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ACBU drops ball with no concert

About a month ago, the Activities Council seemed pretty adamant on hosting a spring concert.
Its members told the Scout they were working hard to find a band students would enjoy, and plans to host the concert in the Civic Center, rather than on campus, not only made it easier for Bradley, but appealed more to prospective bands.
So some students may have been pretty surprised to read in this edition of the Scout that the concert isn’t happening. But frankly, I’m not.
A month ago, an ACBU member said the group was basing its band selection on student feedback surveys, but she said she didn’t know what these surveys said. She couldn’t even specify if ACBU was looking to bring a country, rap or rock band to campus.
It’d be pretty hard for ACBU to actively search for a band students wanted to hear if it didn’t know what genre to look for. If a genre isn’t a starting point in looking for bands, I don’t know what is.
So something doesn’t add up. The group either wasn’t completely honest about looking for a band students wanted to hear, or it was dishonest about even looking for a band at all.
There’s no reason to point fingers. It’s not that any one person in ACBU is responsible.
But the organization should know it really dropped the ball. Bradley only gets the opportunity to have two concerts a year, so this is a huge loss for students.
Last year, the fall concert was cancelled, which was out of the organization’s control. But because students only got to enjoy one concert last year, ACBU should have worked especially hard to make sure students got the two concerts they deserved this year.
And students do deserve concerts. After all, we pay for them. The money for concerts is taken from an activities fee which is included in everyone’s tuition money – a fee which is also increasing from $35 to $65 next year.
Bradley concerts are especially important, because Peoria doesn’t have much of a music scene. Few bands, especially those college kids enjoy listening to, make way to the city.
ACBU is made up of students. Understandably, they have classes and other obligations to devote their time to.
However, taking a leadership role in ACBU is making a promise to students. It’s saying that you will devote your time and efforts for the better of the student body. It’s members’ job to make ACBU a priority.
It wouldn’t be fair for us to decide at the Scout that we weren’t going to print for a week or two, because we didn’t have the adequate time to devote to making a paper.
And because there are always hundreds of bands touring the country, the only assumption one can make about ACBU not finding one is that it started research too late or didn’t work hard enough.
ACBU should have some extra money stored up from not hosting as many concerts as planned. So all I can say, is next year we better see something above our average price range.
It’s unfortunate the money will be from some students’ tuition who have already graduated, but the rest of us still deserve it.
Don’t let us down again.
Emily Regenold is a junior journalism major from Cincinnati. She is the Scout news editor.
Direct questions, comments and other responses to eregenold@mail.bradley.edu
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