General Policy
- Departments organizations will be charged $25 per reservation. This fee may be waived with approval from the Student Activity Center Governing Board (SACGB) or the Student Activity Center (SAC) Floor Manager. Departments are only able to reserve from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
- Fall semester reservations will be made beginning August 1 of that calendar year. Upcoming spring semester reservations will be made on December 1. Email submissions and/or an Event Management Service (EMS) Web Request do not guarantee priority. Walk-in reservations will receive priority on the first day of reservations.
- The SAC Front Desk Staff has the right to cancel a reservation if unable to contact one of the main contact persons listed to confirm details.
Multipurpose Room Reservation Limits and Guidelines
- Weekly series reservations for the Multipurpose Room are on a first-come-first-served basis.
- Groups may only reserve up to four hours during peak times (Monday-Friday after 5 p.m, all day Saturday and Sunday).
- Reservations outside peak times can be made without restriction within a reasonable consideration (i.e. an organization cannot book the room for every hour of the upcoming week).
- Additional hours may be reserved up to one (1) week in advance of the event date. There are no restrictions regarding additional hours as prescribed in part (3).
- Conference room access is limited to 15 minutes prior to event start time.
- Single events may not exceed more than six hours. Groups may petition for an exception through the SAC Governing Board or SAC Floor Manager.
General Conference Room Reservation Limits and Guidelines
- Weekly series reservations for the SAC conference rooms are on a first-come-first-served basis.
- Reservations outside peak times can be made without restriction within a reasonable consideration.
- Single events may not exceed more than six (6) hours. Groups may petition for an exception through the SAC Governing Board or SAC Floor Manager.
- Groups may not reserve more than two conference rooms per day in the SAC conference rooms (including the Multipurpose Room). Groups may petition for an exception through the SAC Governing Board or SAC Floor Manager.
- Conference room access is limited to 15 minutes prior to event start time.
- Use of glitter and excessive trash is strictly prohibited in the SAC conference rooms. Glitter will result in a Reservation Penalty (No-Show Strike).
Food
- Groups may bring catered food into the SAC but must abide by the University Catering Policy:
- Definition of Vendor Catering: an off-campus catering vendor provides food service for university-sponsored programs within University facilities.
- Vendors that provide catering for SAC events must be insured and have a City of Madison Catering License.
- Catering does not include:
- Foods purchased/prepared by university staff.
- Prepared food (i.e., box lunches, cheese trays, pizza, cookies, fruit, etc.) purchased from a licensed restaurant. These may be delivered by the vendor or picked up at the vendor’s site.
- Groups may not bring kitchen appliances—electronic/non-electronic—for food preparation. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Coffeemaker
- Rice cooker
- Slow cooker
- Toaster
- Microwave
- Popcorn maker
- Waffle iron
- Groups may bring pre-made bought or homemade food into the SAC but must clean up after the event. Groups are strongly advised to ask for extra garbage bags prior to the start of the event. Groups need to notify SAC staff if food is going to be brought into the building that requires additional clean-up.
Loss of Reservation Privileges
The Student Activity Center Front Desk Staff reserve the right to revoke a group’s reservation privileges due to any of the following reasons:
- All SAC events must comply with the UW-Madison: Use of Facilities & Lands policy and support the university’s educational mission.
- Altering or damaging of furniture or walls of conference rooms is strictly prohibited.
- Room set-up will be done by SAC Front Desk Staff. Request for specific room set-up must be made at the time of booking and/or 24 hours prior to reservation start time.
- Registered Student Organizations (RSO) found in violation of the Student Organization Code of Conduct, University Facility Use Policies, or the SAC Facility Use Policy will be reported to the Director of the Center for Leadership & Involvement (CfLI).
- RSOs may not reserve rooms for the use of external groups (companies, non-profit organizations, etc).
- RSOs must specify on promotion that events held in SAC are only open to students, faculty, and staff—unless a university department co-sponsors the event.
- RSOs may not reserve rooms for ‘study sessions.’
Three-Strike System
Groups may receive a strike and/or lose reservation privileges, in addition to policy violations listed above, for the following reasons:
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Reservation Penalty/ No-show Policy
The following measure will result in one strike for each occurrence unless otherwise stated.
- Failure to attend reservation will result in a No-Show.
- All reservations must be canceled 24 hours prior to booking. Failure to cancel within 24-hours will result in one strike. Late cancellations are considered a no-show.
- Late arrival of over 20 minutes.
- Failure to use at least 75% of requested reservation space. Records will be kept by the SAC Front Desk.
- Reservations under one hour are exempt.
- Study sessions are strictly prohibited and if observed by the SAC Staff.
- Groups that reserve study sessions will receive one warning notification of policy (placed on EMS warning) after the first offense and lose all reservation privileges after the second offense.
- Inaccurate attendance count (including under- and over-capacity) during peak times (i.e., reserving the Hearing Room for a weekly 7 p.m. meeting for five people).
- Misuse of facilities, which includes, but is not limited to the following:
- Altering or damaging of furniture or walls of conference rooms
- Use of glitter
- Failure to notify the SAC Staff that additional cleaning is to be expected following the reservation due to food and other substance.
- The use of alcohol and illegal substances is strictly prohibited on SAC premises. The discovery of such use by an organization will result in an immediate disbarment of facility use. The specified duration of disbarment will be a matter of the SAC Governing Board.
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Day-to-day Reservation Penalty/No-Show Procedure and Appeal
Groups that receive a reservation penalty or a no-show penalty for a violation of the policies prescribed above will be penalized under the Three-Strike System.
- First offense: Email follow-up with policy notification; no action taken.
- Second offense: Email notification; EMS warning put on the group.
- Third offense: Group will be scheduled for a hearing with the SACGB. The SACGB will issue a sanction which can result in the group losing booking privileges in EMS for the SAC until the end of the current academic semester:
- All reservations following the sanction are canceled until the beginning of the new academic semester.
- Renewal period will coincide with the opening of fall reservations on August 1.
- Groups that have had booking privileges revoked may petition the SACGB to reauthorize the group’s reservation privileges.
