RUPA Presents: Scarlet Day of Service
Hey everyone! My name is Lauren and I am one of the Assistant Directors of RUPA’s Comedy and Media Committee. Being a part of RUPA for the past two years has taught me the in’s and out’s of running large events, and has helped me to build amazing connections and relationships on campus. Through RUPA I recently had the opportunity to be the event lead for one of our medium size comedy shows, “A Conversation with W. Kamau Bell”. There was a lot of planning that had to be done before the show including finding a comedian. W. Kamau Bell is a best known for his television show series Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and as the host of the CNN original series United Shades of America. We knew Bell would bring out a diverse crowd and start an important discussion on campus. Next, we had to decide the venue, RUPA always likes to have events on all campuses so that way every student can go to an event on the campus they live on at least once throughout the semester. Due to this reasoning, we had the show on Livingston at the Student Center. Lastly, as event lead I had to assign the volunteers roles so that the event would run smoothly and everyone would have something to do.
The day of the event is always a lot of fun because we get to see how all the hard work pays off. To have a smooth event RUPA needs a detailed agenda to follow for the day of show.
However, the day of the event we had a minor snow storm that slightly threw off the agenda. Due to the storm Rutgers classes were cancelled for majority of the day and buses were running less frequently. This presented some obstacles for us like deciding to continue with the show or to cancel. We decided that we should still have the show and Bell was also on board. To our surprise Bell arrived about 2 hours early so the schedule was thrown for a loop. Luckily, a RUPA assistant director was on Livingston at the time and was able to get to the student center quickly to greet him. She was a major help to us because no one else was around due to the snow.
After that the day of show ran very smoothly and the event was a major success! I know Bell’s words made a difference on me that night and I hope they touched many others. Planning events for RUPA is very special to me because, it is my way to take my mind off my class work and enjoy my time here at Rutgers.
Lauren Larsen
Assistant Director of RUPA’s Comedy and Media Committee
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