Our Kingdom for a Room to Meet in

    When the RIT skeptics started, we were just three people. We met every week in the same place: Java Wally's, the campus coffee shop. As the club has grown, it has become increasingly apparent that a public coffee shop is not the ideal venue to meet in. There is often insufficient seating and far too much noise for us to carry out a meeting.
    First we tried for official club recognition. Clubs officially recognized by RIT's student government at allowed to reserve rooms in the Student Alumni union. A few weeks prior to applying, I had been told by the student in charge of that committee that he would not approve a club that had my name on the application. The skeptics voted to apply regardless. The club was turned down on the basis that our goals were too "vague." That particularly specific complaint in hand, we considered other options.
    Most of the members of the Skeptics are students in RIT's College of Science. A number of science related clubs which are not SG recognized meet in the College of Science. First we tried emailing the Dean's office. After one initial request for more information, they did not respond to us for several weeks when we provided that information. When we asked, they requested a meeting with me. I brought a couple of other skeptics to the meeting with the assistant dean.
    She explained her position that we should not meet in the COS because people seeing that we were meeting there might associate us with the College, and believe that the COS was endorsing the activities of the club. Besides the oddness that a College devoted to science did not want to be associated with a club dedicated to the application of the scientific method, the argument did not make sense because the posters we put up would be nearly identical regardless of the room we meet in. If we reserved a room in COS through channels other than the dean's office, the posters would be identical. Our impression upon leaving was that a decision had been already been made, and the claim that we were there for a discussion really meant that they would discuss and we would do what they said.
    At this point we decided to bend the rules of the library room reservation system, which is only for study groups, and reserve a room as the skepticism study group. We ended up getting a room, but it was one with room for four people, and about nine people showing up to meet in it.
    Only after emails being sent to most of the Deans of most of the colleges on campus were we able to find a stable meeting room... for the duration of one quarter. There is no huge skeptical message to our difficulty find a space to meet, just this: if you think that paying an organization tens of thousands of dollars a year will incline the organization want to be helpful, you aren't very familiar with RIT.