Leadership Advice from One Student Leader to Another

Chelsea Soobitsky
President
seepresident@umd.edu

Nine days until Art Attack! This means for us graduating seniors, 15 days until the last day of classes and 25 days until graduation. Sorry for being that person, but it’s true, the real world just got that much more, real.

In one of my classes purposed to round out my public relations education, I was assigned to the client text4baby, a texting service who strives to educate pregnant women and new mothers about the various aspects of baby and mother health. Naturally, my group members and I signed up for the texts as to better understand our client and the other day, I received a text that read:

With delivery near, you may feel excited & happy, anxious & afraid. These feelings are normal! Get support from your partner, family & friends.

Great… so graduating college provokes the same emotions as having a child… wonderful.  But in all seriousness and at the risk of becoming an emotional wreck and unloading all of my sappiness onto you readers, my experience at the University of Maryland and with SEE have brought with them many great memories and life-changing experiences that I hope you, as my peers and colleagues, will have the same luxury to experience during your years in school as well. So with that, I would like to pass on the following advice:

• Try everything.  Leaving home and coming to school can be scary, especially if you went the random roommate route or decided to go to a school far away from home. Getting involved is a great way to make friends, build new interests and who knows, maybe if you’re like me, find an organization or cause you are truly passionate about.

• When you commit to something, actually commit.  Speaking of passion, if you are going to try something new and then make a commitment to it, than actually, wholeheartedly commit. It pains me to see people fall through on an obligation, especially one that was voluntary to begin with. When you commit to something and don’t follow through you’re letting down those around you and are losing out on the opportunity to do something new and potentially learn something new about yourself.

• Don’t be afraid to quit.  Getting involved on campus can be a very rewarding experience. Typically, you meet new people, learn something about yourself and maybe even have fun in the process. However, sometimes things don’t fit. Or something that was once great simply isn’t anymore. And that’s okay. If you no longer feel passionate about a group or cause or something just isn’t “you,” it is okay not to devote any more of your time and instead, dedicate your time to other, more worthwhile causes or organizations that make you happy.

• Know your resources.  At a school as large at the University of Maryland, knowing the resources at your disposal isn’t exactly easy. Resources aren’t going to be laid out for you on the first day of school and advisors certainly aren’t going to hold your hand as you walk down McKeldin Mall. If you want to know about something on campus, you are going to have to go in search of the answers yourself. Know that all the resources you can possibly imagine are probably right in front of you; you just might need to look a little harder to find them.

• Accept the challenge of leadership (or become a leadership minor).  The classes in the leadership minor have by far been some of the most worthwhile classes I have taken at the university. It is in these classes that I have been able to learn about myself, my strengths, my weaknesses, etc.  However, even if you cannot become a leadership minor or enroll in the EDCP classes you should still accept the challenge of becoming a leader on campus. Sometimes it’s as easy as signing up at the First Look Fair and other times it’s a more rigorous application or election process. But you’ll never know if you can do it unless you try. Another little piece of leadership advice: the best thing that you can receive as a leader is constructive criticism. Take it in stride, move forward and improve.

As President of SEE, I have learned a thing or two about leadership. As a leader you must gain respect and trust, and to do that, you must forever be honest, dedicated and caring. You must do your best to inspire others and guide the organization and the individuals toward positive change (change being the operative word). While you can strive to always be a friend to the organization’s members, you are going to have to make difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions. While you can strive to always do the right thing, you are going to make mistakes. And while you will start out with a plethora of goals, you are going to have to choose a few to focus on in order to achieve success. But with perseverance, compassion and patience you can find that leader inside of you and inspire others in the way in which you have hopefully been inspired.

And so I thank you University of Maryland: for sharing your wisdom and challenging me as well as introducing me to the wonderful people on this campus.

I will be sad to leave SEE and the university post graduation, yet I am certain that the organization will go on to do great things and am hopeful that a piece of my leadership and influence will be left behind for years to come in both the heart of the organization and in the hearts of the directors I have been so privileged to work with.

I hope you will join me at the annual end of the year Art Attack celebration and enjoy the company of B.o.B. with The Dean’s List. Tickets can be purchased at www.umdtickets.com.

FAQs about Art Attack XXIX

Amina Goheer
Concerts Director
seeconcerts@umd.edu

The grass is growing, flowers are blooming, allergy-stricken blokes are sneezing in your food and annoying high school students on tours are blocking your way to class. Spring has finally arrived! This means that Art Attack is just around the corner.   

