Speaker Series not attracting students

Since 2005, with a budget of about $240,000 annually, Campus Life and Event Services has been hosting the University Speaker Series on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

But some of the events, even though the series is paid for by a student fee increase of $1.20 per credit hour, are not well attended by the student population.

"They [Campus Life] do a good job getting the word out about the speakers," Ryan Maurer, a Southeast senior said. "But other than the Mythbusters there wasn't anyone I cared to see."

The Tom Daschle and Pat Buchanan debate held in September had only 400 people in attendance and Dex Tuttle, assistant director of Campus Life, estimated that of those 150 to 200 were students.

"I didn't feel they [Daschle and Buchanan] were currently relevant," Maurer said. He called the debaters "party shills" and said he would have liked to see more pertinent politicians with creative and innovative ideas.

Mythbusters was a bigger event, with 1,800 people in the audience. Out of those 1,800 there were about 1,500 students present. "I think we should cut the budget [for the speaker series] in half and instead bring one or two really good speakers that students are interested in," Liz Vinson, Student Activities Council president and liberal arts senator, said.

"If Student Government wanted to reallocate that money I guess they could," Tuttle said.

But Tuttle also said, "A lot of universities don't have this flexibility or luxury to bring speakers in. This is a unique opportunity for students to see 'X' and gives us the opportunity to deliver a message to students that we're worried about."

He named Dr. Drew as a great speaker example, who spoke on topics such as relationship violence and the dangers of alcohol.

"If we say Dr. Drew is talking about the same topics [we want to talk to students about], we get 1,000 students in Academic auditorium," he said.

Around 900 people attended Dr. Drew lecture last year and Tuttle estimated that about 750 were students. Mike Rowe, one of the bigger events last year had 3,200 people in attendance with about 1,900 students. For Aron Ralston's lecture, 1,100 people attended, and there were about 900 to 1,000 students. The "priority is always marketing to students first," said Tuttle.

"Some of the suggestions are more pop culture than the goal," Michelle Irby, director of Campus Life and Event Services said. The speaker series' goal is to be educational, with four speakers per year--two in the fall and two in the spring--falling into four categories: Political/cultural, social, diversity/inclusion and wellness. But Campus Life doesn't choose the speakers without university input. Every year students get a chance to vote on what speakers they'd like to see visit the Southeast campus.

"SAC and a lot of student organizations put together a list to send to send out for students to vote on," Vinson said about how students can take a role in choosing the speakers.

"We usually don't get a lot of response," Tuttle said, "around 300 to 400 students."

An average of 447 students voted for each of the 21 choices for speakers for this year's series last spring. Tom Daschle and Pat Buchanan, who debated in September for the series, had 296 students vote that they would not attend the event. That event was beat for the highest number of students voting to not go only by Sheryl Swoopes, a WNBA All-Star. The Mythbusters build team had a high number of students who voted they would attend if their schedule permitted. The build team had 280 of these votes, which was the second highest number, being beaten only by Michael J. Fox with 307. Retired NFL quarterback Kurt Warner and the Tuohy family, who were featured on the movie "Blind Side" also got a large number of "go" votes.

"We value student input, but we can't simply make our selections on that alone," said Tuttle. Campus Life speaks with other universities, Southeast's executive staff and booking agents as well as look at pricing, availability and reviews from other venues.

"Someone like Mike Rowe, with a busy schedule, demands more money than Dr. Drew [for example]," Tuttle said. "About Mike Rowe, the Mythbusters and other more pop culture speakers," he said. "We felt comfortable spending a little more money because we knew it'd be a big draw for students."

Tuttle said reality TV stars draw many student suggestions also. Some suggestions Campus Life received for the series this year were the Glenn Beck, Lady Gaga, Will Ferrell, Jon Stewart and the cast of Jersey Shore.

"It would be great to get those people in, but they're way out of our price range," said Tuttle. Irby said booking Jon Stewart would have cost the series $400,000.

Tuttle also said there isn't much educational, motivational or inspirational meat to bring in reality TV stars.

"There are some folks on the list we'd like to bring in because of their message, but they don't get many votes," he said. He gave Frank Warren, the creator of PostSecret and Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes, as examples of such speakers.

About Mycoskie, Tuttle said, "Are people not interested in his topic of civic responsibility and humanitarian efforts, or do they just not recognize him/his name because he's not in the media as much as others?"

"We're always looking for a way to tweak or challenge it," Tuttle said. "We want people to have substance."

Irby said the speaker series will have a "slightly different bent" going into next year as Campus Life tries to work with academic departments more closely.

"With it [the speaker series] being new we're still testing the waters," Irby said.