Many of this summer's planned social events have failed to live up to their promises. The much-touted Secret Garden dance drew relatively few students, despite omnipresent advertising and expenditures of nearly $15,000 from Class Council and other groups. Additionally, the bland Summer Carnival soaked up significant funds yet failed to stimulate student interest.
At the same time, less-expensive events, among them movie and comedy nights sponsored by the Programming Board, have consistently filled the Nugget and Collis with eager students. When the Hopkins Center did spend heavily to bring famed Cuban group Los Fakires to the BEMA earlier this month, students, faculty and others turned out en masse to hear the band perform.
Why do some events -- even when extensively planned, well-funded, well-intentioned and crafted by student groups -- fail to meet their potential, while others succeed?
The organizers of the Secret Garden certainly cannot be faulted for their lack of energy in putting together the event, which had been planned for months and which seemed a pleasant outdoor alternative to stifling fraternity basements. The event was well-organized, featured several bands and was carried out without mishap, yet many of the students who attended stayed for only minutes to take advantage of the food that was provided.
The problem lies not in the execution of these events, but in their conception. Secret Garden, a new event for which student interest had not been established, was nonetheless allocated thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, proven crowd-pleasers such as movie nights and big-name performers justify their expenditures as events that have demonstrated their popularity with students. Non-Greek dance parties in and of themselves are not doomed to failure: the freshman year Screw-Your-Roommate dance and the Drag Ball have been reliably well-attended events. Yet if students -- or College administrators -- wish to spend exorbitant amounts of money on student programming, they must first gauge whether their popularity will justify their cost.
In light of major cutbacks in the College's budget, many typically well-funded groups (such as those in the Tucker Foundation) may face challenges in the coming year. Student Assembly, which gave its $1,000 Summer term donation to help fund the Secret Garden, has an opportunity to put the money to more productive use.
The trend of needless and wasteful overspending looks set to continue, as students working with the Student Activities Office hope to spend $8,500 on renovations to Poison Ivy, the dance club that has become a byword for administrative miscalculation. Future spending, if it is to prove a success, must learn from the lessons of past events and think twice before lavishing limited funds on questionable projects.
