After a year that prompted major organizational changes, the Student Union Board (SUB) has already put on one sold-out concert and several other successful events, according to Alan Whalen, director of marketing.
“This has been a big year for SUB so far, with our first ever fall concert and several other big events already under our belt,” Whalen said. “Throughout this semester we have launched a brand new website with enhanced emphasis on user experience, created a snapchat account, launched paid advertising campaigns on Facebook, and redesigned the face of SUB with new name tags, banners and free merchandise to give away to students.”
Between raising campus awareness about upcoming activities and monitoring SUB’s many social media accounts, Whalen said he is constantly promoting events of every size.
“It’s been a busy year, but these new publicity investments have paid huge dividends in the number of students we have been able to reach. Our first ever fall concert was the best attended in recent history with over 1600 tickets sold, and we have dramatically increased our following on all forms of social media,” Whalen said.
In order to generate this publicity, Whalen works closely with Alexandra Ignacio, director of art.
“So I’m in charge of all the printed material that comes out of SUB, so all the pretty things you see around campus, those are the products of me and my designers,” Ignacio said. “I really emphasize professionalism in our work. … I’ve told my designers, you know, I’m going to send you these really nit-picky emails about legibility or color scheme or whatever but it’s because we want to give off this air of professionalism.”
Ignacio said this attention to detail benefits all of SUB, and she is impressed with the output so far.
“It’s just so important, when you’re making something for the student body, to make sure it’s well done, because you know, if it isn’t well made, people are going to think, you know, ‘oh, it’s not a big deal, because they didn’t even spend time on this’ and obviously that’s not the case," Ignacio said. "So that’s what I’ve been emphasizing and I’ve been so amazed at my designers, they do such great work."
For anyone unclear about what SUB does, one of the directors of programming, Kaya Moore, said it’s best to think of SUB as the “fun arm of student government.”
Another director of programming, Abby Shepard, added her agreement.
“The purpose of SUB is to provide cool, fun and exciting events for the student body in order to enrich student life," Shepard said. "I think SUB definitely contributes to the community atmosphere of Notre Dame because we provide events where students can meet and just have fun."
Looking to next semester, Whalen said the SUB team is excited about a number of events.
“I’m looking forward to so many things this semester. … Spring is an amazing time to be in SUB because there are so many big events coming up, with the Collegiate Jazz Festival, Spring Concert and AnTostal. This spring semester is going to be a big one,” Whalen said.
Sheppard oversees the Collegiate Jazz Festival, the oldest college jazz festival in the country.
“It's an honor to be part of such a tradition," she said. "Although the festival isn't until the end of February, SUB is hard at work and there has already been a lot of progress from behind the scenes, we already have judges, school performances, and designs confirmed, which is earlier than we have had a lot of the logistics worked out in past years."
Overall, executive director Louis Bertolotti said he has been impressed with his team’s work.
“You know, I came into this as an outsider, and we underwent all these changes to the structure of how SUB works and it’s been functioning so well so far," Bertolotti said. "We had incredible turnout for Hunter Hayes, and I’m really excited what we’ve got coming next semester." (Editor's note: Louis Bertolotti is an Observer Viewpoint columnist).
