Almost two weeks ago, the Honor Committee held its heavily publicized open forum on the single sanction, aimed at fostering discussion between Committee members and students who are not involved in the honor system. Unfortunately, that discussion was cut short. Somehow, the Honor Committee and Resident Staff had both booked the Chemistry Auditorium for the same time period through the System Of University Reservations and Calendar of Events, better known by its acronym, the SOURCE. Resident Staff was granted the second hour for which the Honor Committee had reserved the room, but no e-mail was sent to the Honor Committee members to inform them of the change.
Unfortunately, this kind of problem does not seem to be rare when it comes to the SOURCE. Adam Trusner, chair of the Single Sanction Ad-hoc Committee and the student who booked the Chemistry Auditorium, said it was not the first time he has had a meeting location given to another group without warning. Sam Leven, president of Hoos Against the Single Sanction, was also at the meeting and said his group has had meeting places taken away multiple times.
The problem seems to be a lack of respect for student organizations’ claims to space. According to Leven, some of his group’s problems have been a result of professors and teaching assistants reserving a room through their departments, rather than on the SOURCE. Academics come first at any university, but at this University, student-run organizations are given significant responsibilities and need reliable access to resources like meeting rooms. At the very least, the SOURCE ought to send e-mails to groups whose space has been double-booked to allow them to make alternative plans.
It does not seem, however, as if there is any need for professors to have the right to override pre-existing reservations. Reserving space for regular class meetings takes precedence, of course, and should be handled outside of the SOURCE. For events like special review sessions, however, there is not such a lack of space on Grounds that professors need to be able to override student claims to classroom space.
Solving this problem would be simple — the University Registrar, UREG, would just have to require anyone who wants to reserve a space on Grounds to use the SOURCE, rather than allowing academic departments to override the system. Within the SOURCE system itself, no space should be reserved for two different organizations at the same time, and space should be meted out on a first-come, first-serve basis. If an organization that has reserved a space agrees to forfeit its time there, as Trusner said the Honor Committee would have been happy to do for Resident Staff, that’s fine — so long as it is told well in advance of the conflict.
If all space requests were handled through the same system, those requests could be handled much more quickly. In fact, the system could become completely automated.
Professors and TAs do not need to use the SOURCE themselves to avoid some conflicts. Even if the University does not require them to use the same system as students to book rooms, they can check the SOURCE to see if a space has already been reserved — though the time it takes to process requests means the SOURCE’s online information is typically a little out of date. If the SOURCE says a room is taken, they can respect the needs of student organizations and find a different room or time.
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