While we understand that Homecoming, from its inception, has been about alumni returning “home,” Homecoming should equally be a celebration for the student body. This is in light of the fact that Student Activities Board receives a larger chunk of money from the Student Activities Fee than any other Chartered Student Organization.
Since we as students are funding the organization that is responsible for student life, we deserve more than poorly marketed events and a half-heartedly attended Homecoming concert.
For example, few students knew about the free barbecue that occurred at Tegeler Field shortly before the Homecoming game.
It seemed as if people who happened to be wandering through the quad at the time were the ones who attended the quad events. The small fan-following of Tonic could probably be the cause of the low attendance for the Homecoming concert.
This hardly excuses the relatively small number of student events that were made available for us. We can see this when we go to one of the two online sites – one of which was relatively obscure – where Homecoming was marketed. The Saint Louis University website had Homecoming on its front page; but upon clicking it, we found a long itinerary of events that alumni could attend, which included everything from dinners to shows at The Fabulous Fox Theatre. There was not a student schedule listed anywhere on the pages that it linked to.
The only place, after much research, where there was a student schedule listed was on SLU Connection. It was posted Sept. 16 – long enough before Homecoming and obscurely enough that students hardly knew where to find a student schedule by the time Homecoming arrived.
SAB needs to do more to market to students, through all available channels.
The lack of focus on the student body this year, especially compared to the grandiose campaign last year, is disheartening and disenchanting. We expect more from SAB.
The icing on the cake is this: there is a poll on SLU Connection asking us whether Homecoming was A.) A Blast!, or B.) A Blast! While voter apathy is not usually something that’s encouraged, perhaps it’s more truthful and representative in this case to not vote on the poll at all.