For Andrew Kreutzer, it's been there, done that.
Twenty-five years ago, Kreutzer was a student in the Ohio University Sports Administration and Facility Management Program, serving as a co-coordinator for a young event called Friday Night at the Fights. Fast forward to 2004. The event is more than 20 years old and Kreutzer, now the Sports Administration and Facility Management Program's coordinator, sits back and watches a whole new group of graduate students completely take control of the same event he toiled over decades earlier.
They're in charge
Kreutzer said. Students are in complete control of the event from concept to implementation and then post-event evaluation. My role is just to keep an eye on them so they know where the fences are.
Kreutzer's program allows roughly 60 graduate students to take control of the annual event from start to finish. From sponsorship to publicity, finding talent and selling tickets, to securing The Convo for the first time in the event's history, the students do it all.
As far as the actual putting on of the event we've all had experience. That's one of the reasons we're all here
because we've had that experience
said Joel White, the event's senior vice president of operations. I think the level of responsibility is a little more here
because it's all on our shoulders. From the first stages of planning to turning off the lights when we leave The Convo Friday night
it's all on us.
It's that sense of responsibility that adds to the uniqueness of the event, Kreutzer said.
Almost all of them have event experience
so it's not the first rodeo for any of them. However
it's their own
it's the first one that they have owned
the students have ownership of the event
