Student Activities budget explained

The Norwich student activities office has been known in the past for bringing bands and entertainers such as Reel Big Fish, Bo Burnham and Dropkick Murphy's to campus.

This entertainment is financed from an account known as student activities; every year Norwich bills its students a fee for entertainment such as movies and other campus entertainment including karaoke in the mill on Friday nights.

Greg McGrath, director of student activities. explained how the money generated by the student activities fee is allocated.  

Students will be charged $338 for the 2010-2011 academic school year, according to www.norwich.edu.

Multiply the $338 by the roughly 2,200 students who have to pay the fee and the result is $743,600, which some students say is high for the entertainment provided.

"The student activities fee is allocated to various campus departments and programs, supporting "student activities" in the broadest sense," said McGrath. "Examples under my supervision include support for student clubs and club sports; the Student Government Association; the Wise Campus Center; the Campus Activities Board, including weekly programming, Junior Weekend, campus entertainers, campus movies, Winter Carnival, bus trips (skiing, athletics, shopping), etc.

"Examples from other departments and programs include intramurals; Corps activities (Cavalry, Band, Artillery, and Drill); programs offered by through the Center for Civic Engagement; Residence Life programming; MLK Day celebrations; Labor Day Picnic, etc.," McGrath continued.

CAB (campus activities board) books entertainment such as yoga classes, ballroom dancing and weekly movies. Some students say this entertainment is not satisfying for college students.

"Quantity of CAB events and activities has increased exponentially in the past three years. This has been due mostly to the opportunities in the new WCC, and a focus on weekly programs such as Pub Quiz, ballroom dancing, a coffee house series, yoga classes, coffee nights, etc.," said McGrath.

Students have been grumbling about  the deterioration in entertainment for special events such as Junior Ring weekend and winter carnival.

There have been comedians the past two years and the problem is they are entertaining a private college crowd, and they have been limited with their jokes. Bo Burnham couldn't tell a majority of his jokes because the nature of his entertainment was not felt appropriate, according to Adam Edgerton, a junior criminal justice major from Greene, Maine.

Norwich students are creating groups on Facebook pleading with entertaining celebrities to come perform at Junior Ring next year.

A recent group was targeting Miley Cyrus in particular to come play at the event.  The group was created in early May and as of press time had 50 fans hoping for an appearance from Cyrus.

Although it is clear that an entertainer such as Miley Cyrus is out of the budget  it is a way of students expressing that they want bigger names to perform.

"Junior Weekend participation/turnout has been dismal for bands in the past.  The cost for a band with name recognition is not affordable for us and turnout certainly does not justify the expense." McGrath said. "Turnout has been near 400 each of the past two years for the comedy event portion of Junior Weekend. There were only roughly 200-300 students at Our Lady Peace (2006), Armor for Sleep (2007), & Reel Big Fish (2008). I'm not sure what the turnout was for Dropkick Murphy's in 2005, but that was serendipitous timing for my predecessor as the group had not yet become as well-known and expensive as they are today."

If the student activities budget is raised to an even $500 per student that puts the budget at $1.1 million.