SLC approves student organization charters

Two charters tabled for next meeting

The Student Life Committee met Wednesday to discuss the approval of charters for 10 newly formulated organizations. Representatives of each group, whose members hope the organizations become official next year, attended a question-and-answer session at the meeting's beginning.

Charters were approved for eight of the 10 organizations, including the Oberlin Contact Improvisation Collective; Oberlin Fiction Writers; the Go Club; the Oberlin College Labor Party; the Oberlin Men's Center; Paradigms and Frameworks, a philosophy journal; Students of Caribbean Ancestry (SOCA); and the Oberlin Linux User's Group.

SLC members voted to table the charter for the S/M & B/D group, or set it aside until further concerns can be appeased, due to worries about students' safety. After this charter was submitted to and rejected by the Student Senate last year, members of the group amended and re-submitted it to the SLC earlier this month. Despite a re-working of the goals outlined in the charter, however, SLC members remained skeptical.

"Not only is the extent of the college's liability a problem [with the S/M & B/D organization], but I'm concerned that this could cause harm to students," SLC Chair Gloria White said.

"[The S&M/B&D group] is really an organization dedicated to safe, sane and consensual practices," said junior Julian Dockhorn, a group representative who attended the meeting.

The SLC also tabled the charter for 12 Inches of Velvet, an organization working to raise proceeds for AIDS charities.

"The charter seemed to indicate that a limited amount of activities are planned, other than one large benefit party; I don't know if this really needs to be a chartered committee," said Associate Dean of Residential Life and Services Deborah McNish. The SLC will vote again on these two charters at its last meeting of the year, May 7.

Approved charters will be submitted to the General Faculty for approval at its May 20 meeting; if members approve all 10 charters, there will be a total of 119 official organizations at Oberlin.