S. L. FULLER
News Editor
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.
This old adage seems to be the mentality of the Fredonia administration when it comes to FRED Fest. In March of last semester, all FRED Fest planning was suspended as Dr. David Herman, Vice President of Student Affairs, tried to rally student group leaders to come up with a way to make the event more positive and safe. While the on-campus events met expectations, the off-campus events were less than optimal. Herman and the administration are not going to let that trend continue.
“Off-campus [during FRED Fest has] been about the same for the last three years and it gets bigger and more of a challenge every year,” said Herman in a recent interview. “So we’re hoping with Spectrum’s creativity and SA’s leadership and all the other student groups, hopefully we can design something a little more positive.”
Prior to the announcement at the General Assembly meeting, Herman sent an email out to Spectrum Entertainment Board, the student group in charge of designing the on-campus FRED Fest events, Antonio Regulier, President of the Student Association and Jason Burgos, Community Relations Chair.
Last Thursday at the SA General Assembly meeting, Burgos informed the general assembly that he received the letter. While he did not elaborate on the specific changes, he said that the changes will be coming and all of the proposed changes are currently in conversation. Many members of the general assembly voiced their questions and concerns, which included specific aspects of the event that will be changed and whether Spectrum has enough time to initiate the changes.
The following day Herman met with SA executives to discuss the changes. He plans to meet with Spectrum and then attend the GA meeting on Oct. 2 in order to speak to the general assembly himself about the changes.
Part of the letter read as follows:
“After much discussion and deliberation, the University Administration believes that FRED Fest needs to be re-envisioned, reorganized, rebranded, rescheduled and renamed. We would like to continue to have some end-of-the-year events to celebrate the many accomplishments of students, but we need to eliminate the excessive drinking, arrests, and other problems we have had with non-students on campus and in the Village.”
He acknowledges that the intended positive outcomes of the changes made will be established over the course of three or four years, and not in the immediate future.
After FRED Fest last semester, Herman was unable to say whether or not the administration was going to get rid of the event. It’s very clear that this year, Herman and the rest of the administration think it’s time to say “goodbye” to FRED Fest as we know it.
“They bring up [FRED Fest] regularly at the Campus Community Coalition meetings. We talked to chiefs of police, we talked to bar owners, we talked to the village residents — it’s a big problem,” said Herman. “And we’ve been trying for three years now to convince people to tone it down and we haven’t been too successful off-campus.”
According to Herman, the limited resources of the police departments and emergency medical services are stretched to their breaking point during FRED Fest weekend and they can barely afford to keep everyone safe. In order to counteract that, Herman hopes to come up with a plan that spreads out the end-of-the-year events so it’s not just concentrated into one weekend.
“Almost all the clubs and organizations have end-of-the-year things and if you can put them in the right kind of calendar it could be an exciting week or two week period of time without drawing all of these people here,” said Herman. “That’s what I hope will happen but that’s kind of what we hope to talk about with Spectrum and [the Student Association] and all the other students groups.”
As for the name “FRED Fest,” Herman is dead set on changing it.
“Hopefully it wouldn’t be called FRED Fest because I think until that name goes away, people are going to come to it,” said Herman. “[People] have a perception of what FRED Fest is and for the off-campus high school kid; that is a perception we don’t really want.”
Herman hopes to have a set plan for whatever FRED Fest becomes by the end of the semester. He is confident that the students will be able to figure something out. The end of Herman’s email to Spectrum and the Student Association reads as follows:
“The campus administration continues to be very proud of Fredonia students and student organizations, and we hope you will support this decision and help re-envision and rebrand the end-of-the-year events. The future of Fredonia is up to all of us to create, and I know that by working together we can develop new and more positive events in the future. I want us to create something that we can all be proud of for many years to come. I will look forward to meeting with you and members of the Student Association to discuss this further.”