Rolling With The Punches

While serving on the board of directors for Syracuse University’s student programming board, University Union, I faced quite a few unexpected challenges. Taking over the leadership of an organization is always a bit intimidating, especially when there are over 15,000 students relying on you to create something amazing for them to enjoy. For University Union, that something was worthwhile and entertaining events.

This past September, our board put together a very exciting lineup for students to enjoy at our annual music festival, Juice Jam. The lineup received such positive feedback from the student body and sold out within 4 days of being announced. The concert directors had been going over contracts for weeks, running approvals by me (the vice president), the president, and our advisor. Everything seemed to be in place until about halfway through the day when it was noted that the headliner was 10 minutes past his expected arrival time. The manager assured us that our headliner and his entourage were on their way, but the students were restless and our curfew crept closer with each passing minute. Ultimately, a small group of us had to make the final decision to end the event early since our headliner still hadn’t arrived and we had other contractual obligations we needed to meet.

Immediately my responsibility that day went from managing a team that ensured student safety to making sure our staff was safe as the mass exodus of students occurred. At the same time, I took the lead on how we would approach overall damage control from a public relations standpoint. I drafted our initial holding statement after the cancellation, providing the rest of our team a few more days to figure out exactly how we would handle the situation. The 48 hours following the cancellation was spent in various meetings working with the finance board to secure our budget for the rest of the year, and make sure the student body understood everything that occurred. The last thing we wanted was to lose their trust.

The lessons I learned that day came in handy this past April when the headliner of our spring concert was also unable to make it to our venue. I took on the role of damage control manager, once again, by leading a team of students to inform the press and students of the events that had transpired while our talent bookers searched for a last-minute replacement. After two artist cancellations, I can safely say that transparent communication is so important when working with a team and I now trust myself to react quickly and with a level-headed demeanor in a crisis.