Editor’s note: This column is the collective opinion of members of our editorial board. This is not a reported piece.
Update, Oct. 5: SA President Becky Paul-Odionhin sent an email to the student body just after noon on Oct. 5, nine days after the SA announced there would be no Fall Fest. Paul-Odionhin said that the SA "cannot gamble on only an outdoor location," was "NOT provided with any available dates" by UB for an indoor venue. She also added that "most" of Fall Fest's $300,000 budget "will be added to the Spring Fest budget and club supplemental funding channels."
The announcement was as shocking as it was unprecedented: just one year after Fall Fest’s post-pandemic return, the Student Association (SA) announced last week that it would be canceling this year’s concert.
Students were bound to be upset — and rightfully so. Fall Fest is a UB tradition that draws thousands of students every year. It’s one of campus’ few universal experiences.
Given the magnitude of this decision, you’d think the SA, the undergraduate governance organization that organizes Fall Fest, would’ve taken every opportunity to explain their decision. You’d think the SA e-board would’ve released a five-minute video statement, or hosted a town hall, or sent out a mass email, or even sat down for an interview with The Spectrum.
But you’d have been wrong.
Instead, the SA posted an unsigned, two-sentence statement on Instagram, blaming the cancellation on “logistical complications, such as being unable to secure a date for an indoor location” and then went silent.
When The Spectrum reached out to the SA with questions, a spokesperson said that SA President Becky Paul-Odionhin would be “sending out an email regarding the whole situation soon” and that the SA requires “a minimum of one week to respond to inquiries.”
One week later, we have no email and no answers.
As undergraduates, we deserve more than that.
We deserve to know what the SA is doing with the $300,000 of our fee money that they allocated to Fall Fest.
We deserve to know why an outdoor venue wasn't on the table this year, after last year's concert was held outside.
We deserve to know whether there’ll be a Spring Fest this year. Or an International Fiesta. Or a student-chosen speaker. Or a winter gala.
We deserve to be consulted by — or at least hear from — the people we elected before they unilaterally cancel one of the university’s biggest events.
The SA e-board’s silence left students feeling confused, ignored and deceived. That’s no way to run a student organization.
And for what it’s worth, silence hurts the SA too. Maybe there was a reason the SA couldn’t host Fall Fest outdoors again. Maybe they really did have trouble finding an indoor venue. Maybe they’re already working overtime on the biggest Spring Fest in recent memory.
But we’ll never know if they don’t tell us. Right now, it looks like the SA didn’t have their ducks in a row, trucked out a lame excuse and is hoping it’ll all blow over by fall break.
All this is especially insulting because SA officials raised their own stipends and wages last spring. It was one of the first things Paul-Odionhin and SA Vice President Sammi Pang did after they were re-elected. When asked where the money for raises would come from, they struggled to provide a concrete answer.
SA workers obviously deserve to get paid. But why are students in the SA’s entertainment department earning $18 per hour to not put on a Fall Fest? For that matter, why are Paul-Odionhin, Pang and SA Treasurer Unnati Agarwal all collecting weekly stipends of $375 to not put on a Fall Fest? To students, it looks a lot like SA shrinkflation — we’re paying more and getting less.
This is just the latest chapter in a saga of SA blunders.
For years, clubs have had trouble accessing their funds, most recently after the SA flubbed the rollout of online club training this fall and then permanently shut down the Clubs Discord channel so students couldn’t complain.
They faced large protests last fall after an ill-advised ticketing policy screwed over the Latin American Student Association and other large clubs.
And now the SA is the subject of a federal lawsuit after they presumably targeted the right-wing Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) club with yet another ill-advised policy over the objections of club leaders.
It’s not clear why the SA is in the state it’s in, especially given that two of the e-board members are in their second year on the job. Maybe working within UB’s complex financial bureaucracy is too difficult (although in The Spectrum’s experience, it’s easier than ever). Maybe the SA e-board is stretched too thin — all three of their LinkedIn pages list other major commitments on top of being full-time students. Or maybe giving a bunch of college students control over a $4.6+ million budget is a fundamentally bad idea.
Either way, this latest development leaves the SA in a precarious position. Students approve the mandatory fee to get money for their clubs, and for big annual events like Fall Fest. If they’re getting neither, why should they fork over their hard-earned cash to the SA?
All that said, there are causes for optimism. This year’s SA Senate elections, which have historically drawn fewer candidates than there are seats, were hotly contested. Maybe this year’s Senate will be more than a rubber stamp body.
We need to keep up that level of engagement. The last time the mandatory student fee (which funds the SA) came up for a vote, fewer than 9% of undergraduates voted. The SA works best when students hold them accountable, so make your voice heard and vote your conscience in the next SA election.
For our part, The Spectrum will keep following YAF’s suit against the SA and figure out what the SA is doing with the Fall Fest budget. Students have a right to know.
And one more note for the SA: don’t use any Fall Fest photos to advertise yourselves until you put on a concert this year.
The editorial board can be reached at opinion@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Ryan Hagen | UB Athletics
