Interhouse Committee

Rotation Rules

To go back to the abridged rules click here: Basic Rules
To go back to the full rules without annotations, click here: Full Rules

(Interpretation in italics)

I. Rotation Code

The spirit of Rotation is to allow new students and Houses to arrive at accurate representations of each other. Following this serves the purpose of best matching new students with Houses.

II. Preamble

The rotation system has evolved over the years as the best methode to distribute new students among the Houses. Each new student is given a voice in selecting the House he or she will join, and the Houses have some say in choosing their members. The motivation behind these rules is the Honor System. The intention is to prevent both the Houses and the new students from taking unfair advantange of any other House or new student. All undergraduates are responsible for understanding and following these rules, and just as with the Honor Code, ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for violating them.

III. The Four Laws of Rotation

These Four Laws are meant to be the guiding principles of Rotation. They are second in importance only to the Rotation Code, and the spirit of Rotation embodied therein.

1. Rotation participants are prohibited from unfairly biasing new students toward or against a House in a way that violates the Honor Code or goes against the spirit of Rotation.

2. Upperclassmen may not provide special or extraordinary favors or services to new students. This includes alcohol and other psychoactive and controlled substances.

3. No upperclassman or new student should discuss rating strategies or past or future student picks procedures.

4. Any remaining questions or concerns must be addressed by the IHC (ude.hcetlac.scgu@noitator) .

IV. Specific Regulations

The following specific regulations shall be viewed as applications of the Four Laws written above and shall be considered of similar importance with the Four Laws.

1. Rotation rules are in effect for any contact with new students from their initial acceptance to Caltech (including before they matriculate) until their submitted rating lists are considered accurate (as stipulated at 4:00 pm on Saturday of Rotation week).

2. Throughout these rules the term "House" refers to both the organization as a whole and any of its members.

People who could be construed as representing a House:

 1- Full House members who are currently registered as undergraduates

 2- Full House members who are not currently registered as undergraduates, but plan on coming back

 3- Social members who are currently registered as undergraduates

 4- Social members who are not currently registered as undergraduates, but plan on coming back

 5- Alumni and former students

 6- Unaffiliated students

 7- RAs

 8- Others (grad students, friends of students, non-Caltech affiliated people who hang around)

This rule is intentionally left vague with respect to social members, etc. because "House" is used in different ways throughout the document. Consider the case of those people falling under categories (2)-(8) who hang around in the House, but who are not present during dinner or after-dinner reception. A President could ask them to leave (Security will remove them if necessary), but the House could still be held responsible. This situation will have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis because these people could still cause an unfair bias.

3. New students are specifically prohibited from unfairly biasing other new students toward or against any House.

4. Houses are specifically authorized to do the following during Rotation:

   a. Have receptions after dinner
   b. Have open presentations anywhere on campus

This includes unofficial tours of campus such as tours of the steam tunnels. Pranks that don't degrade other Houses are also acceptable. If this presentation involves another House in any manner, then it must be approved in advance by the IHC.

   c. Publish and distribute informational media.

All such media must be approved by the IHC. This refers to posters, literary journals, Rotation videos, and propaganda sheets among other things.

5. Houses must receive prior approval before doing any of the following during Rotation:

   a. Sponsoring a trip off campus with new freshmen lasting longer than four hours

Please note that this rule applies to new students who are around before the first official check-in day, although athletic-related events and scheduled FSI events are still exceptions to the rule. The goal of this rule is to allow flexibility for reasonable, spontaneous trips (for food, movies, etc). The spirit of the Rotation Rules still disallows such trips from becoming forums for recruiting freshmen into any House.

   b. Making a trophy or alley challenge

This is basically a House social event. Social events can provide an unfair bias and could get out of hand.

   c. Organizing and sponsoring a social event

Social events can occur, but only with IHC approval. These IHC-approved events will typically include the following stipulations:
 1- Parties should be limited to small gatherings "organized by people in their rooms, etc" without large amounts of preparation and planning.
 2- New students can go to parties where everyone is invited and welcome. Off-campus sites are better, because they are less associated with the on-campus Houses. Similarly, parties thrown by people from more than one House will be easier to interpret as non- recruiting situations.
 3- Alcohol provision (by any student) OR acceptance (by any new student) will both be considered violations.
We realize that upperclassmen coming back want to have fun and party before the school year starts and we will try to accommodate them as best we can. During the actual Rotation week, almost no exceptions to this rule will be made. Organizing a pick up game of sports is typically not a violation of this rule. For small, unofficial social events (e.g. watching a movie in Old Pas, going bowling) that could involve new students, IHC approval is not required.

6. Houses are specifically prohibited from doing the following during Rotation:

   a. Spreading stereotypes of other Houses

Always keep in mind that the spirit of rotation is to allow new students and Houses to arrive at accurate representations of each other. Following this serves the purpose of best matching new students with Houses. Stereotypes rarely represent a House accurately, and as such should be avoided during discussions with new students. Don't speculate about things you don't have direct knowledge of. Instead, encourage new students to seek out others with direct knowledge of whatever is in question.

   b. Publishing a social calendar or relating in any fashion future social events, except during Prefrosh Weekend

The purpose of this rule is to avoid having some upperclassmen make outlandish promises about future social events. Comments about past social events are perfectly okay, if it is made clear to the new students that it is an event that happened in the past. During Prefrosh Weekend, Houses are allowed to leave their social calendars up as it reflects an aspect of Caltech life. During the time period before and including Rotation Week, calendars of future events will be taken down from everywhere (on the Web and in the House).

   c. Attending a reception of a House of which you are not a full member without the permission of that House's President.

   d. Discussing with new students anything at all to do with rating strategies and past or future new student picks.

