[2720] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Group Property and GIRs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M Kelch)
Thu Oct 19 18:55:37 2006
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:55:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Steven M Kelch <kelch@mit.edu>
To: Derric Tay <derrict@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <45380014.2000505@mit.edu>
Cc: "Jeremy H. Brown" <jhbrown@csail.mit.edu>, mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
Because I ran my mouth off, said a few things that weren't necessarily as
well thought out as they should have been, and people pounced.
General MIT discussion, as far as I can tell. It was fun.
But I agree that this discussion has reached it's breaking point. I invite
everyone who would like to discuss this further to come to the Senate
discussion session this Monday at 8pm in W20-400 where we will try to
condense the arguments a little and come to some sort of general agreement
based on the student sentiment about how we will treat these things in the
future, which may or may not become legislation to establish clear
guidelines.
We will also be speaking about the next steps for the GIR proposal, and
also touch on the proposal's remarks about Orientation.
Steve
On Thu, 19 Oct 2006, Derric Tay wrote:
> I was just saying this earlier today. How come people are making such a
> bigger deal over something like this, as opposed to something that would
> much, much, more significantly affect the future of MIT and MIT students
> and alums.
>
> I may be a senior myself, but (1) I recognize that the reputation that
> MIT gets, based on how various school officials (as well as students)
> manage the Institvte, will affect me and other people who have completed
> the GIRs by now, and (2) If possible, I don't want to allow ill-advised,
> unwise decision-making to screw over future generations of MIT students.
>
> The feeling that "we can't do anything about this" is not supposed to
> exist. If it does exist, I believe it can be attributed to decisions
> that were made by MIT's administration and/or others in such a way that
> student input--and by student input, I don't mean impractical nonsense
> that is generally associated with "college kids", but I mean realistic,
> reasonable, practical, intelligent, and wise suggestions from the
> students--were not given thoughtful and due consideration.
>
> ~DT
>
>
> Jeff Roberts wrote:
>> As an alum, I think that MIT should quit giving money to student
>> groups. Students obviously have no idea how to spend money properly.
>> I'm going to ensure that all my future donations to MIT come with the
>> stipulation that they cannot be spent by students.
>>
>> MIT should hire some more Deans. Now THOSE guys know how to spend money right!
>>
>> I'm pretty amazed how much more discussion there's been on this topic
>> than on the proposed GIR changes, which seem like they could be pretty
>> significant ... Jeff.
>>
>> On 10/18/06, Jeremy H. Brown <jhbrown@csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>>> jhbrown@csail.mit.edu (Jeremy H. Brown) writes:
>>>> Oh, space. The ASA has, for a long time, been "in charge" of most of
>>>> the student office space and bulletin-board space, and has
>>>> periodically reallocated it. In practice, in my era, at least, all
>>>> they usually did was take office space away from defunct groups and
>>>> give it to groups that wanted space, and other such more-or-less
>>>> inoffensive changes. Even there there was often controversy, but
>>>> whatever. Every group knows that their office space is nominally lent
>>>> via the ASA; it's clear, and they should be under no illusion that
>>>> they "own" it, because it's spelled out.
>>> One final (you hope, anyhow) point: long-established groups like LSC,
>>> the Tech, WMBR, etc. have office space which is generally considered
>>> sacred when the ASA goes to reallocate offices. Most other groups are
>>> still jostling for space. I know when I was a student, the years that
>>> office space reallocation was coming up, the more politically-aware
>>> groups would work hard to put a number of members into the ASA in
>>> order to make sure their interests were thoroughly represented.
>>>
>>> I've also heard of people trying to do Finboard stacking, but I never
>>> knew enough about Finboard's procedures to know how well that worked.
>>>
>>> Anyhow, coming around to my actual point: If the UA gets the power to
>>> reposess resources that they deem under-utilized, eventually some
>>> wacky student group is going to stack that committee/wing/whatever,
>>> and go to town with it.
>>>
>>> Actually, that could be kind of fun. I'd love to see what the Campus
>>> Crusade for Cthulhu would do if they had control of the UA Committee
>>> for Taking Other People's Stuff.
>>>
>>> Jeremy
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> MIT-talk mailing list
>>> MIT-talk@mit.edu
>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
>>>
>>
>>
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