanded fraternities in 1931. The fraternities were as follows:

• Blacker: Phi Alpha Rho, also known as Pharo
• Dabney: Gamma Sigma
• Fleming: Sigma Alpha Pi and Pi Alpha Tau
• Ricketts: Kappa Gamma, also known as Gnome

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 were completed at the beginning of the 2007 calendar year. Students moved back into the South Houses on 15 December 2006, though construction continues.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 upperclassmen 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. 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.

[edit] 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 Booty House," and the House conducts a vote (the nature of the vote, again, varying). ("Booty House" is commonly used to refer to any unspecified House.) Some Houses (in particular, Blacker, Fleming,^[1] 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.

[edit] Overview of the Houses

House	Members	Color	Slogan	Motto	Website
South Houses (Hovses)
Blacker Hovse	Moles	Black	γδβγ (God Damn Blacker Gang)	Sed Nvlla Nisi Ardva Virtvs "Nothing is worthwhile unless it is difficult"	http://blacker.caltech.edu/
Dabney Hovse	Darbs	Green	DEI (Dabney Eats It)	Fidelis et Gratus "Faithfulness and thankfulness"	http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~dei/
Fleming Hovse	Flems	Red	FEIF (Fleming Eats It Faster)	Let the Deed Shaw	http://fleming.caltech.edu/
Ricketts Hovse	Skurves / Scurves	Maroon	FGD (Fuck God Dead)	Prend Moi Tel Que Je Suis "Take me as I am"	No Public Website
North Houses
Lloyd House	Lloydies	Gold		I Live And Die For Those I Love	http://lloyd.caltech.edu/
Page House	Pageboys	Blue		Spe Labor Levis	http://www.jrpage.net/
Ruddock House	Rudds	Navy Blue	Ruddock Rhymes with Buttock	Virtutis Mammilas Exsugimus	http://ruddock.caltech.edu/
Other
Avery House	unspecified, but usually Averyites or Averoids	Purple and Silver		Creativity, Integrity, Tenacity	http://avery.caltech.edu/

[edit] The South Houses

The South Houses are often referred to as "Hovses" since that is the spelling used in the inscriptions on the actual buildings, in imitation of ancient Latin writing. The South House complex opened in 1931.

[edit] Blacker House

Blacker Hovse was built with the help of funds donated by Robert Roe Blacker, a trustee of Caltech. Members of Blacker House are referred to as Moles.

One of the traditions of Blacker House is the Hellride. In a defiant response to the prohibition against playing The Ride of the Valkyries, and to the constant announcements of fake Ditch Days by seniors, the freshmen living in a part of the House named Hell (so called for its unbearable heat in the summer and cramped quarters) would announce a Hellride. They then barricade the hallway and play The Ride at high volume, daring the upperclassmen to break in and drag everyone to be drenched in the showers.

Blacker house features halls painted as Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. In Hell, an elevator switch is rigged to cause a red light to flash the prime numbers with the speed determined by the switch setting. Blacker's courtyard formerly featured a habitable treehouse and a giant tire swing, but the tree that bore them was cut down during renovations of the house in the 2005-2006 academic year.

The war cry of Blacker House is γδβγ (Greek letters for gdbg, or God Damn Blacker Gang). The story is that in the 1978 or 1979, it was popular for Blacker students to climb on top of elevators and ride them. One time, security went inside the elevator looking for the students, who were on top of the elevator. The security muttered, "God Damn Blacker Gang", and the name stuck. Blacker students began signing GDBG or γδβγ on all their pranks. Blacker has also been referred to as the House of Fucking Geniuses and the inscription HOFG can be found throughout the tunnels along with γδβγ. In the 1960s the house slogan was "Blacker Hovse for gracious living" which became "The Hovse of Gracious Living" by the 1990s.

[edit] Dabney House

Dabney Hovse is the smallest of Caltech's Houses. Residents of Dabney House are referred to as Darbs.

Dabney House, as part of the single building that makes up the four "South Houses," was constructed in 1930 and 1931. It was known as the House of Gentlemen and the House of Captains, but underwent a dramatic change in personality during the 1960s. In 1973, the House was disowned by the Dabney family when students from Dabney House protested a presidential visit with a sign on the library bearing the simple phrase "Impeach Nixon." This event has been a touchstone for Darbs ever since. The house became associated with the hippie lifestyle, and in 1990 multiple Dabney House members were banned from campus housing for performing lewd acts in the house courtyard (an event known as "the fipi").

Traditionally standing for "Dabney Eats It," referring to a particularly unpalatable plate of noodles in the 1950s, the acronym DEI has come to be a badge of pride for Darbs. Besides naming the house's recreation room after it and spreading it all across campus, Dabney alumni have made DEI a hidden code in the outside world. The letters can be seen in movies (most notably Real Genius) and video games (including GTA: Vice City and several Intellivision games). There are even stories of the trigraph making its way into space on JPL probes including the Voyager space craft, and being written on the Moon by astronaut Darb Harrison Schmitt. In the late 1960s, during on-campus shooting of an episode of the TV series "Mission Impossible", students stenciled "Caution: DEI" in an elevator shaft scheduled to be filmed the next day. The marking was subsequently visible on national television behind Peter Lupus as he paused in one shot, unaware of this Caltech contribution to spy drama.

[edit] Fleming House

Fleming Hovse was built with funds donated by a number of people, and the name Fleming was chosen to honor Arthur Fleming, then the chairman of Caltech's Board of Trustees.

