🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4l3gk5$8jk@peabody.colorado.edu>,
Robert Tarrall <tarrall@plutus.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
>membership availability when a local business (I think it was the Pulse) got
>upset with CU for offering Rec Center memberships to the general public.  Now,
>unless you're a CU affiliate, you can only get an ice rink membership at the
>rec center.
FYI, it was not the pulse but a now defunct aerobics center. The owner 
wanted the Rec center to be available to noone but currently enrolled students.
The real focus was alumni memberships, not general public (these have
always been almost exclusively ice rink). He felt that it was unfair 
competition to allow  alumni to purchase member ships to the rec. center
(despite the fact that they helped pay for the building which is completely 
student owned and financed). Then chancellor Corbridge amended the policy 
so that only alumni who graduated from CU could buy memberships. A stricter
definition of alumni than any other organization at CU is held to. 
Interesting enough the aeorbics center went under about a year  after 
the policy change. If the CU Rec. center really competes with anyone it's
the city rec. centers not the private ones (based on size, facilities, and
admission). 

Memberships are based on affiliation with CU, the research park, or other
CU campuses. The one exception is the ice rink because it is a unique
facility in Boulder county. If the proposed rink in Boulder gets built,
the CU rec. cetner will no longer be able to offer ice rink access to
the general public unless the current chancellor decides to amend the policy. 

This is a rather iffy (IMHO) comparision to the e-mail issue since affiliation
with CU is the determining factor, not competition with the business sector.
You can offer a service to students (through the power of self
financing and volume buying),
that competes with with the private sector. You can't however, use state
resources to compete with business for the general public. (This is based
on my experiences with the two cases wherer the rec. center got sued
over the non-competition legislation, since I sat on the recration 
board at the time these cases occured). 


>
>: I think UMS needs to stay away from legal wording and
>: create a *CLEAR* and *SIMPLE* Policy.  The problem is not
>: that we have a Policy...the problem is that we have a Policy
>: which, in my opinion of course, is nothing but a lot of
>: Legal babble and ultimately leaves too much room for someone
>: to misinterpret or abuse it.
>
>Two comments - first, it's not really possible to write something in
>"plain english" that can't be misinterpreted.  To paraphrase Tom Stoppard,
>English makes up for in obscurity what it lacks in style.  You can either
>have definitive legalese (see the EPCA), plain english subject to
>misinterpretation (see the addenda to the Policy) or something in between
>(see the Policy itself).
>
>Second, what you seem to consider "abuse" of the policy would be considered
>legal under the ECPA as far as I can tell.  So again, if anything, the
>policy might be construed to further limit the University's access to
>your email but it certainly does not appear to grant them greater access
>than they've already been granted by Congress.
>
>			-Robert.-
>
>(regarding vague wording, here's a choice bit I found in another University's
>policy on the use of their systems: "Adhere to Bitnet and Internet rules which
>discourages chain letters, junk mail, or unsolicited casual contacts."
>Now THAT'S vague!)