Facilities Micromanaged, Students Lose
By Joshua Tremblay
Staff Writer

Last weekend's uber-successful Oskar film festival proved many important points about the structure of space and life at Pomona College. First and foremost, I shouldn't be allowed to drink that much ever, let alone in public. Second, it proved that there is a strong film/video culture on campus and that there needs to be more support from both students and the administration for campus media. But most importantly, it illustrated the unfair policies that govern facililty use at Pomona College.

The Oskars is a special event. It is one of the few events that caters uniformly to students- substance free or not. The Oskars also proves that there is an alternative to the always-enjoyable but overdone keg and a DJ party. However, when Studio47 went to find a space to hold this year's third annual festival, they were at a loss. The turnout at last year's festival, which exceeded 450, severly violated the fire code of Rose Hills Theatre (a paltry 175 seats). When the studio searched out other spaces, no one could provide them with direct help.

There are about three booking systems for the spaces at Pomona College. For an event of the Oskars' magnitude, it was suggested that the studio use Little Bridges, Seaver Theatre, or Edmunds Ballroom. The former two of these options are best suited to the event: they have established seating, an intimate atmosphere to maintain the upscale feel of the screening, and in the case of Seaver Theatre, established audio-visual equipment. However, you cannot reserve these spaces like any other spaces on campus. Instead, you have to reserve these spaces through special faculty members in special departments. This limits even access to request use of the space, because you have to track down an already busy professor or staff member, instead of using the standard system through the always present secretaries in the ASPC office.

Exacerbating the problem are loyalties toward these spaces. The departments, and especially the staff directly in charge of these spaces, tend to overbook spaces for any possible use, legitimate. While rehearsing in the actual performance space is a vital to preparing for a concert or performance, conducting every rehearsal in those spaces is ridiculous. There are plenty of other spaces allotted to these departments that would suffice for rehearsal, especially if the official performance spaces were only forfeited for one or two weekend nights a semseter. Further straining the already ludicrous situation is the requirement that a staff member from the space's respective departments be present at any extradepartmental event that happens in the space. Why should someone's time be wasted, (or more likely, a succesful event be compromised) so that someone can make certain that a comedy group or film festival uses the organ correctly? No one's even touching that million-dollar masterpiece anyway. If there is an open weekend, the spaces often go unused to give the facility staff a vacation, leaving other groups out in the cold, untrusted to merely sit in seats without being completely destructive.

Every student pays for his or her ability to come here, so it is ridiculous to limit the spaces a student can use. The proportion of money spent on Seaver or Little Bridges compared to the number of majors or even student participants in functions that use these spaces is absurd. Every student here is trusted to use his or her dorm room, state-of-the-art science labs, and modern exercise facilities. Obviously the two performance spaces mentioned above are for special events, but the departments in charge of these spaces has the forsight to plan accordingly for the preparation and rehearsals of their performances. However, this has given them carte blanche to alienate all but those precious few who are lucky enough to exist under the tyrannical rule of the "feeling very self-important today" professors dictating who can and cannot use the space that rightfully belongs to each and every student attending the college. Any student group would be perfectly willing to take the responsibility for any damages done to any space that's used, so let's try and be a little more egalitarian about the use of space. Until then, enjoy one of the most succesful events of the year while sitting on the floor for $37,000 a year.