Let’s Grow: Why the Changes?

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February 7, 2022

You never know what is going to happen next. That has always been the essence of what makes an “Open Mic Night” so much fun. If you go to a small-town Applebee’s karaoke contest, you are guaranteed to hear an old man, a few teeth shy of a smile, sing his heart out to Taylor Swift. Up next is a mom in her 50’s channeling her desire for grandchildren through a stuttered rendition of “Livin’ on a prayer”. But at Student Activities’ Open Mic Night there are no such assurances. You might watch your friend sing an original song or hear a student jazz group play smooth melodies. Regardless, Open Mic Night is sure to show you something you’ve never seen before. The talent on our campus is undeniable and a few nights a semester we try to provide a platform to those that may not have one. Whether it be the engineering student who secretly practices guitar each day or the nursing student who can hit each note of Beyonce’s “Halo” as good as the Queen herself, Open Mic Night brings out the performer in all of us.

Change and innovation are deeply rooted in who we are as people. If something can be better, we try to find a way to make it better. This is how we grow, working off what we had before and building on it. Many times, the changes that were made were fiercely opposed simply because they were different. If changes are bad then we get to learn from our mistakes, which in the end helps us to push our changes even further. Student Activities is not an exception to this rule in fact it’s a rule SA lives by. Just because something has been done one way for a longtime does not mean it’s the right way or even the best way.

This Spring Open Mic Night may seem a little different than it had in years past.

• First and foremost, we are going to schedule opening/closing acts for each night. These student performers have proven that they can put together a 4 song setlist, and are ready to blow the roof off.
• Any acts who perform in Coffeehouse will be given a “Golden Ticket”. This allows the acts a one-time only chance to walk into an Open Mic Night and perform right then and there.
• Acts will be asked to perform at random, and not in sequential order. This means that the first person to sign up and the last person to arrive have the same chance of performing that night. We do not want to discourage acts that have tough class schedules or prior commitments.

Every year new students, new ideas, and new perspectives come on to this campus and SA needs to be able to adapt to give everyone the best experience. We work hard to craft experiences to the changing environment that is a college campus. This does not mean that everything we change is right, but then we learn something new and can continue on to bigger and better things. The hardest part of a new idea is when it impacts you because we all want to be the most important, we all want to make the most out of every opportunity that come our way. We just need to remember that this change is not bad because it changes our life or maybe bumps our ego a little too hard. As we take a step back, we may get to see how these changes help those around us or even make life a little bit more exciting. Just remember that more we learn and grow the better we can change. So let us all take a little bit of time to embrace the changes in our lives and see if we can get a little bit of good from them.

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