Fifteen hundred students went to the Back Bay Ball. Three thousand attended Putt-Putt and Pancakes. Five thousand saw a movie on the BU Beach.
It was a banner year for the Student Union Programming Council, which planned most of the best-attended events of the 2003-04 academic year.
And after two semesters of successful student events, Programming Council Chair Mike Pereira said the council plans to continue its mission of uniting the BU campus next year.
The council is currently moving into the planning stages for future events, he said. The group works with the Dean of Students Office and the Student Activities Office during the process.
Pereira, a School of Hospitality Administration junior, said the council will “use the summer to evaluate as a whole and evaluate each individual program.”
The council organizes both programming for specific groups – such as the yearlong afterDARK series, a night time café open on the first Friday of every month – and events to attract the entire campus – such as Back Bay Ball, which Pereira said had the greatest mix of students.
Pereira said the Programming Council plans to turn afterDARK into a permanent area for student entertainment. The program is one of the ones the council will decide on this summer with SAO Assistant Director and council advisor Jeff Murphy.
“Their goals for programming are to deliver high-quality, diverse and fun programs to the most people possible,” Murphy said in an email. “[The Programming Council] has planned great large-scale events like Putt-Putt and Pancakes, but has also held several smaller-scale programs, like the Freestyle Hip-Hop contest during the late-night afterDARK series and the Gingerbread house-building contest.”
Murphy said he was thankful for the support of the Dean of Students Office, which has been influential in all of the programs this year, providing a portion of the money for all of the year’s events.
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore, who attended many of the events himself, said his favorite was Putt-Putt and Pancakes, which he hopes will be bigger next year. He added that has been very impressed by what the Programming Council has done this year.
“I think they’ve done a fabulous job,” Elmore said. “No administrator can substitute what students are living and doing.”
Murphy said students think up all of the events. His role is to help plan and evaluate whether or not ideas will be feasible or successful.
The Programming Council will also be absorbing the Student Union Service Council next year, Pereira said. Some new events they will be running include the first annual Relay for Life, which will work to raise money to research a cure for cancer. Programming Council will also be taking over the Mr. and Miss Boston University pageant next year, he said.
School of Management senior Paul Halayko said he was unimpressed by the Programming Council’s publicity efforts for their events this year. That might have held some of them back.
“They definitely don’t promote nearly enough,” Halayko said. “My roommate happened to find a flier.”
But College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Sam Mascuch said despite criticism she respected the council’s hard work.
“A lot of work goes into planning an event,” she said. “I think they catch a lot of flack for the amount of work that they do.”