House system at the California Institute of Technology
[5] Beginning in the 2005–2006 school year, freshmen began to rotate into Avery, changing its status to a fully represented house.
In Caltech parlance, freshmen are called "frosh" and are referred to as "prefrosh" until the revelation of their house affiliation at the end of rotation.
The Interhouse Committee attempts to ensure a certain level of secrecy regarding the exact process, so that the confidentiality of both the freshmen and those involved with their final housing assignments is maintained.
In a defiant response to the prohibition against playing Ride of the Valkyries, 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'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.
Traditionally standing for "Dabney Eats It," referring to a particularly unpalatable plate of noodles in the 1950s, the trigraph 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.
In the late 1960s, during on-campus shooting of an episode of the TV series Mission: Impossible, students stenciled the letters "DEI" high on a wall in a tunnel scheduled to be filmed the next day.
More recently, Dabney started the Student Coffee House, or "Chouse",[17] and provided the majority of the staff for a couple years.
The physical layout of Fleming House includes rooms numbered 8.5 (formerly the RA apartment, now a triple),π, and "Alley 6.9".
It was originally cast for use in the Franco-Prussian War but eventually found its way to the then-military themed Southwestern Academy in San Marino, California, where it remained on the front lawn between 1925 and 1972.
In 1972 Fleming class officers got permission from Southwestern Academy to take the cannon, but the underclassmen who mounted new wheels on it and dragged it to campus at night thought they were stealing it.
Prior to early 2003, the Ricketts courtyard housed a large concrete firepot, in which massive fires were often enjoyed during cool Pasadena evenings.
The courtyard originally featured a large Italian marble well head (historically attributed to and named "Millikan's Pot").
By the mid-1970s, it existed only as chunks of rubble, after destruction in an experiment in more exciting pot fires allegedly involving newspaper, xylene, and matches.
Due to tightening of Pasadena fire codes and the Caltech administration's liability concerns, the firepot was removed.
Administration members called for its removal as it was a symbol that may have offended the general public who viewed the house during tours.
The pentagram was originally painted in the dining hall for the Interhouse party of 1989 – prior to this time this symbol had no particular connection to Ricketts House.
Lloyd House is governed by a student-elected, student-run Executive Committee, or "Excomm," of 9-10 members: President, Secretary, Superintendent, Treasurer, Social Director(s), Athletic Manager, and two representatives at large.
Lloyd is divided into seven alleys: Purple, Kaos, VI (Virgin Islands), Fingal's Cave, Valhalla, Inferno, and Tropic.
At this time the alleys were mostly painted solid colors with some minimal designs and pictures (including flames on the walls of Inferno).
Crippling Depression, a satirical comic strip that was published regularly in the California Tech, the student newspaper, was drawn and written by Lloydies.
It 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.
Its name originates from a Ditch Day stack in which the resident graduating senior and president painted a large "F" on its door.
The Library itself is important to Page House culture, and although its collection is always being removed to be recycled, its contents are meant to reflect the works and contributions of contemporary Pageboys.
Pageboy activities include grilling on The Bridge, champagne at Millikan ("Bubbly") 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 edgy, humorous pictures.
It was renamed in 2021 in honor of Grant Venerable ('32), the first black undergraduate student at Caltech,[22][23][24][25] due to Ruddock's involvement with the Human Betterment Foundation, a eugenics organization.
Other Vens include Bill Gross of idealab!, MIT's Peter Shor (1981) – applied mathematician best known for Shor's algorithm in quantum computation, MacArthur Fellow Jim Fruchterman, applied physicist Kerry Vahala, president of several major research universities Eric Kaler, astronomer Tod R. Lauer, computer scientist John Gustafson, energy storage scientist Michael Aziz, click chemist (and possible Nobel candidate) M. G. Finn, and Nobel Prize recipients Eric Betzig (Chemistry 2014) and Michael Rosbash (Physiology/Medicine 2017).
The dining hall, library, and conference room are available to the Caltech community for official events after approval by the Avery ExComm or reservation via the Housing website.
