To assume is Ludacris

Background:

This past spring at ETSU, the SGA raised the student activities fee from $4 to $20. The purpose of this was to be able to pay a big-name musician to come perform a concert at homecoming in leu of a football game. (ETSU does not have a football team.)

During exam week, a poll was emailed to students seeking input as to what act students would like to see. In typical University SGA fashion, out of about 11,000 students, approximately 400 responded. A list was compiled and the SGA started at number 1 and went down the list until they found somebody who was not already booked and who would be willing to come play a college gig. That led them to number 17, Ludacris, who agreed. (and who recieved 40 votes on the initial survey)

All semester since I joined the ETSU community there has been heated debate on campus about the appropriateness of Ludacris as the headline act for homecoming. He's not my style, but I decided that if 40 of my classmates want to go see him, they can be my guest.

Which brings me to this week:

The Ludacris concert has been cancelled. This is due to lack of venue. The SGA looked into having the concert on the intramural fields and in the mini-dome. Everclear came to the Intramural fields last year and apparently there were problems with that which make that venue not possible. The fire marshall said no to the mini-dome. So, the SGA decided to use Freedom Hall in Johnson City. They then formally announced the concert to the student population, causing great anticipation in some, great anger in others, and much publicity between the two sides.

Now, the City Manager has denied the SGA's request to use Freedom Hall, citiing safety reasons and previous riots associated with Ludacris. And the SGA is furious because, as they claim, the city backtracked on a deal in an act of "censorship."

To talk to most members of the SGA, the evil city government of Johnson City is at fault, because they don't care about the students of ETSU. Here's something to think about though. The Ludacris concert was "scheduled" for October 27. The city manager denied the request to use Freedom Hall THIS WEEK!! He did not revoke a request that had already been approved, he denied a first-time request. It is the first week of October.

The SGA knew in May that Ludacris was coming, they announced a date and time, yet they NEVER had contract for a concert venue. If the city manager was going to deny this request, why did this not happen in June? Beause the SGA Assumed that they would be able to use freedom hall, and as such drug their feet in actually securing the venue. As a result, there is no concert because there's no place to have it.

If the SGA had been on the ball, the concert may still have been denied, but they would have had time to find someone else. Instead, they announced that Ludacris would come before they had everything put together. Now, they are trying to find someone, anyone, other than themselves to blame. I am not stupid though, I can see who is to blame. The members of the ETSU Student Government, specifically the Homecoming Committee, are personally responsible.

Rather than wasting the time of the city council (of whose meeting I attended this evening: I'll blog about that tomorow) to blame them, why not blame your own school for not having a facility adequate for such an endeavor, which is the reason you had to look at an off-campus location in the first place. Or even more appropriate, they should blame themselves for acting irresponsibly. The fact that they are looking everywhere except the mirror for someone to blame, even though it is clearly a problem of their own doing, calls into question the integrity of the members of SGA.

The fact is, they are the ones who announced the concert without having everything in place. They assumed, and as a former boss of mine used to tell me, when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME. And THAT, my friends, is Ludacris.

Grace and Peace,

Jim