Over the weekend, the city, in cooperation with student groups and the university, held the first-ever College Park Day — an event meant to celebrate the community and help foster stronger ties between students and the city residents. Although the festival was lauded as a occasion to bring the community together and mend student-city relationships, it, not surprisingly, failed to live up to its hype.
With the Student Government Association providing a free shuttle bus to and from the event, the goal behind College Park Day was an admirable one. Indeed, we do hope it becomes an annual fall attraction. With $5,000 allocated for the festival and 25 city residents helping organize the event, which was held at the College Park Community Center, College Park Day was meant to highlight the people and businesses that make this city a community. Organizers hoped to create an event College Park could claim the rights to when so many of the biggest attractions in the area occur on the campus, such as Maryland Day and Homecoming.
However, much like most events the city orchestrates, student complaints remain the same: College Park Day catered to a much older audience, with numerous attractions for families with children but few for students and their friends. This is the inherent problem with city functions. All too often, events planned to foster relationships between the surrounding community and students lack any incentive for students to actually show up.
Although students sometimes fail to realize it, the university is surrounded by an old and historic city with rich culture and long-term residents. The charm of local businesses are often overshadowed by the crime and heavy traffic that plague the urban area, and students forget the larger community that surrounds them.
Some students did turn out, with organizations like UMD for Clean Energy and the Quidditch team utilizing the opportunity to set up tables with information about upcoming meetings and competitions. The SGA claims they focused their turnout efforts on university groups instead of students, with the hope that students would follow groups that participated. Although some of this happened, groups often only bring their own members. The problem was that for the majority of students, College Park Day just didn’t seem like much fun.
But there were further flaws with the event. The hours it was held reflected a focus toward families with children, rather than students. College Park Day ran from 1 to 5 p.m. Those hours could have been shifted or extended later into the evening to times more appealing to young adults. Although the event had food, many of the activities seemed targeted at children. Hosting a student band for an evening concert seems like one option that would draw students which families could still enjoy. Or perhaps taking a page out of the SGA handbook, event organizers could orchestrate a block party-like dinner similar to the annual Crab Fest. This would allow students and city residents to sit and dine together, fostering communication over good food in a setting that breeds conversation.
College Park Day has a lot of potential. And certainly the first run of anything has its bumps. Next fall, we hope the city will continue to reach out to residents in order to attract families, but a more collaborative effort between the SGA and event organizers is in order. Maryland Day is proof that students will turn out for family-friendly events if there is actually something to turn out for. Students don’t need a kegger to have fun, what they do need is incentive. Next year, we hope the city remembers.
