Picture this you walk into a room, where a great campus event has been scheduled. You’re expecting to see a huge crowd, people packed to the door with standing room only. Instead what you actually get is a room with the maximum crowd of about 8 people. Your first instinct is to ask if this is the right room, you find out that it is. The next few moments you spend pondering to yourself why you and the other 7 people there are the only one’s who have showed up.
This may seem very familiar to you, if you frequent many of our on-campus events. Yes, of course bingo and other games where you win things or get free stuff are usually pretty well attended, but these aren’t the only events that happen on this campus. Each month the campus is flooded with various activities and performers, many of which are actually very good. The events cover a wide range of topics and interests, not to sound cliché but there is something there for everyone. So if the problem isn’t that the events are good, hmm I wonder what it could be.
Maybe the problem lies in the student’s themselves. Shocked right, it couldn’t be well if you think about it, it actually could be. There is no way that a student can say they didn’t know about an on-campus event unless they were living under a rock. Even then I’m sure you could still find out about the events occurring on campus. There are various means in which student’s are informed about activities. Which include flyers, a monthly event calendar, and daily e-mails to inform you of that day’s upcoming events. What more do you want, a personal invitation to each event?
Julie DeMoss, Coordinator of Student Events, believes that student’s should take a more active approach to choosing what activities come to campus. Most students will not take that initiative though; they would rather make excuses and complain. The excuse about not enjoying what is brought to campus is not a valid one, especially if you don’t take the time to make any suggestions about activities that could be brought to campus. The events that occur on campus aren’t pulled out of thin air, they come from a collaborative effort of student’s and staff from the C.A.M.P organization. C.A.M.P stands for Campus Activities and Multicultural Programming; this is an organization that is open to all students. Members of C.A.M.P attend conferences and hold meetings where they choose the activities that come to campus. You don’t even have to join to just make a suggestion for an activity that you think the campus would enjoy. Most students don’t even attempt to do this though. According to Ms. Demoss, participation in C.A.M.P has been surprisingly low this year, compared to the number of students that are on campus.
When it comes down to it the main reason for student’s not participating is just the simple fact that we don’t make an effort to. This is very troubling because on average the campus spends about $50,000 dollars a year to plan and schedule various campus activities. It’s just a shame that many of us don’t take advantage of the great activities that are brought to campus. There shouldn’t be anyone complaining about there not being anything to do on campus, because there is usually something to do. The activities are there but the will and drive of the student’s to go out and participate just isn’t there.
In the end it all rests on the student’s because we can help decide who and what comes to campus and we can also decide whether or not we attend the activities. The next time you attend an event with a low turn-out of students just think of it as you taking a more hands on approach when it comes to your tuition dollars.