Student leaders and organizations across campus voiced frustration with the Office of Student Affairs over its leadership and communication in planning this semester’s Student Activities Fair.
OSA was responsible for organizing the biannual Student Activities Fair that was held from Aug. 26-28 on Locust Walk this year. The event came after “significant policy updates and updates to the timelines for existing/returning group re-registration” were recently implemented by the University, according to the OSA website — including the elimination of Student Activities Council recognition and a more comprehensive registration process.
While SAC used to be responsible for hosting the club fair each fall and spring semester, OSA made the decision this year to “fully administer and run the Fall Activities Fair,” according to a statement from a SAC spokesperson.
Engineering junior Attila Tuba, who serves as technical chair for the Performing Arts Council, said that the change in planning body came “out of the blue” and was not communicated until students arrived back on campus.
“OSA has been overworked in the past as well, before they had to take on the financial responsibilities at SAC that [previously] some students were doing. So now, they must have so many duties that they need to attend to,” Tuba said. “Sometimes, the processes that they have are pretty convoluted, they sometimes take a long time. But that’s just bureaucracy.”
He noted that assignments for tabling time slots came as late as 50 minutes before the event was scheduled to begin. The delays in communication put “a lot of strain on students,” Tuba said.
Still, Tuba acknowledged that PAC — as well as the other student groups he is a member of — have been grateful for financial advisors assigned to their organizations by OSA. He expressed that he “really appreciated all the work that OSA is doing” and understood the difficult time constraints.
Engineering senior Shruthi Kunjur — who is the president of Penn Atma, the University’s female and nonbinary South Asian a capella group — described OSA’s organizing as “super uncommunicative and unsupportive during this time” in a written statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
She described the club fair process as “stressful and uncertain,” citing problems with “changes in SAC” that delayed the sign-up process — including being required to re-register on Penn Clubs before being able to sign up for the club fair.
An OSA spokesperson wrote in a statement to the DP that the official club registration deadline was communicated to student groups, adding that OSA was not solely responsible for issues or confusion that arose.
“At the request of multiple student organizations, the deadline was extended for this year’s fair to maximize participation, resulting in a less than 24-hr turnaround time for logistical information compared to previous years,” OSA wrote. “We quickly corrected a scheduling error once identified and recognize that some students experienced confusion and stress as a result.”
According to the representative, OSA has continued to be “committed to strengthening [its] communication and processes so student groups can continue to showcase their work and connect with peers.”
SAC also wrote that its members have “been working with every club that has reached out to make sure they have a table and the opportunity to be a part of the Fall Activities Fair.”
College junior Patrick Miller, who serves as vice president of the Penny Loafers a capella group and publicity manager for Penn Singers, said that the University “kept switching their dates,” making it difficult to recruit club members to staff the table. Miller said that he heard from peers in other performing arts groups that they were forced to “skip classes” in order to staff the SAC fair while also having club members run tech rehearsals.
Miller said that his clubs “never really got any reasoning” for the schedule changes they were subject to during the fair. He explained that the clubs “didn’t have a final answer until the night before,” leaving them “less than 24 hours to figure things out.”
As a result of the logistical challenges, Miller said his groups felt a “lot of frustration with not having enough people [and] not giving people enough notice to schedule their events that are going to their clubs.”
OSA’s new rules have “been challenging,” a student leader wrote in a statement to the DP. They believe Penn’s administration has been “excessively cracking down on student organizations’ activities” including “nitpicking nearly all aspects of club guidelines — whether the club names, mission statements, logos, or other innocuous pieces of information.”
The leader described feeling “disappointed in OSA’s organization and timeliness so far this year” regarding the SAC fair. They also mentioned that their group registered for the SAC fair days before the event was scheduled to take place, but “received no communication until late during the night before the fair” which made it “very challenging” for the group to “coordinate recruitment efforts and staff the table.”
Another student leader echoed the same frustration that clubs were not given sign-ups for the fair “until a few days prior to the fair itself” and added that some clubs never received the email.
“Once they finally got everyone signed up, they didn’t tell us which date and where we would be tabling until the night before at 11 p.m., which is way too late for us to figure out who in our group would be available,” the student leader added.
“It’s hard enough to coordinate getting the members of your group to sign up for things and show up with everyone’s busy schedules and this last-minute nature made it even harder,” Kunjur wrote.
Staff reporter Sarah Shahed contributed reporting.
