After closing the discussion on MayFest to the student body last year, Student Association has decided to have an open discussion on MayFest 2011.

‘This is a student day. We want to make sure they have more of a voice,’ SA President Jon Barnhart said.

SA will hold an open forum to discuss MayFest 2011 on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in Crouse-Hinds Hall, Room 010. SA and University Union will use the event to gather feedback from students about last year’s MayFest and determine how to plan the event in April.

Barnhart said SA wants students to play an active role in planning this year’s event. Student input and help in any stage of the planning process are invited to the meeting, he said.

SA held its last separate open forum concerning MayFest in spring 2008, after the administration changed the event’s name from MayFest to SU Showcase. After classes were reinstated, SA invited students to participate in a regular session meeting. Aside from that, SA kept discussions private with the Department of Public Safety, UU, Food Services and a few other organizations.

Barnhart said the decision to close last year’s discussions to students was necessary because of the controversy behind the issue. The decision to change MayFest last year elicited an outcry from students, and many still attended the parties on Euclid Avenue.

‘Because of how sensitive the topic was of getting our day back, we felt we kind of had to close the door,’ Barnhart said. ‘We felt we really had to bring the administration in and take all the student anger, the student apathy, the student disconnect from what was happening and just channel it through just a couple people.’

SA and the administration decided to integrate students’ desire for a day to celebrate the warmer weather before finals and the administration’s concern about the Euclid Avenue parties of years past. The compromise created the university-sponsored day dedicated to students in Walnut Park called MayFest, followed that evening by Block Party, a UU-sponsored concert with Drake and N.E.R.D.

Despite troubles last year, Barnhart said SA received positive feedback this semester about last year’s MayFest.

‘Students appreciated the event,’ Barnhart said. ‘We worked hard to save MayFest.’

abknox@syr.edu

Published on October 4, 2010 at 12:00 pm