REACTION: SA meets with student body to discuss SU Showcase

Student Association President Larry Seivert addresses the audience at Monday's open meeting to discuss the fate of SU Showcase (Photo by Samantha Okazaki)

In the words of the Beastie Boys, “You gotta fight for your right to party.” That’s exactly what the masses discussed tonight at the Student Association general assembly meeting.

“I think this is another example of how the administration doesn’t consider the student voice when making decisions,” said SA presidential candidate Hari Iyer in response to the reinstatement of classes during SU Showcase, the academic fair more commonly known as “Mayfest” after the Euclid Avenue block party with which it coincides.

But instead of taking the non-conflict approach to regaining the five-year-old event, Iyer is planning to fight back.

SA presidential candidate Hari Iyer's plan to stage a party protest on Friday afternoon was met with resistance from many at the meeting. (Photo by Samantha Okazaki)

“We need to make this Friday a day of protest,” he said. “This is an official statement that this Friday we will not go to class and we will do exactly what we do on this day that was just taken away from us.” In other words, Iyer wants to throw a party on Euclid in the style of Mayfest to show the school that SU won’t simply react like peaceful, civilized college students. It remains to be seen exactly how this plan will affect his run for the presidency.

But some students did remain civilized in both the general assembly and the gallery, and spoke out against Iyer’s plan of action. Current SA Vice President Erik Bortz emphasized the need for students to come together as one body and demand that the administration plan something that incorporates both the students’ wishes and the university’s wants.

“Fighting divisiveness with divisiveness will not work,” he said in response to the idea of protest. He also brought up the fact that Greek or Treat – a Pan-Hellenic event which involves inner-city Syracuse children going from house to house on Walnut Avenue trick-or-treating – is slated for this Friday, the same day as Iyer’s planned protest.

“We will sign the petitions, we will move forward, we will meet with admins, and we will have our voices heard,” he said, adding that he does not think that protesting would be a good idea, especially with so many children around.

SA President Larry Seivert brought up another idea. Seivert has planned a discussion with members of the administration (also scheduled for Friday), and at tonight’s meeting, he invited any interested students to join him. In the discussion, he hopes to bring up the ideas generated at tonight’s meeting. While some students argued for two separate days to encompass both the Mayfest party and SU Showcase, others felt that calling for two days would be too much to ask of the administration and that students should fight just to get that one joint day back.

Since there were no major issues or problems at last year’s Mayfest parties, students suggested to Seivert that SA not change their overall proposition for SU Showcase/Mayfest at Friday’s discussion. Rather, students felt there were simply some measures to add to it. Among the list of suggested additions for more administration-friendly festivities:

1. Have water bottles, safety provisions and entertainment.
2. Preserve the day off; separate the academic and social aspects.
3. Civil disobedience (petitions, etc.).
4. Keep better control of litter and clean-up after Mayfest parties.
5. Get support from local retail, restaurants and student organizations.
6. Have academics in the morning and parties in the afternoon.
7. Turn the day into a philanthropic event (give money to the community that is raised through SU Showcase).
8. Promote the academic part more and get more students to participate if they are allowed to have parties.
9. Incorporate some kind of carnival.

Despite the opposition from the crowd and the evident scheduling conflicts with Greek-or-Treat and the Mayfest discussion, Iyer still plans to exercise his right to demonstrate.

“The protest is still on,” he said. “I am not discouraged at all.”

–Jordan Walker

OPINION: What the Mayfest debacle means for the SA Election

The Student Association will hold an open meeting on October 26 to discuss possible action following the University's decision to schedule classes on the day of the Euclid Avenue block party known as Mayfest.

Take away a day of drunkenness and debauchery from students, and you’re all but guaranteed a reaction of critical mass.

That reaction came on Friday, when Syracuse University Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina e-mailed the student body announcing the university’s plans to schedule classes on the day of this year’s SU Showcase. In the past, SU Showcase meant a day off of school for academic presentations and, more notably, a popular block party all along Euclid Avenue more commonly known as “Mayfest.”

Cue the proverbial shockwave. Within hours, a student protest group emerged on Facebook called “Operation Rescue MAYFEST.” It has since accumulated more than 4,000 members. Additionally, the Daily Orange reported that the Student Association was planning to petition Thomas Wolfe, vice president and dean of Student Affairs, for an additional day off classes. And tonight at 7:30 p.m., SA will hold an open meeting in Maxwell Auditorium where students will be encouraged to voice their opinions on the university’s decision.

While the fate of SU’s beloved Mayfest is sure to remain a hot item for discussion in the coming weeks, it’s hard to ignore its implications for the upcoming SA elections, set to take place on MySlice from November 9-12. Spina’s e-mail came less than a week and a half after juniors Hari Iyer and Jonathan Barnhart announced their candidacy for president. Both are scheduled to speak at the SA meeting, but the two preceded their common reaction with radically different approaches to SU Showcase before the decision.

From the start, SU Showcase had been a key component of Barnhart’s “Own Your University” campaign platform. Barnhart even outlined a specific plan for the festivities in his candidacy announcement on October 13. In contrast, Iyer opted to focus his platform on issues like university spending and establishing better connections between SA, the student body, the university and its alumni. Iyer made almost no mention of the Mayfest festivities in outlining his plan.

Regardless of their initial differences in opinion, the decisions of both candidates to speak out against SU’s decision was an absolute necessity. For Barnhart and Iyer, the stakes couldn’t really get much higher. The 2009 SA election will be the first to feature two registered candidates since 2006, when Ryan Kelly defeated Matt Correia by a 14-point margin. Former President Marlene Goldenberg and current President Larry Seivert were both elected over write-in candidates in 2007 and 2008, respectively. 2009 was already shaping up to be a highly contested matchup; last year’s election saw more than 3,300 students cast votes – nearly 23 percent of the combined undergraduate student body of SU and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. And that was with just ONE registered candidate – Seivert. Factor multiple candidates and the SU Showcase development into this year’s equation, and you’ve got what could be one of the more exciting battles in SA history.

So we’ve seen both candidates take their first steps on this matter – fine. It’s good to see them both take a stand. But it doesn’t stop here. While Barnhart and Iyer will continue to fight this decision as long as possible, they both must do so in ways that establish their differences if either is to gain any significant advantage over the other. With more buzz surrounding this election than any in some time, the SU Showcase development is simply too important to both candidates for either to allow it to turn into a stalemate. It would seem both need clear-cut plans for how they hope to address this issue, otherwise it will just make an already tight race even tighter.

Will tonight’s meeting take a step toward separating the two candidates? We’ll just have to see…

What: Student Association open meeting

When: Monday, October 26, 2009 – 7:30 p.m.

Where: Maxwell Auditorium

–Dan Kaplan