[2670] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Upcoming UA Issue - Student Group Property Ownership
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Cyrus Eyster)
Tue Oct 17 17:58:29 2006
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:27:42 -0400
From: "Cyrus Eyster" <cyruse@gmail.com>
To: "Alexander J Werbos" <awerbos@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.62L.0610170948020.22110@dodecahedron.mit.edu>
Cc: ua-senate@mit.edu, Adam Seering <aseering@mit.edu>, mit-talk@mit.edu,
senior-house@mit.edu
Reply-To: cyruse@alum.mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
I'm an alum, so take this with a grain of salt...
On 10/17/06, Alexander J Werbos <awerbos@mit.edu> wrote:
> Student groups are special organizations. They are not given money for
> their private use, but rather to enhance undegraduate life as a whole.
> Since student group money can't really be given to
> individuals but rather has to benefit the student body in general (or at
> least allow all who are interested equal access to benefits), is it really
> so much of a leap to say that property does not belong specifically to a
> group of people or arbitrary label, but rather to the undergraduate
> community as a whole?
... but I disagree strongly with this perspective. Student groups are not
mathematical entities that can be dealt with as some sort of spherical cow
abstraction. They are groups of people who have put effort into organizing
themselves and obtaining materials to do whatever it is that they do.
If I donate something to a group, it is not "to help the undergraduate body
as a whole", but to help a specific group that I have some affinity for.
I am guessing it is similar for people who try to get Finboard funding so
that their group can buy a particular item.
> We're not trying to set up the UA as some sort of feudal organization,
> demanding tribute of materiel from student groups. We're trying to
> make sure that all the resourecs available to student groups are used in
> the best manner possible. If a group uses a lot of Institute money to
> purchase equipment, and then lets it moulder in a locker somewhere, isn't
> it our duty to give that equipment to a group that would use it?
If this was a concern, you could have bought the stuff for the UA and loaned
it to the group, no?
> If, however, people think that such reallocations are always a bad idea,
> we can make that the policy. But I really think that is going to lead to
> inefficient usage of student resources.
I think that the essence of student government's role vis a vis other student
activities should be to make life easier for them as much as possible. When
I was a student, I found that the most annoying thing about being a student
group officer was periodically having to convince the ASA that my group still
existed and deserved to continue to use whatever room(s) we'd been
allocated. I realize that some amount of this is a more or less necessary evil,
since there are always groups that want more (or any) space, and there has
to be some mechanism for figuring out where that space can come from.
However, I think that adding more of the same is a bad idea.
Would you be willing to provide examples of the sorts of property you are
talking about? My experience is colored by the types of things groups I was
involved with owned, and I have a hard time coming up with legitimate uses
other groups would have had for that stuff.
Cyrus
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