The University of Kentucky includes nearly 30,000 students with both graduate and undergraduate bodies counted and entertaining those students is serious business at UK. “Our incoming freshman class this year was between six and seven thousand students,” says Grace Hahn, president of the student activities board at UK. “The majority of those students are housed in the residence halls, but we have a significant area around campus where a lot of the upperclassmen live, so we usually have a lot of people to program for.”

The activities board at the University of Kentucky is completely student-run, made up of several committees. Divided into three main branches, the board includes an executive committee, a programming team and a promotions team to generally oversee things, with eight programming committees doing the actual programs. The first includes traditions, which handles a week-long homecoming celebration in the fall and a spring festival, called Little Kentucky Derby. Other committees include cinema, campus life, concerts, pop culture, cultural arts and multi-cultural affairs.

There are a few other troops scattered around the student union, including parts of the promotions team like a graphic designer, web designer, PR director and an executive director. Students hold all the positions, though some are paid part-time positions. “We don’t outsource anything we do concerning promotional items. We design everything we use for programming. The people who do that are paid employees, but they are always still students at the university.

Music does well at Kentucky. There has been a concerted push for a wide variety of events at UK, in keeping with the spirit of equal work distribution between committees, but Grace says in general, the concert committee does the most events in sheer number. “Our concert director has really gone in the direction of local talent and keeping in the local scene. He is from Louisville, so he is tapped into the network and is becoming known for snatching up the very best local talent for UK before they go on to become bigger regional success stories. Because of this, we are doing a lot smaller but more frequent shows.”

UK also has a pretty strong lecture series every year and books a considerable amount of talent in that genre. Novelty does well there also, handled by the campus life committee.

“Homegrown” programming has been a focus with UK’s activities board this year, enabling students to create their own programs without having to outsource production services. “Our cinema director is working on a student film festival for the spring and we won’t have to outsource anything for that event. We also have a professorial lecture series that is done by our engaging issues director. We are generally trying not to outsource as much, except of course for our concerts, where we have to look outside for the talent.”

As many other programmers out there can completely relate to, many of these smaller scale and less out-sourced events are due to budgetary concerns. “Some of it is financially based. We would always like to have more money to program with of course, because we think we can bring bigger and better programs to the students. They want name acts when they can get them and while we know everyone wants a Dave Matthews, it can be very difficult to make that happen. Everywhere else that we save in our budget frees up dollars that we can help put toward the acts students are really dying to see on campus.”

Aside from the budgetary considerations, UK also counts the homegrown programming as having tremendous networking, team building and educational values as well. “We really want all of our students to get something out of what we do. Our board members don’t just come in to shows, do their jobs and leave. They really get to grow as a student, a leader and a programmer and we feel by doing these independent projects on their own they can meet new people and gain experience they wouldn’t get otherwise.”

The budget for UK is pretty healthy and derived entirely from a student activities fee built into each student’s tuition. “We never do any fund raising, but we do generate revenue throughout the year with some of our larger concerts. This year we have Keith Anderson for our opening “welcome back” concert. We are charging ten dollars for students, but if at all possible we try to make most of our events no cost for the students. It just depends on how much we have to spend on the program.”

Sometimes a nominal fee helps to offset the cost of higher-dollar entertainment, but all of the “homegrown” programs at UK are free to students. “In our Homecoming week, we charge a small registration fee, but everything else is free. We have an event every single day, so there is a lot of value to our students. Also, we are not looking to break even on all of these events, it just helps to keep some money in the coffers.” UK also does limited outdoor sponsorship at some of their festivals and concerts.

Both the administration at the school and the leadership of the activities board at UK have a two-fold vision for the students participating in the organization. “We want to give the people involved in our organization leadership experience and we want to enable them to expand their social networks. We believe they learn more and grow as students while they are with us by learning how to run an event. They may come out and know how to plan not only plan that event, but also have 10 new friends they would have never met otherwise. I met both of my roommates working with the student activities board.”

UK also gives students real world experience in a variety of tasks, from planning and production to logistics and marketing. These experiences have led students to pursue and receive valuable internships after their tenure with them. “Our immediate past vice president just got an internship with JP Morgan. Bare in mind, he had excellent grades and a great record, but there were a lot of people that applied for that interview with those same benefits. The difference is that when he went for his interview in Connecticut, what set him apart from the crowd was the fact that he had managed such a large budget and number of people with us. It was like he had already been part of a business and they knew he understood the financial aspect of managing a business. No one else who applied came close to that and we hope that being involved with the board puts all of our students a step above for things they will do later.”

UK has an activities board that understands the precious lesson of programming for everyone on campus, not just a select demographic. “We put out a calendar at the beginning of every semester that has all of our events listed on it. We tell students that if they don’t see anything they like or would be interested in seeing, we haven’t done our job.”

With the students’ best interest at heart in so many ways, the activities board at the University of Kentucky is making strides toward making every student’s life on campus a little better. For more information on how things work at UK, contact them at (859) 257-8867