[2640] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Upcoming UA Issue - Student Group Property Ownership
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Courtney Shiley)
Tue Oct 17 12:03:35 2006
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:02:33 -0400
From: "Courtney Shiley" <cshiley@mit.edu>
To: "Alexander J Werbos" <awerbos@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.62L.0610171142230.24754@dodecahedron.mit.edu>
Cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
The student group system exists to serve MIT students as a whole, but
I think it's inappropriate to set the burden of serving all MIT
students on each and every individual student group.
The system is strong not because every group tries to help everyone
but because everyone can find groups that serve their specific
interests.
This is a critical distinction if you're going to start enforcing some
kind of efficiency standard.
Has something happened to make the UA think this is a particular
problem that it must address, or did y'all just wake up one day and
think it was a great idea?
-Courtney
On 10/17/06, Alexander J Werbos <awerbos@mit.edu> wrote:
> 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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