Student Activities Board Begin Preparations for Academic Year Events

On September 17th, The New School’s Student Activities Board, or SAB for short, held its second meeting at Arnold Hall/55 West 13th Street to prepare for the new academic school year events.

Old and new members gathered together for the second time Friday evening in the Office of Student Development and Activities, or OSDA’s conference room swapping ideas while enjoying some light refreshments. While everyone gets a chance to speak a designated person is chosen to write down everything that is said. It can be a tedious job, but its done in order to inform all the members of what was talked about and for those who were not able to attend, a chance for them to catch up by the time the next meeting is scheduled.

Formed in Fall 2008 by a few university students who were eager for events to occur throughout the academic year, with the help of Shannon Logan, Director of OSDA, it was made possible. Logan isn’t your typical sponsor. While most sponsors run the organization, Logan is only present to make sure that the meeting’s agenda gets done. “The students do everything else—the event planning, the budget constraints, and anything else that must be done,” Logan adds, “They can actually do everything on their own. I have enough trust in them. I’m just there to help it get its approval.”

With an undisclosed yearly budget (with the help of OSDA’s yearly budget as well), the amount is large enough to where the members feel that many events should be done. A few of the events that were talked about included the Children’s Halloween Party, Thanksgiving Dance, Midnight Breakfast, Spring Extravaganza, and the much-needed Seek Relief Week that occurs twice a year during university final’s week.

Maria Bossman-Damiba, junior at Eugene Lang College has been a part of SAB since Fall 2009. “If students knew how much money we get to plan events for them, they would be shocked, but the events are always for a good cause.” As Bossman-Damiba stated, each event either has a donation or entry fee that will go to charity. In the past, charities included Make-A-Wish Foundation and Big Brother Big Sister.

But not everything always goes as planned. Last year SAB held a Casino Night for the second year that cost them a few thousands of dollars. Renting out gambling tables, pool tables, and even a professional staff of dealers, only a total of $300 was raised for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. When incidents like this occur, SAB learn from their mistakes to make sure it doesn’t happen again and look forward.

The first event of the year was the Freshman Orientation Open Mic Night. About one hundred incoming students (including transfers) attended the event. For two hours, they enjoyed performances by their own peers, munched on some snacks, and got the chance to make new friends. The event was also a chance to recruit new members. By the end of the night, about fifteen students signed up for the organization.

“It was really great to see the list fill up,” Logan said, “SAB [and OSDA] are still relatively unknown to the university, but we’re slowly getting our name out there.”

The first university-wide event was The University Block Party held on September 2, 2010. The street in front of the Johnson-Kapplan Building was shut down for a few hours in order for the university students, professors and directors to enjoy free food, gifts, and music provided by the university’s Jazz students.

The next university-wide event will be the Thanksgiving Dance held on Friday, November 20, 2010.