PSA at my university: took me 3 years to figure out the guest speaker policy

I ran into a problem trying to book a speaker for my student group. The policy says you just email the dean's office 2 weeks ahead. But nobody tells you the real rule is you actually need a faculty sponsor and a security deposit of $200. It took me 3 years and 4 rejected requests to finally get that answer from a secretary who felt bad for me. Has anyone else found hidden rules like this at their school?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_miles17d ago

Same here, my school's "guest parking" form had a secret checkbox for "non-affiliated vehicles" that nobody mentioned until my speaker got a $80 ticket. Three rejection emails later, I found out the real trick was bribing the admin assistant with coffee. Did you ever track down a written copy of the actual policy?

the_joel17d ago

Oh man, the coffee bribe thing is too real. I finally got a copy of the actual policy after I just showed up at the admin office in person and wouldn't leave until someone printed it for me. Turned out the "written policy" was just a single page of bullet points that looked like it was typed up in 1997. The secret checkbox thing sounds like a classic "we'll tell you if you ask" move, which is basically how every school runs their parking racket.