University
of Iowa students had something to celebrate when the Princeton Review’s top 20 party schools list was announced and the
University of Iowa became the number two party school. University officials,
however, had a different reaction to this announcement.
While
the Princeton Review has no real
authority over the schools it rates, it had become popular with the students
and something that people have come to look forward to each year. “It doesn’t
mean anything to me but I love to see how high we have gotten on the list,”
said Lizzy Metcalf, University of Iowa senior. “I take pride in seeing my
school get achievements, especially if it’s for partying. It says we are fun.”
The
Princeton Review surveys college students
and uses their answers to determine how the college ranks next to others. Each
college is given a score, similar to a GPA, for their student answers to each multiple-choice
question. Those scores enable them to compare the students’ opinion from
college to college. Those are the sole factors that determine which schools make
it into their list.
There
is no input from collegiate administrators or professors to these assessments,
only the student body perspective of each school. This obviously means that the
opinions don’t reflect the views of the entire student body. Around 122,000
students at 377 of the top colleges were surveyed for this year’s reviews.
Molly
Golemo, staff member in Center for Student Involvement and Leadership (CSIL),
was extremely disappointed in this standing. Molly advises student
organizational groups on campus such as CAB whose mission is to provide quality
entertainment on campus as an alternative to high-risk behavior. “As our
standing moves higher up on the list of “party schools” according to the Princeton Review, it makes it seem as if
I’m not doing my duty on this campus,” said Golemo. “I’m not sure if it is
because I’m not offering good alternatives or I’m not offering enough
alternatives, because students at this University are still frequently visiting
the bars more than our events in the past year.”
So
what is the university doing to draw its students away from the downtown bars
and drinking parties?
The
University of Iowa has over 500 student organizations and businesses with many
of them dedicated to fixing the university’s party problem such as CAB, the Englert
Theater, Scope, and Late Night at Iowa. However, having these organizations but
not backing them with sufficient funds is no solution at all.
Three
years ago, when the Iowa City downtown district began its fight with the
21-Ordinace, the university granted these organizations and many more much more
money than they were used to in hopes that they could help steer students away
from the bars. Once the 21-Ordinace took effect, however, the university slowly
abandoned this plan and not only took away the extra funds but about twenty
percent of the funds that were originally in place.
Campus Activities Board (CAB)
CAB
is an organization dedicated to bringing sober events to campus. They bring
comedy, music, movies, and late night events to campus and almost always for
free. A new extension to their group has been there roads committee, which
takes students off campus to different destinations like sports games and
concerts for a low-ticket price.
CAB
president, Corinne Farrel, said, “We are working hard to put on events every
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night but you have to wonder if we should be
focusing on quality over quantity with our few funds.” Right after the
21-Ordinance went into play CAB and several other organizations were provided a
raise in their budgets to help draw the students’ attention away from the bars.
“Now that the 21-Ordinance is “old news” we are getting these much needed funds
taken away and in fact losing the budgets we once had,” said Farrel.
CAB’s
small comedian shows, on average, bring in 20 – 60 people whereas there “Big
Comedy” shows bring in 500 when they have a maximum space of 1,100 seats. This
doesn’t look good when booking an artist can cost as much as $20,000. These
statistics are what the university looks at when distributing yearly budgets.
The Englert Theatre
The
Englert Theatre, located in downtown Iowa City, is a community arts center and
performance space. The Englert is famous for its old time feel on its exterior
and interior. It has been a part of the Iowa City tradition since 1912. They
bring various events such as movies, comedians, musicians, and magicians to the
downtown community.
“We
like to work with student organizations that can help promote us to students
and gets our space used regularly,” said Sarah Kosch, front of house services manager
for the Englert Theatre. The Englert Theatre staff collaborates with CAB on a
Midnight Movie Series that shows a movie at 11:59pm on Saturday nights once a
month. There is usually a solid attendance of 50 people at each showing.
The
Englert’s shows are almost always sold out even though they are not free. “We
have a great following of community members that are loyal to us and our
events,” said Kosch.
Associated Resident Hall Association (ARH)
Another
organization on campus dedicated to bringing sober events to campus is the
Associated Residence Hall Association (ARH). This student-run organization is dedicated
solely to the University of Iowa resident halls and their residents.
“Student feedback is essential to our
organization,” said Sean Ryan, ARH executive director. “We only want to offer
things that the students want to do otherwise it is a waste of time.” The
feedback, however, is hard to get out of people when they don’t know what they
want until its right in front of them. “We never get suggestions for new events
because the students that come already like what we are putting out, they don’t
need anything else.”
Scope
Scope
is a student-run organization at the University of Iowa that brings quality
concerts and entertainment to campus and the surrounding community. Scope is
easily one of the biggest and best, in terms of attendance, student organizations
that they university has at this time. “Nearly all of our shows sell out with
minimal marketing, we bring things that we, and students like us, would want to
see,” said Zoey Miller, Scope’s marketing director.
Scope
has recently begun booking venues in the downtown Iowa City area and even the
Iowa City bars as places to hold their shows. The Mill has hosted many of
Scope’s smaller shows. How do they get away this you ask? Places like The Mill
have a backrooms and side areas that allow the bar to “close down” their
alcohol selection and only have underage beverages served.
A
question that hangs over all of these organization’s heads is, “How do we get
people to come to our events?”
“We
market like crazy every week by putting out posters, our various social media
sites, our website, and other street team ideas but nothing seems to change,”
says Kevin Deluca, CAB’s marketing director. He thinks it may have come to the
point where so many different organizations are marketing in so many different
ways, the students are just seeing it as white fuzz.
One
of the biggest helps to the Iowa City 21-Ordinance is the addition of new businesses
in the downtown pedestrian mall. Frozen Yogurt has begun its takeover with not
one, not two, but three shops all within two blocks of each other. By being
open-late, these stores are easily the most popular stops, next to the bars, in
the downtown area. More boutiques are also either entering the area and the old
ones have taken to revamping their look. Lorenz 2.0, local Iowa City business,
has been in the area for years but to keep up with the times they have remodeled
their store and created a new look for their window display.
Brett
Bilina, Univesity of Iowa sophomore, sees it differently. “The 21-Ordinace
limits my activities,” said Bilina. Although there are plenty of events
happening on campus every weekend, Bilina doesn’t go to them because he doesn’t
think they apply to him. “Many events just don’t work with my taste, they are
things I would never see myself at, so I don’t go.” To get Bilina to go to
events, they must be “new”. By new he means relevant topics. “The bars are
actually quite good at bringing in good artists, especially Blue Moose, which
ironically is hard for me go to because of the damn ordinance.”