This fall, previous independent programming bodies such as Campus Activities Board (CAB) and Coffeehouse will be consolidated into one Programming Board, headed by recently elected Programming Board Chair first-year Stephen Stradley.
Earlier this week, the Student Activities Office named the Programming Board Committee Directors. Ranging from Cinema Arts to Musical Entertainment, these committees will play a crucial role in the formulation of next year’s student events.
In conjunction with Stradley, these committees will be in charge of planning campus-wide activities and programs.
“The new Programming Board is a combination of all the current programming bodies that exist into one,” said Assistant Director of Student Activities Leann White.
The Programming Board will be similar to campus media organizations such as KWCW radio station. It will be connected to ASWC, but the logistics of how it is run will be independent.
General Board Volunteers will help out with events, and unlike other Board members, interested students will not have to apply to be selected for this.
“We want to recruit a lot of students to bring ideas to the Programming Board and to help in the planning and production of events,” said White.
The change in programming will attempt to solve the problems that previous programming bodies had, like conflicts in scheduling between ASWC events and CAB events.
“There was too much of a break in communication between the groups, and programming works best with a lot of communication and cooperation,” said Stradley.
Though the changes in organization were in part spurred by Student Activities budget cuts, it was an opportunity to restructure Whitman programming.
“I feel like this change would be warranted and important whether or not the budget has been cut,” said White. “It’s a very positive change for programming and it’s going to make it better and easier for students to make things happen that they want to see happen.”
“I really want people to start thinking outside of the box,” said Stradley.