First, I’d like to say thank you. Art Attack is a near-impossible feat considering that we are trying to program for 35K+ students. We understand that we’re not going to please every single person on campus, and as such, we expect to hear some kvetching about Art Attack. So last Monday when we announced Art Attack, we braced ourselves for the usual grouses and grumbles thrown our way. But this time, magically, y’all showed us some love and we do appreciate it! Thank you, UMD community, for letting us know when we’ve done you right. We’re here to please you, so it really tickles us when you like what we do.

While there’s a lot of love circulating about Art Attack XXIX, there are also a lot of good questions being asked. Here, I’m going to tackle some of the commonly asked questions. If you have more questions, e-mail me at seeconcerts@umd.edu and I’ll get around to them!

1. How is the Art Attack artist chosen?

Choosing an artist for Art Attack is a combination of many factors including student input, allocated funds and artist availability. We heavily weigh student input through survey research that is conducted throughout the year. Our intrepid Research Director collects data through online and paper surveys through Facebook, our list-serv, Twitter and at events like the First Look Fair and the SEE Homecoming Comedy Show. 

I then combed through the research results and saw first what genres are popular among students and second, what artists were feasible options for us given our budget. From there, I compiled an exhaustive list of potential artists that I brought to the SEE Executive Board. We discussed and discussed and discussed and discussed. And then a little more discussion was held. And once the discussion was officially done, I still got texts, emails and telegrams with more thoughts, ideas and considerations to factor in. Art Attack is no small deal in the SEE world. It’s our biggest event of the year, and we begin working on it months in advance.

Based on our budget and artist availability, a final survey with four names was given to the students, with B.o.B. listed as an option. As a board, we again looked at the research and finally put in a bid for the artist we thought would best serve the UMD campus.

As Concerts Director, my main focus for Art Attack was to bring a relevant act to campus. B.o.B., with a new album coming out on May 1, is certainly a relevant artist in 2012. His songs are heard all over the radio and his live shows are known to be fun and exciting. He met all of our criteria and not only is in-demand right now, but will certainly only be getting bigger in the near future. 

2. Why don’t you just raise the price of tickets and get us a Beyoncé-Jay Z (with opener Blue Ivy) concert?

It’s not that simple. First, and most importantly, SEE is a student organization, not a business. We’re not here to turn a profit; we’re here to serve the entire student population. We’re not going to let people sit out of our largest event because they can’t afford a $40 ticket. We understand that other schools do it, and that some of you might be willing to pay that much, but that’s not how we operate. We make our events – especially Art Attack – affordable and accessible to everyone, and that’s not going to change.

Also, if you want to see the Knowles-Carter family perform, you can easily hop on the Metro and see them at the Verizon Center. Students at Penn State or Ohio State don’t have that luxury, and as such, their programming boards have very different directives than SEE. While other schools might get bigger names, keep in mind those students often pay much more than we charge for concerts.

Another factor that we have to contend with is that there is only one available date for Art Attack each year. This means that if an artist is already booked or cannot perform on that date (usually the first Friday in May), then they are out of the running for Art Attack.

Eric, our trustworthy Comedy Director who brought you the likes of Aziz Ansari and Seth Meyers, also does a great job at discussing why our ticket prices are the way they are in his blog post – http://www.thisissee.blogspot.com/2012/03/thoughts-behind-seth-meyers.html

3. I thought this year was a “rock year.”  Why do we have another hip-hop act?

The rock-rap-rock commandment is a slight myth. While it’s worked out that in the past three years Art Attack has gone rap-rock-rap, this is not a magical formula that SEE must abide by. What we do abide by is our mission, which states that we must program diversely. As such, we do our best to vary the musical styles and acts we bring to campus each year. This past fall we had a rock concert featuring Ra Ra Riot and our smaller spring show, Terpstock, will feature The Ataris on April 21.

From a programming standpoint, rap and rock are very different. Currently, rock is harder to program for since recognizable rock bands like Coldplay or The Black Keys are extremely expensive and difficult to get. Bands in our price range unfortunately aren’t in demand on campus. There happen to be more rap options for us right now (doesn’t mean we didn’t try our hardest to bring in a rock act). Our priority is to get a relevant, talented, fun artist who will perform well and satisfy campus demand – regardless of genre. With B.o.B, we saw those qualities and went for it.    

4. How do I buy tickets?

At www.umdtickets.com or the Stamp Ticket Office. Tickets are $8 for the UMD community (with a valid UMD ID) and $25 for non-UMD guests. 

As always, we appreciate the feedback (and the love)! We’re a student programming board here to make you happy, so please keep letting us know how we’re doing and how we can improve.