By Sarah Metcalf
CUP’s hand has finally folded.
In a breach of policy intended for the good of the student body, the Budget Review Committee reallocated money to the Council for University Programs (CUP) in a last-ditch effort to replace the canceled Ludacris concert. CUP had high hopes of bringing former President Bill Clinton to campus to speak, but Clinton did not accept Northeastern’s bid.
“It would have been great for a lot of people, but we were working under a pretty tough timeline from the beginning,” said CUP President Tom Kneafsey. “It was all based on hope and nothing was 100 percent, so we were kind of prepared for the possibility of it not happening.”
The idea to bring a political speaker to campus came about right before spring break. The bid to bring Clinton to campus was put out about two weeks ago with the reallocated money, which amounted to a little less than the original fund. Clinton could not accept the bid due to prior commitments to the John F. Kerry campaign for president, however, and it appears time has run out for CUP.
“In terms of a speaker, it’s too late, is the bottom line unfortunately,” Kneafsey said.
The Clinton bid didn’t work out mainly because of time, said Brooke Tempesta, associate director of Student Activities.
“It’s disappointing we didn’t get feedback from the agency in time,” Tempesta said. “As always, I’m proud of the Northeastern students for pulling together and trying to do something positive, but it isn’t going to be able to be pulled together in time – it really was an issue of time, and I’m disappointed for the students.”
Tempesta said while Clinton will not be able to make it April 3, he said he appreciated the offer and may entertain the idea of coming to Northeastern in the future.
Student Government Assoc-iation President Michael Romano said while he was disappointed Clinton is not coming to campus, he remains optimistic about Northeastern’s programming.
“Yes, we were disappointed Clinton couldn’t come, but that’s not enough of a discouragement for us to not continue to explore and find other opportunities,” Romano said.
SGA’s Vice President for Financial Affairs Michael Benson said having a dynamic speaker like Clinton would have lifted the falling spirits of the NU community.
“Springfest was a time to rejoice, for the university to come together and after all the tragedy this year and say, ‘Hey, we’re still NU, we’re still striving to be the best,'” Benson said. “No matter what your political tendencies are, a public figure is a community builder, and [Clinton] is someone who led the free world, who is a good speaker and he would have been able to boost morale.”
Benson also said it is unfortunate the university cannot book a high-profile speaker in place of the postponed Springfest concert, because it is the seniors who are losing out.
“In the administration’s eyes, the concert is postponed, but to the seniors, there really is no ‘postponed,'” he said. “The seniors have gone through semester conversion, two different provosts and have had a rough year. In talking to them, I think they feel that they’ve been bruised and thrown around, and to a degree, I actually agree with them.”
Despite the absence of Clinton, there will be activities taking place April 3, including a service project intended to give back to the surrounding community that is still being planned.
“A lot of things are up in the air, but the idea [of a service project] is definitely very strong in the student body, and a lot of us really want that,” said Scott Minkin, president of the Resident Student Association (RSA). “There have been suggestions of cleaning up the Mission Hill area. There’s a strong student presence in that area and they share it with people who don’t have any affiliation with Northeastern, so cleaning it up would show people around that area NU students do care and do mind when quality of living is not ideal.”
Romano said the service project is not taking the place of the Ludacris concert, but instead is intended to help Northeastern students create a greater sense of community obligations.
“None of this is in replacement of Springfest – we have a responsibility, an obligation and an extremely important role to be more civily engaged within our community,” Romano said. “This is only a small ripple in what has to be a large wave.”
The service project will include a pancake breakfast as a meeting point, followed by a large volunteer effort not only in Mission Hill, but also in the Fenway and the greater Boston area.
Romano said while the service project is a beginning, repairing the rift between the community and Northeastern will require much more time, effort and work.
“No one is naive enough to discredit how deep these tensions run, but as students and as a university it was our responsibility before and our responsibility after to fill that void and, in many aspects, overflow it with acts of volunteerism and civic engagement,” he said.
The possibility of bringing Clinton to campus in the future, along with other large activities, is extremely promising due to the availability of more resources, Romano said.
“Developing more intellectually stimulating events is a primary goal of a lot of student organizations on campus,” he said. “And it’s not either/or – we could have a large concert, a large comedian, a large political speaker and still have an immense amount of flexibility to develop other program opportunities within the same year.”
Tempesta said while there will be no political speaker, that does not mean there will be nothing to do on April 3.
“We’re trying to work together and pull together, but there should be lots of little things students can jump on, or things that they can do to or say, ‘Hey, this is my way of giving back,'” she said.
