As a major organization that handles nearly half a million dollars every year, Carolina Productions has had to deal with its fair share (and maybe more) of criticism from students and — we admit it — even the editorial board of The Daily Gamecock.
One complaint that we seem to have nearly every semester is the lack of a balance between quality and quantity of the events that CP brings to campus.
Luckily, fixing that balance is something Adam Mayer, CP’s next president, has already listed as one of his goals for his term. Mayer heads up the concerts committee, which handles what is, arguably, one of the most important events CP holds each semester. They’ve drawn ire the last few semesters for bringing in lesser-known acts for big bucks — Chris Young for $40,000, for instance — and this semester, they failed to book a concert at all.
While we do think that in this specific case Mayer and his team made a good choice in not throwing together a hastily planned concert in a few weeks, failing to do the one thing the committee exists to do is a problem, extenuating circumstances or not. We hope that Mayer will learn from the experience and hopefully come back with a vengeance, and a big-name artist, when he heads up the entire organization next semester. We not only want to see quality, but a variety of quality.
Another of Mayer’s goals is to encourage greater involvement of all of CP’s members in things that actually matter in the organization. CP offers very valuable real-world learning experience in a huge variety of fields, making it an educational opportunity for students in all colleges and schools. Bringing in a wider variety of members and encouraging them to be more involved could make CP a more well-rounded organization. And since CP is a student organization, and therefore has to deal with a high rate of turnover between semesters and years, fostering those leadership skills and encouraging even younger students to step up could turn out to be one of the most important things Mayer could do as president.
We look forward to seeing what Mayer accomplishes as he takes the reins next semester. Like the other student leaders who will be stepping into new roles next semester, Mayer has plenty of work to do and the obligation to do it well.