BJC, Campus Recreation, Center for Performing Arts Present Allocation Request To Student Fee Board
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The University Park Student Fee Board reconvened Friday morning to hear allocation request presentations from the Bryce Jordan Center, Campus Recreation, and Penn State’s Center for the Performing Arts.
BJC Assistant General Manager Phil Stout presented a level funding request of $225,000 to be used primarily to support student ticket subsidies. The Board motioned to enter a closed executive session during the BJC presentation in an effort to preserve the contractual information of possible future performers currently in negotiation with the center that have yet to be announced.
Amy Vashaw, Hope Falk and George Trudeau, Director of the CPA and an associate clinical professor in the College of Arts and Architecture, then presented their organization’s proposal.
“We love to see the students come to performances, and we want to keep that going,” Trudeau said, claiming that 25 to 30 percent of the audience at CPA-organized shows are students.
Trudeau said that the CPA primarily uses its fee funding to bolster ticket subsidies and reduce the cost of attending on-campus performances for students. These ticket subsidies account for most of the association’s $220,200 total allocation request.
Vashaw and Falk outlined their plans for a new program they titled Illumination, inspired by an annual lantern festival in Atlanta called the Beltline Parade and supported by the association’s opportunity fund. Their Penn State version will focus on how different cultures around the world celebrate using light, and will feature various lantern-making workshops before a festival and parade next Spring.
Vashaw described the project as a “celebration of who we are as Penn State through the arts.”
The pair also announced the expansion of CPA’s classical music-focused Coffee House events, which allow students to connect with artists and recently partnered with the university’s coffee club .
Senior Director of Campus Recreation Laura Hall then presented her organization’s plans and request.
Hall noted that Campus Recreation has added about 400 new student employment positions over the past several years, and pays over $2 million in student employee wages per year. She outlined the organization’s recent successes, including the offering of new fitness classes, an initiative that taught 45 international students how to swim, and increased fitness center membership participation from faculty and staff.
“Our basic philosophy is that we reinvest the money invested in us by the student fees, and we put that right back in the pockets of students as best we can,” Hall said.
The organization’s allocation request totaled $4,848,000, which represents an increase of approximately 2.5 percent over last year’s total allocation of $4,732,232.
Hall’s future goals included the completion of the ongoing renovation of the west campus recreational fields, an evaluation of the McCoy Natatorium, and planned updates to the Stone Valley Recreation Center.
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