The distribution of tickets for the Jimmy Carter speech was very poorly executed. What gives the entire freshman class priority over the rest of us? Why are they allowed to go to the speech in the Recreation Center while the rest of us have to crowd into Alumni Hall to watch it on a projection screen? No offense to the freshmen, since it’s not their fault. I simply feel that the university made a very poor choice in terms of priorities.
As news of the lack of available tickets spread across campus over the past week many students who were really looking forward to going to the Carter speech have been disappointed. The university automatically gave tickets to everyone registered in a QU101 or QU201 class only.
I understand that the QU seminars are an important part of Quinnipiac University’s new core curriculum. I simply feel that it is not fair to single out those students as being allowed to attend such a once-in-a-lifetime event, while others were excluded. Every student should have been given a fair chance to attend.
According to the class search on WebAdvisor, there are 275 students taking QU201 this semester, and 1334 students taking QU101. That equals 1609 seats automatically taken, not including student leaders and faculty members that were also given a ticket.
I can see why the university would give tickets to student leaders first – they’ve taken it upon themselves to gain leadership positions, earning some recognition. What did students have to do to take QU101, and thus earn a ticket to the speech? They were required to take the class, and are now being rewarded for fulfilling that requirement.
What would the university have done if President Carter were coming to speak in two years? At that point, freshmen, sophomores and juniors will all be taking required QU seminar courses. If the number of students taking two of those classes this year takes up so many seats, how many would have been taken by these classes in another few years? And how many would be given tickets? Granted, at this point the QU program is not fully underway, but that does not mean the students that are part of the program should get special treatment over the rest of us.
I am not saying that the students in these classes are necessarily going to be disinterested in going to the speech. I am simply saying that other students should have been given the opportunity to obtain tickets, especially those that wanted to go.
My suggestion for distributing the tickets would have been to have them available on a tiered first-come, first-served basis. They could have allotted a certain number of tickets to faculty members, each class, and finally the public. After the freshmen have had the opportunity to get tickets, any leftover tickets could be left available to anyone from the university. Ultimately, the public could get their tickets in the following days. This would have allowed all interested students the same opportunity to get tickets, instead of singling out a group of students and giving them tickets just because they’re taking a required course.
