ASA Office Space Allocation Policy

Passed by ASA General Body, November 16, 1993
Amended by ASA General Body, September 25, 2001
Revised by ASA Executive Board, November 28, 2007

Section 1: Philosophy

It is the highest responsibility of the Executive Board of the Association of Student Activities to act in the best interest of the MIT Community and of the Student Activities which it represents. No other interest or responsibility should supersede it. Thus, the Board must make a good faith effort to allocate rooms fairly. The Board should attempt to ensure that the most active groups who need space and other groups with the highest demonstrated need for space actually receive it. Secondary to that is attempting to allocate space to as many groups as possible.

It is also the responsibility of the ASA to see that allocations happen in a timely manner. The procedures described below may be modified by the Board to the minimum extent that they must be changed in order to allow the timely completion of the allocations. Changes to the policy must be presented to, at a minimum, the groups who wish to apply.

Section 2: Frequency

The Board will attempt to perform a full room allocation process, as defined below in Section 3, every other year. It may also do so if the ASA General Body passes a motion at a General Body meeting instructing the Board to perform one.

Section 3: Process

The ASA Executive Board, or a subset of the Board, will be responsible for allocating office and storage space in the following process:

3.1 The ASA Executive Board announces the requirements and deadline for student groups to apply for office and storage space. This announcement must take place at least 2 weeks prior to the deadline and may be done via the ASA Official email list.

3.2 After the deadline, the Board will collect the submitted applications and, with any other data the ASA has collected such as reviews done by walking through offices with CAC, allocate office and storage space in accordance with the philosophy in Section 1. To do so, the ASA may create a tiered categorization of the space requests such that those requests in higher tiers are considered before those in lower tiers. (Requests may be separated into "keep" portions and "new" or "additional" portions if need be.) Any such categorizations are to be done using the philosophy in Section 1.

3.3 Groups which apply late will be considered at the discretion of the ASA and may be subject to penalties (such as providing service hours during the IAP move) in order to receive space.

3.4 The Board will announce the initial allocations to all student groups and the requirements and deadline to appeal the allocations. Any group wishing to appeal the decision must do so in the proscribed manner in Section 5.

3.5 After the ASA has heard all appeals, it will announce its final office and storage space allocations to all student groups. These assignments will take effect in IAP and groups will move at the time arranged upon by the ASA in conjunction with CAC.

3.6 Those groups that did not receive space will be kept on a list should additional space come available. The ordering of this list will be subject to the needs of the groups in relation to the allocation policy (i.e. their tier categorization) and may be subject to change as group and space needs and conditions change.

Section 4: Applications

4.1 The ASA will prepare an application for office and storage space which it feels in good faith requests sufficient information for it to make its allocation decisions.

4.2 Only the ASA Executive Board will be permitted to view the information collected in the application until after allocations are made or upon announcement to the groups who applied. After that point, the applications may be posted online, save any "request to be away from group" answers, for future group reference.

4.3 If a group feels a particular question or information request is inappropriate, or requests that a portion of the information not be made public after the allocations, it may file a request to the ASA Board via email. The ASA will then consider this request and withhold the information if it votes to do so.

Section 5: Appeals

5.1 The ASA Executive Board will announce the procedure and deadlines for appeals when it announces the initial allocations. This will be in the form of the group submitting a written request and then the ASA scheduling a meeting with them to present their case.

5.2 Any specific room allocation can be brought to a vote of the General Body at the next scheduled General Body Meeting by filing a petition to do so at least two days prior to that meeting. Such a petition shall require 10 groups" written endorsements to be valid.

Section 6: Interim Allocation

6.1 Groups wishing to request space during times when an allocation is not underway may do so by contacting the ASA and following the procedure given to them at that time.

6.2 If space becomes available when an allocation is not currently underway, the Board active at that time will decide the best way to allocate that space. It may send out a new application to those groups without space, pull from the list of groups that did not receive space at the last allocation, or decide upon another action to best follow the philosophy listed in Section 1.

Section 7: Revocation

The Board may revoke a group's room allocation prior to the next declared allocation process if the activity violates any of the provisions outlined in Section 8, or as a disciplinary measure. Any such revocation is subject to appeal through the protest process described at that time, usually by way of a written complaint and subsequent meeting with the ASA Executive Board.

Section 8: Terms

8.1 No activity or student group which has space allocated to it is authorized to grant permission for another activity to use that space.

8.2 Improvements or renovations made to a room must first be approved by the ASA Executive Board and CAC. Failure to do so could result in financial consequences for CAC or another party to reverse changes that are not permitted. Improvements done at the expense of the group occupying the room do not guarantee that the group will continue to have that room allocated to them. However, such improvements may be made known to the ASA in the application for space.

8.3 The Association of Student Activities is not responsible for providing, maintaining, or financing any equipment contained in any room allocation under this policy. It is at the discretion of the GSC Funding Board or UA Finboard to provide funding for office supplies or equipment to groups with office or storage space.