Students lack participation during events
Student attendance at some recent on-campus events has been nearing the level of non-existence.
Recently, President Kermit L. Hall’s wife, Phyllis, spoke at a Friends of Libraries function, which only three Utah State University students attended.
In February, Logan Mayor Doug Thompson and other city officials came to speak to USU students as part of a neighborhood meeting organized by the Public Affairs Board, and again, fewer than 20 students showed up, and even fewer participated in the question-and-answer period.
“What you can do to get your voice better heard is to get more people to come to these things,” Thompson said at the meeting.
Why does participation in these speeches from influential people in the USU community wane?
“A lot of it is they [students] don’t even care,” said Jesse Winn, a senior majoring in Asian studies.
Winn said unless a major pop-culture icon is scheduled to speak to students, like Spike Lee, then 2,000 people aren’t going to show up to the event.
Leslie Weisenburger, a sophomore studying special education, said she will attend speeches and lectures when they sound interesting or involve high-profile individuals. She said work schedules, event times and event locations also play a major part in her decision to attend events.
The scheduling of Phyllis’ speech, a Friday at 7 p.m., might have played a part in the lack of student attendance.
“I think it’s a bad time for students to go, because they have other things to do besides go to a lecture. They want to go and play,” Weisenburger said.
Doug Beazer, a sophomore majoring in political science, said students have such busy lives, it is easy to miss the events going on around them.
“There’s too much going on, first of all,” Beazer said. “With so much going on, people stop paying attention.”
Lindsay Schiess, assistant director of Partners in Business, said typical attendance at the Partners in Business seminars is 80 percent business professionals and 20 percent students.
“It would be nice to see upwards of 40 percent [student attendance],” Schiess said.
Business students are required to take a half-credit class, which requires attendance at two Partners in Business seminars before graduation. Schiess said many of the students who attend the seminars are just trying to fulfill that requirement.
“I really think this is an opportunity that students are missing out on,” Schiess said. “For no other reasons but to benefit students, I wish more students came.”
Schiess said professional business people pay upward of $165 a day to attend the seminars, while students can attend for free.
“I would like to see greater student participation, absolutely,” she said.
Associated Students of USU Public Relations Vice President-elect Ashley Stolworthy said most students just want to hang out with each other, and there has been a major problem this year with student organization members not attending their own events.
“We don’t know if it’s because they don’t know about what’s going on, or if they just don’t want to go,” she said.
Stolworthy said she is working on creating a survey, along with Student Advocate VP-elect Les Essig to see which audiences can be targeted for activities and what kind of events students want to attend.
“As the student government, it’s our job to provide opportunities for students to be involved, but they also need to get their foot out and meet new people and come to the events,” she said. “We’re actually brainstorming new ideas to get out to the community more – more community based events.”
Improved utilization of the A-Station Web site, and use of bulletin boards around campus are ways Stolworthy said advertising could improve to get word out to students about events.
“For students who are interested in these things, we need to get the word out to them,” she said.
-str@cc.usu.edu