The motto of Cabot House is "Semper Cor." Cabot encourages its members to stay in touch with their our own values and principles, while keeping their hearts open to others.
Housing is a limited resource, and sometimes achieving a desired housing goal can feel more important than staying true to your inner values. Cabot would urge you to adopt a flexible way of thinking while engaging with the housing process. Yes, it's good to be focused upon a goal, but if you do so at the expense of a friendship, it may have larger consequences. We urge you to have honest but thoughtful conversations with others when it comes to housing. Consider the other person's point of view, and think about how your message will affect them. Stand firm about what you need for your housing, but use empathy to shape the message. Remember that best friends don't always make best roommates too.
Your house administrator seeks to create a system based on the values of fairness, accountability, and compassion. Above all, your House strives to achieve a process that is fair, and still appropriately balances the many needs of all students. Cabot uses the expertise of the AEO to determine special circumstances, avoiding personal judgement calls about housing special cases. Ideally, housing should be based on a mutual understanding between the house and the student, in which the student makes a free choice, and the house honors that choice as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others or Cabot's ability to house everyone else. Cabot hopes to provide some flexibility with the wish letter system, when possible.
Every single person housed in Cabot is important. In a university system, we are separated in to groups of "sophomores," "juniors" and "seniors" based on the amount of class time completed. In the housing system, these titles translate to housing priority (via seniority), with the hope that, with time, every student will eventually achieve the same privileges at similar times within their college experience. Cabot respects the desires of students at every level, and will seek to create the most good for the most students when it comes to housing.