Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Kansas Memorial Union has recently started enforcing a policy that hurts student groups. The KU Ceramics Club holds a sale every semester at the Union, along with students from the textiles and blacksmithing departments. This semester, they were told they would be charged $100 a day to reserve the space, and therefore had to cancel the sale.
Small student groups, such as the Ceramics Club, cannot afford to spend $300 (for the three days the sale was scheduled for) of their profits on renting space. The rationalization behind this fee is that groups who are charging a fee or selling a product should put some of the money back into the Union. However, when it is a student group that is not making a considerable amount of money to begin with, they should be treated with special consideration.
The Union is meant to serve the students. This rule is not only hurting art students, but it is preventing other students from experiencing their work. Additionally, there will be more student groups who have to take their events to another location. Moving student events off campus will draw more people away from the Union.
Tierney Cacioppo, a senior from Overland Park and member of the Ceramics Club, said the club thought about trying to hold the event somewhere else, but ended up having to cancel it completely. “This has never happened before,” Cacioppo said. “It’s tough to schedule a new event at the end of the semester.”
Some of the money from this sale would have gone to funding for a trip to the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, which the club attends every year.
Gene Wee, coordinator at the Union, said, “There has been a clarification of when we do charge and when we don’t charge for student groups and university departments.”
Wee said the rule has been in place for some time but in the past the group had not been charged by mistake.
When the Ceramics Club asked why they were being charged this semester, unlike their last sale in Fall 2009, they were told lots of things had changed from last semester. The Union has not raised the rates to reserve a room, which is commendable, but this policy enforcement still needs to be amended.
If the Union is going to start enacting a policy that has such a great effect on students, it should consider the size of the group and event. Though this might take more time and examination, it will be worth the effort because it is in the best interest of students.
— Caitlin Thornbrugh for The Kansan Editorial Board
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