Photo by:
The University of Denver’s 50th Anniversary Winter Carnival promises a fun time for all who attend. Who would miss cheap skiing, ice-skating, tubing and an on-mountain concert in Winter Park?
Lots of students, it turns out.
The university’s programming board, known as DUPB, sponsors the event. DUPB gets the majority of the student activity fees earmarked for student-oriented events.
The activity fee is paid by every undergraduate student each quarter, so it seems reasonable that DUPB would strive to make the event accessible to every student.
Our money helps fund this event, so we should be able to go, right?
Well I will be attending, but many of my friends will not. For some, it is a financial issue. Even with the discounted lift tickets, the cost of the weekend is too much.
When you consider the cost of lodging, food, gas or the bus, and whatever activities the students may want to participate in, it becomes too much for students already struggling to pay for important things like textbooks.
For a lot of other students, the issue of transportation is a barrier. There are buses to and from the event, but the buses only run at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Friday and Sunday.
This means students with Friday night on-campus commitments, such as theater majors, and students who only want to make a day trip or do not want to stay for the entire weekend, must figure out their own transportation. I do not have a car, so that means I have to find rides to and from Winter Park.
Other students are just not interested in going to the mountains. It may be hard to believe, but not everyone in Colorado knows how to ski or wants to learn. Spending the weekend with friends may be appealing, but many students would rather stay on campus.
For students not interested in going to Winter Park or for students unable to participate, there are few activities on campus or nearby. This year, the kickoff event is a Rail Jam at Ruby Hill on Saturday, Jan. 30. This event is accessible using Denver’s RTD. The only other easy-to-get-to event is the d.u.g.s. Grill and Chill on Driscoll Lawn on Monday, Feb. 1. The rest of the carnival events are in Winter Park on Feb. 5-7.
I hope that in the future DUPB will consider the accessibility of their university-wide events such as Winter Carnival.
There is no reason that there cannot be more activities on-campus during the week, and also over the weekend for students who do not go to Winter Park.
