Newsfeed
Printer-Friendly ModePoor event planning hurts students, organizations
February 19, 2007 —
I wish this was a review of how wonderful it was to see local bands get a chance on campus, and how great it was that SVSU students were finally given a chance to be exposed to their music.
But it's not. Instead, I have to write about who put it on and what went wrong. And this is a topic that I am getting tired of writing about.
Last week, Cardinal Sins held their Slamaramaglamajama, and Program Board held the first show of their three-part Coffee House Series. Both events were similar in that they each featured various local music acts, both were free, and both were great alternatives to what most kids do after class.
The similarities continue. They are also where the problem arises.
Both were on the same day, began within an hour of each other, and were right down the hall from one another.
While the intentions of both organizations were noble in that they brought something to SVSU that this campus has so desperately needed for a long time, the fact that they clearly chose not to work together and even build competition between one another, shows that this school is still very far away from getting this act right.
If you read the Vanguard at all, you've probably noticed that events like these are something that I have been a big supporter of, and have been calling for more of them ever since my first week at the paper. So when I saw that there was finally going to be an outlet for local music here at SVSU, you can imagine how ecstatic I was. But when I read further down each flier and found both events occurred during my Wednesday night class, I couldn't help but feel slighted. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one.
How many students missed two great events, simply because a couple of organizations decided they needn't attempt to coordinate their efforts?
The goal of organizations like these should be to make each student's stay at SVSU the best it can be. Unfortunately through a move like this, however big a step forward Cardinal Sins and Program Board may have taken this past week, they took an equal one back.
Why not work together? Some students may have even been lucky enough to catch both events. Instead, many of them missed both, and to me, that just seems counterproductive. By choosing not to work together, the organizations themselves also missed out on a great opportunity.
By simply holding their respective events on different days, they would have ensured more students would have attended, gotten to know more about their organization, and quite possibly even decided to join.
However, I will laud both Cardinal Sins as well as Program Board for bringing two wonderful events to campus.
Along with the concert scheduled for Saturday in the Multipurpose Room, hopefully these are signs of better things to come for SVSU.
So now I must ask this of all student run organizations wanting to put on an event: please check around and make sure the day is open so it doesn't overlap with another that may be similar to - or in this case, exactly the same as - yours.
I understand that scheduling can be extremely difficult, but in terms of this, I'm sure you all can make a stronger effort, for the students' benefit.
And that's what should really matter.