[2636] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Upcoming UA Issue - Student Group Property Ownership
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alexander J Werbos)
Tue Oct 17 11:49:40 2006
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:48:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexander J Werbos <awerbos@mit.edu>
To: Jay Muchnij <munch@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <200610171535.k9HFZJWc008742@geskekelud.mit.edu>
Cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Jay Muchnij wrote:
> So, basically you like the Kelo decision enough to bring it to MIT?
> Wonderful.
A false analogy. MIT Student groups are hardly private entities.
> Declaring that the UA can seize stuff that any student group has,
> regardless of how they acquired it, seems like quite the power grab, and
> not at all reasonable. Protestations of "we can only take your stuff if
> someone else asks us for it" don't go very far....
Not *any*. I would limit this the Finboard funded groups. This division
is, however, the area of my greatest concern in terms of creating a fair
system.
I think people here are making an unfortunate mistake of taking excessive
ownership of student groups. Student groups exist to serve the MIT
community as a whole. That's why they get communal money. Most student
groups can't pretend to just be a couple of people who banded together and
made a private club. Student groups use MIT space and MIT money, as well
they should. But that usage is conditional on being generally useful to
students. Contributing to a student group is reflective of one's desire to
help students in general.
-Alex
>> Just a brief word about how I envision all this happening:
>>
>> I see the creation of a process whereby one or several student groups can
>> petition the UA for the reallocation of materiel being used by another
>> student group. They would have a joint meeting with one or more UA
>> Facilitators, and make their case. The Facilitators would then propose a
>> course of action to the Senate, which would include the possibility or
>> reallocating the materiel in question.
>>
>> This ensures:
>>
>> 1) The resource might actually be used more efficiently, and this is
>> causing people concern. Since a student group must take the initiative to make its
>> case to the UA, somebody has to really think they're being mistreated.
>>
>> 2) That the UA doesn't go nosing where it doesn't belong. Requiring a
>> student group to initiate the process means that someone has to need
>> something. It won't just be the UA messing with groups that anger it
>> (which I don't think would happen anyway, but some people seem to be
>> concerned about that).
>>
>> -Alex
>>
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