The opinion pages included some thought-provoking ideas that stemmed from what I am going call a couple misconceptions regarding how Programming Council spends the allocated budget it receives each year (“BU must be more transparent about where its money is going” April 17, p. 8). Last summer, PC made an agreement with a local Segway dealer. As a result, PC obtained two Segway units to use on campus for advertising and promotion purposes. The intent of the purchase was to end the comments we received from students that went something like “I would have gone, but I didn’t hear about it until it was too late,” which we heard too often from many students regarding multiple events.
It became clear advertising and promoting events was an area the council needed to enhance in some way. Segways allow PC members to quickly get to both ends of campus. Segways also garner attention from anyone who sees one. Segways allow riders to easily talk to students, hand out information about an event and continue riding. The PC Segways are clearly doing their job: In only a week and a half of promotion using the Segways, we have distributed more than 10 times the amount of club cards we normally would have for an event like the April 19 concert. They are getting attention, they have enabled us to distribute information and they are turning heads.
And yes, Segways are expensive and typically not something the PC budget can afford. But these specific models were heavily discounted after a rather long timeframe of negotiating, and they were not purchased with the money PC receives from the undergraduate student fee. They were purchased using additional funds that PC receives through sponsorships from outside companies who work with PC to help promote their brand or cause on campus. Bottom line: The Segways you see on campus were not purchased with students’ money who would have otherwise been spent elsewhere. They were funded entirely by PC, without dipping into the undergraduate student fee fund.
Josef Rogers
CAS ’08
Co-president
Programming Council
