On Sunday, the Entertainment Board (eBoard) announced that this year’s Fall Concert will feature Louis the Child, a Chicago-based electronic duo. Last year, WBOR, Bowdoin’s on-campus radio station, sponsored the event, and brought Shabazz Palaces’ alternative hip-hop sound to Smith Union.
Over the summer, when the two groups were informed of their Student Activities Funding Committee (SAFC) budgets for the 2016-17 school year, they learned that the fall concert had been allocated to eBoard, while WBOR’s concert budget had been cut in half.
According to WBOR station manager Elizabeth Snowdon ’17, WBOR was allocated $22,227 for their 2016-17 operating budget, with $10,000 for the concert series; the budget for the 2015 fall concert alone was $22,048. Last year, the station received $29,706 for its total operating budget, and the year before that, it was given $30,846, Snowden said in an email to the Orient.
The details of the eBoard’s 2016-17 operating budget cannot be disclosed, according to Brendan Civale ’17, co-chair of the eBoard.
The two groups are completely separate, according to Snowdon, but they have considered joining forces to host concerts.
WBOR maintains about 80 members each semester and hosts 10 to 15 community DJs on 91.1 FM, according to Snowdon. EBoard currently has 13 members, all of whom have been elected to serve on the committee.
After learning of their respective operating budgets, Benson reached out to Civale and co-chair of the eBoard Arindam Jurakhan ’17 to discuss what had happened. They also considered potential collaboration for the fall concert.
“I said, ‘Look, I know you have a nice new fall budget, [but] we just happened to get our already shoestring concert budget cut in half,’ to a level where it’s essentially not sustainable,” he said. “It’s really our chance to leave a legacy for the music scene on this campus.”
Civale said eBoard ultimately decided to not collaborate with WBOR for the fall concert because the deadline was fast-approaching and the process became too hectic. Jurakhan said he believes February would be a good time to collaborate with WBOR.
When Snowdon learned of eBoard’s role in planning the Fall Concert, she said she felt that a “pretty clear priority” had been given to eBoard, after what WBOR considered a big compromise in bringing Shabazz Palaces to campus, an event intended to appeal to a wider audience.
“It was our last shebang,” she said. “It felt like we were put on notice with eBoard.”
According to Silvia Serban, associate director of student activities, the decision to delegate the Fall Concert to eBoard was an attempt to try something new in giving eBoard a chance this year.
Irfan Alam ’18, chair of the SAFC, expressed his confidence in eBoard’s ability to accommodate student tastes with the shows they bring to campus.
“We definitely know that the eBoard has historically worked well with Student Activities in communication and trying to build [and] foster that relationship, so anything they do is executed efficiently,” he said.
As an at-large representative last year, Alam did not work directly with operating budgets and had no comment on WBOR and SAFC’s relationship in the past.
Alam said that through a deliberation process, the SAFC allocates about $680,000 to be spread across student organizations during the academic year.
Addressing the controversy that has surrounded the potential crossover between representatives of SAFC and eBoard, Alam cited the guidelines for funding on the Bowdoin Student Government website, which the SAFC is required to adhere to in each buget deliberation.
“It is not a place where you automatically get funding if you’re an SAFC member,” he said. “We always try to remember the fact that the SAFC money comes from students’ actual pockets that they paid for in the Student Activities fee. So when we think of students paying to see events, or speakers, or whatever, we always think about, ‘what do the students want?’”
When asked if SAFC relegated the Fall Concert to eBoard instead of WBOR because of high attendance at eBoard-sponsored events, Alam suggested that eBoard and WBOR serve different purposes on campus.
“I wouldn’t say WBOR is or isn’t bringing anything to campus,” Alam said. “A lot of us on SAFC appreciate the fact that WBOR brings alternative music genres to Bowdoin, because without it, we would have an absence of it.”
SAFC hopes WBOR’s 2016-17 concert series budget will be used to fund three mini-concerts, according to Alam. Serban added that WBOR’s funds could be allocated to sponsor smaller-scale college house programming.
Snowdon said she is satisfied with WBOR’s underground culture, but not with its campus presence, and is actively thinking of ways to improve the station and attract new members.
“It’s something we’ve been chewing on for a couple of months,” said Snowdon.
Benson said the station has been a critical part of his Bowdoin experience. “It’s the only space I feel comfortable on campus…I think the administration is scared of what WBOR can become. Maybe they think of creativity as dangerous, at least in some contexts,” he said. “The space is sort of our own.”
“These are clearly the thoughts of a guy who’s become way too embroiled in a minor campus issue,” Benson added.
Louis the Child will play in Smith Union on Oct. 14 at 11 p.m. EBoard is in the process of determining a student-band opener.