The Student Union is sending a referendum to the student body today about potentially changing the system by which clubs and student organizations receive office spaces and designated rooms on campus. The referendum will ask students whether they want the current system to stay in place, whether they want a new committee to make decisions or whether they wish to create a completely new system entirely.

Currently, students have no input on the space allocation process. Administrators decide which groups receive what spaces on campus. The Union’s newly-proposed committee would instead include six students and six administrators. The Union explained this makeup in an email to the student body announcing the referendum on Monday, saying that the equal numbers of each is “necessary to maintain impartiality in the process and ensure the committee is able to look at space with minimal student bias.”

Students on the Union’s proposed committee would include the Student Union President and representatives from the Allocations Board and Senate. The student body would directly elect their last three representatives specifically for the purpose of serving on this committee. Administrators on the committee would include the Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment, the Chief Diversity Officer — a new role the University is creating that has not yet been filled — the Dean of Students, the Director of Student Activities, an Assistant Dean of Students and the Director of the Chaplaincy.

The Student Union wrote in their email to the Student Body that “we are not trying to take away space, nor are we looking to make changes. But when new clubs form, when clubs grow and shrink, or when the needs of the student body change, someone is going to be making these choices.”

Space allocation has caused issues on campus in recent years. The Union pointed to the Women’s Resource Center in their email: last April, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel notified the WRC that they were being moved to the Student Sexuality Information Services office the next week, according to an April 19 Justice article. The WRC voiced anger because the SSIS office is shared with the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, an advocacy group, while the WRC is non-political. The WRC was being moved to make space for a Dharmic Prayer Center on campus, which was later established in the Shapiro Campus Center at the end of the year.

In an email to the Justice, Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 said that incoming Student Union President David Herbstritt ’17 and Junior Representative to the Board of Trustees Emily Conrad ’17 spearheaded the effort for the referendum. Herbstritt wrote to the Justice that the Union has had “some limited contact” with the administrators who would serve on the proposed committee, but not enough to make a clear statement about their thoughts on the proposal. “Currently, there does not seem to be any regular process by which decisions about space are made, so I can’t really point to one person or group who allocates space,” Herbstritt wrote. “As President next year, all that I ask is that the committee or other group that ends [up] evaluating space be fair and systematic — I don’t have any changes that I would be happy or upset to see,” he added.