Editorial
USF St. Petersburg’s Harborside Activities Board, a student-run department of Student Affairs, is bringing a big-name musician to campus for a free show.
“Free!?” you say. “How could that be?”
Well, while attending the show is “completely free,” HAB needs $50,000 of what you already paid in activity and service fees with your tuition this semester. In case you didn’t know, you paid about $25 per credit hour in activity and service fees, which fund things like Student Government, Campus Recreation, the Crow’s Nest, and now, possibly, T-Pain.
HAB’s budget for the 2013-2014 school year is $166,398, which has more than doubled since 2010. Majority of this budget goes toward campus events like dances, concerts and festivals. We recognize that these kinds of events are a necessary part of campus life, and HAB is limited as to what it spends money on. Even if someone were to think, “Hey, instead of bringing Twenty One Pilots to campus for one night, let’s buy 40 new Macbooks that will benefit students for years to come,” doing so would probably be impossible. Just as it would be impossible for the Crow’s Nest to use its budget to have 3oh3! play in our office (not that we could afford it anyway).
We understand HAB’s function and think it’s a vital part of the USFSP community. Homecoming, the occasional casino night and rented out Baywalk Muvico theaters for Twilight and the Hunger Games (Catching Fire on Nov. 21!) are awesome. HAB’s budget is so large, that smaller productions like these are harmless.
However, without a big-name concert thrown into the mix this year, thousands of dollars would probably go unused. So, the unsettling thing isn’t necessarily that HAB is spending $50,000 on a concert # it’s that they were given such a large amount of money in the first place.
An online poll listed T-Pain, Twenty One Pilots, Mayday Parade, 3oh3!, Ab-Soul and Future as options for the musical act. It was hosted on Orgsync and advertised on Facebook. The poll is now closed, but the top choice has not yet been revealed.
Even though the money has already been set aside and HAB may already be in contact with the booking agent for German hip-hop artist Ab-Soul, the Crow’s Nest has come up with a list of alternative uses for the $50,000 budget. These options may not be better than bringing the long-haired pop-punk playing heartthrobs of Mayday Parade to campus, but they’re alternatives nonetheless.
Disclaimer: We know HAB can’t actually use it’s budget to fund any of these things. Consider it satire. Please don’t egg our cars.
What $50,000 can buy:
– 46,728 dollar-tacos from Burrito Boarder on Taco Tuesday
– Tuition for two undergraduate degrees from USFSP (for Florida residents)
– A Habitat for Humanity house
– A diamond encrusted bluetooth headset
– 10,000 $5-footlongs from Subway
– An electric hot tub boat
– Two sets of guinea pig knight armor (Sir Squeaksalot will thank you)
– A year of living costs for a family of four (well, in 2008, but probably not in 2013)
– Four eight-foot tall Optimus Prime statues
– The Crow’s Nest budget for an entire year (with more than $7,000 to spare)
– Five water propelled jetpacks
– A purrdy nice BMW, Jaguar or Mercedes Benz
– 17,000 jars of Nutella
– 365 green blazer-skirt sets for Judy Genshaft (one for every day of the year)
– 28 Gold Plans from the Reef (sounds like it should be more, right?)
– Five more bronze bulls to keep Sheryl company
– Two life-size T-rex statues
– 47,169 any size caramel iced coffees from Dunkin Donuts between 3 and 6 p.m.
– Housing costs for 13 students to live in the University Student Center next semester
