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By Tom Tiballi
It’s almost 9 at night on a Monday, and I want to watch “Ax-Men” on the History Channel.
But not tonight.
Tonight I’ve got a date with Spectrum, the over-weight ne’er do-well of SUNY Fredonia that somehow has found enough to brag about to get a chip on her shoulder. I didn’t ask for it, it was more of a blind date. I blindly walked into their office repeatedly over the past week, asked to speak with some one – anyone, and was stared at…blindly.
So they tell me to come to the bi-monthly meeting and test my luck there.
Like I said, it’s nearly 9, but the doors are already shut by the time I arrive. I can’t necessarily say I am surprised. I pop a squat outside their meeting at a desk in the lobby, positioned ever-so to be able to drop eves on what Spectrum is up to tonight. Then when there seems to be an opening, I can go inside and ask my questions -- a short list of six or so.
Within five minutes, the cops show. We're closer to Fred Fest than I realized.
“I get nervous in front of crowds!” one jokes to the other as they are ushered in to the meeting, hands on his holsters, presumably to brief those in attendance on their responsibilities during the upcoming Fred Fest extravaganza. You know, how do deal with dudes trying to pee on the grass, girls trying to explain how the water in their Dasani bottles started to blush pink – typical college crowd control.
By now its 9:11, and I am starting to feel the pangs of remorse at having traded in my nice gigantic couch and television for a folding chair in a lobby. Just as I thought the show was waning, the cops finish up and meander out into the hall. “You can’t make me laugh!” one says. I believe the show I am witnessing must be a comedy.
Finally, at 9:19 the first exodus of bleary faces staring out from full sweat suits, grappling the responsibilities some unknown authority has just delegated to them during Fred Fest weekend, our designated weekend of “fun.” Another, even more depressed looking group files out 10 minutes later.
Finally, my cue has come.
I step in and am promptly stared down by the stragglers left in the room. Could be the hair-do. A few official-types are still mustering around, shuffling their photocopies. I smile at the first to meet my eye.
“Hi! I am from the Journalism department and I…”
By then I could already tell I wasn’t going to get anything here, with people’s lips pursed, eyebrows raised, sticks firmly implanted … well, we won’t say that here.
“We’re not doing any more interview… things, no.” she hissed. I smiled wider. “Well, I’ll just go ahead and put you down as ‘no comment’ then if you’d like”. “OK,” she growled as she tried to make an even more bitter face.
It’s a good thing I recorded “Ax Men” or she might have seen the end of it.
In many ways, over that 35-minute span I was exposed to exactly the same Spectrum I have been in the past three years, on a smaller level. A student, sitting around aimlessly, wondering what they are up to behind those closed doors and being disappointed when they don't deliver.
The organization rarely seems to feel an obligation to explain itself as to how it has made its decisions, and to a certain extent it’s only natural that its leaders would tire of the troublemakers who fuss over anything they do.
But when are few troublemakers more accurately described as a voices for a campus-wide indictment of the way Spectrum has allocated – or arguably misallocated – the funds we have entrusted to them as part of the activities fee we are all obligated to pay? Indeed, Spectrum has recently stated that its budget is private information and not available for public review (although the 2007 Fred Fest budget was made available for another reporter’s story after a Freedom of Information request).
Where does this ego derive from? Fred Fest has become the preeminent event at SUNY Fredonia, and as Spectrum’s ward, the group too has raised its status on campus and become very popular with students.
Hell, I even was in Spectrum for a few weeks freshman year. That is until I was told that there would be no vote as to who to book for the upcoming concert that Autumn of 2005. From what I recall, I was told that would be left to a governing committee of a few select students who somehow had final say.
Obviously, the technical problems inherent in trying to please everyone on campus are immense and arguably impossible to remedy. That is, however, in the constructs of what Fred Fest has become.
This is not wholly Spectrum’s fault, as various issues have compelled the campus administration to rein in the events that had been tradition on campus.
“It is largely an issue of insurance and safety,” Patty Feraldi explains. As director of alumni affairs, Feraldi does her fair share of special events planning on campus and has been a stalwart of keeping the traditional events hosted by the Alumni Association alive. The most recognizable of these is, of course, Homecoming Weekend, which has been listed as a major campus event since the 1950s, far outdating Fred Fest.
However, Homecoming Weekend and countless other weekends that had once been traditions on campus have dissipated over the past three decades, becoming more and more fractured from the type of multiday, multigroup coordinated events they had once been.
The fact that this downward trend has coincided with the birth of Fred Fest leaves one wondering if it is intended to be a consolidation of these weekend-long events that had once been held multiple times throughout the year, and if so – why is it only one day long?
Again, security issues have made the administration feel that Fred Fest could not go back to its pre-2001, multi-day format. However, the fact that there has been such erosion in coordination between groups on campus in consolidating the small events peppered throughout the year into tangible weekends with broader appeal leaves all the pressure on Spectrum to deliver for Fred Fest, and it simply is not up to the task.
Feraldi and the Alumni Association are doing their best to remedy this. This Homecoming Weekend they have been in contact with Spectrum about scheduling a fall concert to coincide with the events they themselves had planned. The goal is to round out the weekend into something a bit meatier than the traditional alumni soccer game and pep rally, but it has been difficult to coordinate.
“Part of that is there is only myself and the lady in the other room to plan it,” said Feraldi. “We do encourage anyone on campus to participate however.”
Fred Fest itself was originally sponsored by Igoe and Hendrix halls. Most of the events that would flesh out the festival weekends once so common to this place were likewise sponsored by student groups. Spectrum itself is sponsored by the students through the activities fee.
This leaves one to wonder where the ultimate responsibility lies for the mess that Fred Fest has become, and it lies with us.
We come to college and we want to mingle. We dimly remember someone once telling us that we should fight for our right to party, but they were way too huge to have ever done so here on our own stage.
But we, as a student body, should believe that to secure these rights to party, organizations are instituted among students, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. We should also believe that whenever any form of organization becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the students to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new method.
The question is, will we be too drunk to care no matter what band plays?
And if so, is Spectrum wrong in not giving a damn that we don't like Cartel? I will be watching the History Channel all weekend, regardless.
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