University of Iowa Rises to Party School Standards

            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.”