There is very little leeway with this rule. Telling new students anything about picks or how to rate Houses strongly influences how new students rate their choices. The only thing permissible to say to the new students is that they should rate as honestly as possible, or equivalent statements. Examples of permitted statements are: "If you donÕt want to live in a House, rate it low," or, "If you want to live in a House, rate it highly." There is no statute of limitations on Picks information. Any attempt to find out how the Picks process works is in itself a rotation violation. Distributing Picks information regardless of its accuracy is also a violation.

   e. Providing alcohol or other controlled or psychoactive substances to a new student.

There is absolutely no flexibility in this rule. This rule includes nicotine.

   f. Spending money on a new student or providing extraordinary goods or services on credit or for no charge.

What "extraordinary" means is up to IHC interpretation. This is a case where upperclassmen are expected to use their own judgment wisely. Pocket change and candy are certainly not extraordinary. Setting up a date for a new student is considered to be extraordinary; however, dating a new student is not.

   g. Otherwise unfairly biasing a new student toward or against another House, or your own House.

Special note should be made that this rule pertains both to individual interaction and to House events. No House event should be designed with the intention of scaring new students away from any House, or otherwise trying to unfairly bias new students into rating any House lower or higher then they otherwise would. This rule is completely open to interpretation by the IHC. This once again refers to the idea of the spirit of the law. Individuals are not prohibited from speaking about a House of which they are not a member. However, individuals are advised to take care in what they say, as they may be misinformed. One should follow these guidelines when speaking about any of the 8 undergraduate Houses:
 1. Make sure that things you say are understood to be opinions. You do not need to repeatedly state that everything is your opinion.
 2. Opinions should be presented in a fair and accurate context. For contrast, examples of inappropriate comments are
  "There are a lot of gay Booty Housers,"
  "All Booty Housers are chain-smoking necrophiliacs,"
  "Everyone from Booty House is a Literature major, Heroin addict... and they have bad teeth, too."
 3. The Rotation process is intended to be used as an informational tool with which the new students can use to come to their own conclusions. Houses should not conduct Rotation with the purpose of scaring any new student away from any House.
 4. Don't spread rumors. Be aware that your facts may be wrong, and beware of stories you have heard through the grapevine.
 5. There is a big difference between giving your unprompted opinion to a new student and the new student asking for your opinion.

   Aside from the specifically prohibited acts, Houses may do anything approved of by the IHC in advance of the act.

V. Procedures

1. Rotation week begins on the Saturday prior to the first week of the term and ends after the following Saturday.

2. Throughout the course of Rotation week, new students will remain in residence at a randomly determined temporary room assignment in one of the Houses.

3. For the eight days of Rotation week, (Friday through Friday) each new student visits a different House for dinner in a randomly determined order. New students also visit the Houses for lunch and two evening snacks; the day that they eat lunch in a given house is determined by when they eat dinner in that house, as determined by the following mapping (if two meals have the same letter, a new student eats in the same house for both meals):

	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
House visited at lunch:		E	B	(none)	G	A	B	C	H*
House visited at dinner:		A	F	C	D	E	F	G
House visited at evening snack:	D	H*

*This is the House in which the new student is temporarily living.

The 8 bolded letters denote waited dinners with receptions before and after. The non-bolded letters denote dinners that are unwaited and do not have receptions.

The schedule of rotation meal times is here.

4. Any new student who does not attend lunch or dinner or does not check in with the House Rotation Chair will be defined as a "no-show" for that house, and will be considered to have ranked all eight Houses equally.

5. All new students must rate all eight of the Houses and submit a list of those preference to the Resident Associate (RA) of the House in which they are residing. New students will rate all eight Houses on an integer scale from 1 (this House is a good fit) to 21 (this House is a bad fit). No student may assign the same rating number to multiple Houses. This information will be given to each House President and shall be made available only to the House Rotation chairmen, only after all changes are finalized. The Houses are not required to follow the ratings submitted by each student. Students living outside of the eight Houses must submit ratings to the RA of the House which they visit on the final Saturday of Rotation week. Exceptional circumstances will be taken into consideration by the IHC, and in extreme circumstances, new students who state to the Director of Campus Life that they do not wish to participate in Rotation will not be selected by any House, but such new students will still be given Institute housing.

6. On the final Saturday of Rotation week, the RA of each House will provide rating sheets to all of the new students dining at their House that day. From 2:00 to 4:00 PM, the RA will be available at a place made known to the new students. During that time, the new students must give their ratings to the RA. The RA will enter the student's ratings and then confirm them with the student before submitting them. At 4:00 PM, the IHC will compile the list and check to ensure that all ratings have been submitted. Every effort possible will be made to obtain any missing ratings. Only the IHC will have access to the list until it is finalized. After the list is complete, the IHC Chairman will declare the list finalized, and at that time, the House Presidents may disclose the results to their House Rotation Chairmen.

7. Selection of new students will take place at a closed meeting of the Interhouse Committee Chairman and Secretary, the eight House Presidents, up to four Rotation Chairmen from each House, the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs and Campus Life, and the Master of Student Houses. This meeting will occur on the Sunday immediately following Rotation week. All information relating to this meeting will not be made public. Following the meeting, the Houses will immediately destroy all their electronic or written information relating to the meeting.

VI. Penalties

1. An action which any student thinks is a violation of the Rotation rules must be reported to a member of the IHC

2. Alleged violations will be tried by the IHC; a five out of eight vote is sufficient for conviction.

3. Any House or individual who is found to have violated these rules will be penalized by any one of the following:
    a. Probation
    b. Loss of right to House rating (i.e., new student will be considered to have chosen all eight Houses equally.)
    c. Loss of picks
    d. Loss of privilege to live on campus
    e. Loss of that House's Off-Campus Alley
    f. Any other punishment handed down by the IHC