Members of Fleming Hovse are called Flems. The house color is Red. The motto, from the crest as commonly seen on house beer steins, is "Let the Deed Shaw."^[2] The house battle cry is "Go Big Red!" Another important maxim is "Flems stick together!", as well as the slogan "Where men are men, giants walk the earth, and the thundering herd is real".

The physical layout of Fleming House includes rooms numbered 8.5 (formerly the RA apartment, now a triple) and π(pi).

Fleming House has traditionally been the athletic house, and has maintained a tradition of athletic excellence over the past decade. Both the Interhouse Trophy, awarded to the winner of the Interhouse Athletic Competitions, and the Discobulus Trophy, awarded to the winner of a king-of-the-mountain style, challenge-oriented series of competitions, have called Fleming home for the past 5 years. This emphasis on athletics is explicitly a part of Fleming's self-conscious rejection of the nerd stereotype that developed at Caltech after the elimination of its dress code in 1968.

Fleming has a strong rivalry with Page House. Flems refer to Page House solely as "pagesux." Both houses prank each other and include the other in initiations.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Ricketts House

Ricketts Hovse was funded by and named for 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. Members of Ricketts Hovse were known as Rowdies until about 1960; alumni of that period still draw the distinction between Rowdies and Skurves.

Ricketts traditions include fire related activities and the brakedrum. Prior to early 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 focus on liability concerns, 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. Scurves have in recent years assumed the role of agents provocateurs on campus, confronting a growing legalism on the part of campus administration with increasingly envelope-pushing displays of self-expression. A recent example has been the inverted pentagram which Ricketts had displayed for years on the front wall of its dining room. While Ricketts views this as a symbol of the primacy of individual expression over political correctness, administrators have long requested its removal, citing a potentially hostile work environment for custodial and food service employees. During the recently completed renovations, the mural was painted over, and a new mural policy has been put in place which effectively prohibits its return. 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.

[edit] The North Houses

[edit] 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."

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".

Lloyd House (Building #54 on the Caltech map) is located along the Olive Walk. The physical structure of Lloyd House is an "L"-shaped, two-story building. At the intersection of the two "legs" of the house are "Lower Crotch" and "Upper Crotch," which serve as communal lounge areas.

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 in Inferno 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 Lloyd's big screen TV. Now the "shed" exists indoors, in a room adjacent to Valhalla that used to be part of the MOSH's office.

[edit] 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 since 1994, Lloydies have climbed 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, in which many Lloydies were involved.

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.

[edit] Page House

Upon the arrival of the North Houses in the 1960s, 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. For these reasons, the Library is the only room in Page House in which one must wear shoes.

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.

[edit] 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; some notable dinner traditions include the throwing of bread rolls and "floating" members who break dinner rules by pouring water on them. 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 Schweickart, 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.

[edit] 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 skylines of Tokyo, a giant Egyptian pyramid, and a 16' tall windmill from Moulin Rouge.

[edit] Avery House

Avery House is part of the housing system at the California Institute of Technology, housing undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and visiting guests. Due to renovation of four south houses, many undergraduates are residing on the back lawns of Avery in trailers during the 2005–2006 year.

The jury is still out on a nickname for Avery's members. "Averyites" and "Averoids" are the most commonly heard, though they are sometimes jokingly referred to as "Birds." Other Caltech students sometimes call it "SlAvery House".

A vocal segment of members of the on-campus houses refuse to recognize Avery as a House, although starting in the 2005–2006 school year, Avery is part of the Rotation process, houses freshman, and has official status as a student house. This change has led to a heated debate regarding Avery's importance to the Caltech community.

Many outside Avery and a faction within Avery maintain that this decision was driven mainly by faculty concerns and does not reflect the needs of the Avery community. But others agree with the move, pointing out that Avery's inclusivity will give freshmen a social alternative to sometimes overbearing traditions held dear by the other houses. By a 10-to-1 vote in May 2004, the Faculty Board approved the decision on a two-year experimental basis, though it is widely expected to become permanent. As Avery does not have traditions similar to those of oher houses, members of Avery have a reputation as "trolls" (members of the Caltech community who spend most of their time studying rather than socializing). Despite Avery's formal status as a House, many undergraduates refuse to acknowledge it as such.

Members of Avery House argue that they prefer Avery's alternative environment, and that much of the student population complains about Avery being a house while having limited personal experience with it.

[edit] Off-campus Housing

Caltech-owned housing that is not part of any of the eight Houses is known as "off-campus" housing, even if it is acually physically located on the Caltech campus. (Non-caltech owned housing is called "off-off-campus.") These housing units do not maintain memberships or have the community or tradiations that the other Houses have. Off-campus housing currently consists of Marks House, Braun House, the Del Mar apartments, the Chester apartments, and a handful of single-family homes owned by Caltech. All of these are either within the Caltech campus, or within one block of it. A small portion of Avery is also included in the off-campus lottery with the rest of these properties.

[edit] External links

• the Interhouse Committee (IHC) - committee of the presidents of the Houses; plans and supervises Rotation and inter-House sports and activities
• Caltech Undergraduate Housing - from the Institute's Housing Department
• A History of Undergraduate Self-Governance at Caltech; Part II, A History of the Undergraduate Houses (1930-2002)
• Task force on Undergraduate Residence Life Initiatives (TURLI) report

[edit] 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.