Click for Act 3 Current configuration of Dana Commons. (Click top edge to enlarge.)

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Act Two: Channels  By this point, the MC2 committee was in a very peculiar bind. Their plans involved relocating three student clubs and an entire International Development storage room. One of the most important spaces had been given away twice in less than a month. And to make matters worse, they were two months into writing a proposal that would ideally grant them the Commuter Lounge, the Pit, and the Red Room (ID's storage closet)-- but they had no idea who had the authority to grant them the spaces. This dilemma, it turns out, is not a new one.  One problem is that Clark University doesn't have any method, committee, or protocol for space allocation. Even domains that appear well-defined at first glance turn out to be muddy. On paper, Linda Connors handles the University Center and all the rooms therein, by virtue of her position as Director of the UC, but the senior administration has gone over (or around) her on a number of occasions, most visibly when they dropped CU Graphics in the old game room without warning or discussion. So it's more like "You handle the UC except when we want it for our business deals."  Furthermore, Connors' position as Associate Dean of Students (and Chair of the UAC, see below) gives her power over "student space" needs, which is why the Spree Day Committee was able to use the Commuter Lounge last year, and why she was able to give it away. However, what exactly "student space" is Connors seems willing to leave to the Administration to decide; this defeats the purpose of her position quite soundly, and leaves students groups perpetually on the defensive, reacting to decisions passed down from above. The fact that the Red Room had been student space since the building's construction in 1969 seems irrelevant-- Connors won't fight for it, and neither the Administration nor Academic Affairs (and especially not ID) are willing to give it away. sidebar: The Players Linda Connors-- Connors is the Assistant Dean of Students, the Director of the University Center, and the Facilitator of Campus Activities. Her office, now called "the Office of Campus Activities," is on the second floor of the University Center. From there, she runs the Events Planning office, councils Student Council, approves student organizations spending the SAF, and tries to control the UC. Jack Foley-- Foley started out as a food service employee, worked his way up to Business Manager, and is now the Executive Assistant to the President [Traina]. His job is to do all the things the President is supposed to do, so that the actual President can run around and raise money. His specialty is Main South projects, such as the MSCDC, and the University Park Plan, but at Clark, he can control pretty much anything he chooses to. Cynics amuse themselves by whispering that he wants to become mayor. Jim Collins-- Collins is the Vice-President in Charge of Administration and Finance, and also Treasurer of the University. Thus, he collects, stores, and spends Clark's money. He basically runs this school. Michael Dennis-- Dennis is the Manager of Business Services (ie. Business Manager), and works for Collins. This scrappy young soldier, class of '96, is still shaking off the vertigo attained during his rocket-like ascent into the upper eschalon of the Administration. He is responsible for all Clark's external business affairs: insurance, food service, workman's compensation, motor vehicles, Consortium liaison, etc. You would think the Enterprise system would make this job unnecessary, but apparently not.

Dana Commons is neither in the UC, nor in a dorm, and space there has been dealt with pretty randomly in the past. Jack Foley was responsible for bringing the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) into Dana in 1992, effectively shutting down the Red Room and dealing a near-fatal blow to the student arts scene here. Later, the Red Room was given to ID by then-Provost Fern Johnson.  The Provost allocates academic departments' space, although once upon a time there was an Academic Space Committee, which fell into disuse and died. According to Jim Collins, the Office of Student Records is responsible for scheduling administrative sites. Why the Office of Student Records? Who knows? And when asked who ultimately determines space issues around campus, Collins said with a little smile, "I guess that'd be me." Let us not forget that Collins' job is finance.  If that wasn't enough, then there are the committees: the University Activities Committee (the UAC), who makes space "recommendations" to Connors and who has no actual authority; the Physical Plant Trustee Committee, who has made space allocations like sticking the Recycling Center in a nearly-condemned building and deciding which Main South property to purchase next, and the now-defunct Campus Space Committee (not the same as the Academic Space Committee), which was dissolved years ago due to, in Jim Collins' words, "lack of a legitimate function," and which didn't do what its name suggests anyway.  Part of the confusion comes from the conflation of space with use. Consequently, we have certain authorities who allocate space by its location (Connors, the UAC, Milstone) and those who allocate according to use (The Office of Student Records, the Physical Plant Trustee Committee, the Provost). Thus, what happens with spaces like Dana Commons and the Recycling Center building, where use, locale, and precedent tangle into dense, paralytic knots, is a mystery to be solved by only the most brave or foolhardy.  Then there's the question of timing. The Administration saves the summers for whatever major construction jobs they've planned. This makes sense. Interestingly, they also save major space decisions for the summer, too. This effectively disenfranchises the student population, and increases the administration's summer workload-- which is already considerable. Thus. when an idea like the MC2 comes along, there isn't time to deal with it. It becomes yet another thing to deal with, an annoyance.  Of course, if you're a student with ideas, there's always "channels." According to Jack Foley, "channels" means presenting a proposal to Connors, who would assist in preparing it for the Administration. Once it had been made Administrator-friendly, Connors would pass it along to her boss, the Dean of Students. The Dean would review it, perhaps even do a revision with the proposal's authors, and then pass it over to the Dean of the College, who would pass it up to the Provost, and who would theoretically bring it up at the next senior staff meeting for the benefit of the Jack Foleys and Jim Collinses.

(The MC2 committee decided to ignore channels, as there was neither a permanent Dean of Students nor a full-time Dean of the College. Also, those channels look suspiciously like a way to make sure no student initiative arrived uncompromised before the Senior Administration.)  This was the Gordian knot of administrative space issues that the MC2 was faced with: the problem of having to ask nobody in particular for several spaces in several jurisdictions that nobody takes direct responsibility for. Ask Collins for the space, and they would probably be going over certain people's heads; try to go through channels, and nothing would get done and it would take months to get that done. The MC2 decided to deal with everybody simultaneously. It seemed safest.  Many meetings were held with Milstone, Collins, and Connors, and many interesting things were learned: -- The Downing Street School, which says "V&PA" next to it in the 1996-7 University Budget and also on the Phone Directory's map, isn't, as yet, officially going to the Visual and Performing Arts Department. Jim Collins considers it general classroom space. The V&PA is still submitting proposals as to what to do with it (one proposal, submitted by music professor Matthew Malsky, involves making the 3rd floor a multimedia production facility, similar but not identical to the MC2 idea). -- There is apparently "plenty of space" on campus. Collins made this remark on three separate occasions to three separate people, but has yet to actually mention any. This idea stupefied the members of the MC2 committee, as they had spent weeks scouting locations around campus. One member suggested that perhaps it seems like there's plenty of space when you can move anyone out whenever you wish. Later, Milstone made the same remark as Collins, but quickly qualified it with "but it's the kind of space [that's problematic]." -- Education's mystery project is not a permanent addition to Dana Commons. First of all, their plan is to move out in a few years anyway, but more importantly, Collins says he is ready to "put them elsewhere" as soon as something better comes along. With Bon Appetit chomping at the bit, "something better" may indeed come sooner than later. -- The deal Education has-- namely, "enjoy the space but be ready to move out at a moment's notice"-- is apparently the norm for making space arrangements on campus. The sudden displacement of Hope Lonstein is a good example. The only exception to this rule seems to be the for-profit enterprises that Clark brings onto campus; apparently moving them requires various sorts of contract renegotiations and rental agreements, and therefore doesn't seem to be worth bothering about. And under Clark's enterprise system, Departments and Offices have no reason to work together, and near-total hiring autonomy, which serves to eliminate ideas like "the greater good" from the decision-making process. concluded on the next page