by Lacey Hambleton
The Student’s General Association (SGA) concluded their Welcome Week themed ‘Camp Laurentian’ with LUL Fest.
Following the conclusion of LUL fest, Tomas Antolin Grant, the SGA’s VP of Student Life, revealed the event did not progress smoothly due to changes with student fees.
“This year was a new era of Welcome Week. We had to sell passes to fund the events since we were no longer able to put it under a mandatory fee,” Antolin Grant said, referring to the newly established Student Choice Initiative.
The Student Choice Initiative, put into effect this year, allows students to opt-in to pay fees for services that were mandatory in previous years. The new system has proven itself to be a challenge for the SGA.
Antolin Grant says that Laurentian University has expressed the lowest opt-in rate throughout the province, a statistic that he hopes to overcome as a ‘united force’.
He adds that numerous events and campaigns will be held in the upcoming months to support the clubs and associations that will be affected.
Funding issues aside, Antolin Grant says the SGA’s executive team believes they handled the situation of funding problems well and assembled what was perhaps the ‘best’ Welcome Week yet.
The LUL Fest concert featured Bryan Vine, 88 Glam and 4Korners.
When asked what led to the decision of the three performing artists, Antolin Grant said there were two major deciding factors: the future potential each act carries, and the feedback that the SGA received from the concert last year.
According to Antolin Grant, all three artists have promising futures, and the team hoped that would increase their value, especially once they grow even more popular.
The feedback taken from last year was also very important. A poll put out by the SGA concluded that hip-hop was the most popular genre students wanted to see in concert, therefore the team chose performers who could reflect that.
Students will soon be able to contribute to the improvement of Welcome Week in the future as the SGA plans to create a poll where students can submit their feedback.
Antolin Grant says in the future he hopes to band together with other organizations and faculties at Laurentian to bring forth an even better Welcome Week in the coming years.