Currently, Wentzell says he squeezes dozens of groups into the MAC's 92-hour week by scheduling many activities at "crazy" hours, on Friday evenings and weekend mornings.

"We have had a space Sunday morning nine to 11," Shoenhals says. "It's been pretty open to us for those two hours, which I think is as much time as any group can get it."

Leaders of six undergraduate dance and recreation organizations interviewed say that two hours of practice a week is inadequate, but that they are thankful they are given any time at all.

Other groups say the MAC is not adequate for their work.

"We have a hard time using the MAC space," says Amy Shoenhals '96 of the Harvard-Radcliffe Ballet Company. "We can't do point work on the MAC floor, so we only use the MAC for rehearsals. We rehearse in soft shoes, and the floor is slippery and is not really safe."

Yoga Contortions

The case of Harvard Health and Fitness, a University of Health Services (UHS) organization which sponsors health and exercise classes for University faculty and staff, demonstrates the tight squeeze on space at the MAC.

This summer Wentzell informed Health and Fitness that its popular daily yoga classes would no longer be able to use space at the MAC. The group ended up renting space off-campus, according to its director Annemarie Calhoun.

She said yoga classes had used rooms adjacent to the wrestling's teams room, which had in the past also been used by a student-oriented yoga class.

A change this summer in Ivy League regulations decreased the total number of hours wrestlers could practice with the team, but allows the coach to spend additional time with a small number of wrestlers.

Coach of Wrestling Jay Weiss says he needs the room at all times, in order to practice with wrestlers who have free time at lunch or other points in the day, and thus he asked Wentzell to move the student yoga classes out of the room.

Because undergraduate athletics take priority over non-student use, student yoga classes were moved to the adjacent practice rooms and Harvard Health and Fitness was told it could no longer use the MAC.

"We had to take some time back," says Wentzell. "Harvard Health and Fitness is a guest in our facility and we have been extremely kind to them over the years, but the wrestling team needs more time."

Calhoun says that her group looked for space on campus but eventually had to rent rooms at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.

"Undergraduates take priority," she says. "The interest by faculty and staff is growing and it would be great to find one space, but there just isn't any."