Capital Planning and Space Management (CPSM) has suspended all student space reservations in Klaus and select rooms in the Instructional Center with no prior warning to any student organizations. We find the move disheartening and would like to see more transparency in communication before similar actions set a dangerous precedent for other meeting spaces on campus.
CPSM has stated the Klaus suspensions come due to a host of policy violations, property damage, and unprofessional behavior towards staff members. Though their reasons seem substantial, the there was no prior notice or warnings to student organizations, which begs the question to what degree are these issues really prevalent?
If these issues were indeed stemming from a subset of student organizations, why weren’t the individual organizations put on notice or barred from using the facilities prior to forcing the entire student population to suffer the consequences of the few?
There is already a scarcity of rooms and meeting areas available to students. There is no point in providing new meeting spaces like the Peachtree Room in the Student Center only to have larger facilities like Klaus blocked off. This does not provide a solution, but rather shifts the problem. Students should be able to plan events and hold meetings after business hours in places other than the CULC and the Student Center.
If students or particular organizations are not maintaining standards for using rooms, CPSM should consider notifying organizations and creating a system which targets sanctioning of the individual. By sanctioning the whole of the student body, CPSM establishes a precedent that has potential to eliminate the majority of meeting spaces for student use.