Re: University of Michigan Kicks Christian Club off Campus
Gotta agree with you there.
But yah know I never really understood the need for any of these club things.
Why not just make friends who are similar to you and hang out...
What's all the need for these official campus clubs anyway?
[former frat boy]Getting official recognition as a campus organization, at a typical university, provides the group additional benefits that would likely not exist or be more difficult to get if they were not an official organization. Things like reserving rooms or portions of the campus for meetings and/or events, having an office within the student center where your members could meet to interact or store items, or the ability to advertise for your particular interest group through official channels. While one could definitely just get a group of friends together and hang out, depending on the TYPE of group you're attempting to organize and the TYPE of things you're wanting to do a lot can get facilitated better by becoming an official group[/former frat boy]
Actually, great example was at my little University a Freshman during my Sophmore year ended up bringing an extra computer and set up a 24/7 Counterstrike server. Before we realized it, the thing had a good 50 to 100 players on campus that were playing somewhat regularly and a handful more that would pop on occasionally. There were a couple of "lets get a bunch of people to meet at the cafeteria" instances and even one, very strange, instance of what can only be described as "flash mob boxing". End of his Freshman year, he got to use one of the multipurpose rooms in his dorm to stuff a bunch of computers in there and we had our first little "LAN party" competition with teams that was largely just a few of us players that heard about it through playing.
Sophmore year he actually ended up deciding to try and form a "club". By doing so, he managed to convince the guy that ran our IT to let him hold the host machine in the IT offices. Our big tournament that year was actually to be hosted in one of the academic buildings (the main Comp Sci building) on a weekend since Clubs could rent those spaces out. We have each team in it's own computer lab, as well as each having a classroom they could plan things out in before hand. There was a common area in the middle that utilized a large projector screen to display game footage live as people were playing for the other teams and spectators could watch. Because he could now advertise on campus in a more official capacity, we actually ended up getting a team that joined that hadn't even played on the local server and had a few people wander in just for the hell of watching.
Now granted....if a College just didn't bother with "Clubs" and let any student try and do those type of things they currently let clubs use. But that's part of why, in the current system, people may seek to form an official club.
As to this SPECIFIC issue...
Gotta agree with Vik here. I understand the notion and reason for the policy, but a TINY bit of common sense should perhaps be afforded to them.
That said, this should be pretty simple for the club. You do the same thing Anda talked about a GLBT group could do, or what someone suggested a Woman's group can do.....you make leadership something that's voted on. You don't say "you have to be Christian to hold a leadership spot" but seriously, what non-christian is going to get nominated and voted into leadership of a group dedicated to the celebration of christianity?