By Tara McCurdy
The seats were filled, and two thousand faces stared at center stage at the 2008 National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) National Convention in St. Louis, MO. Caroline Rhea took the stage and made us laugh as she explained her college experience with one memorable day when she assisted Japanese Royalty. Howie Day performed afterwards by singing "Collide" among other hits. The four day convention was underway with an exciting start!
Schools from all around the country fled to St. Louis for this amazing opportunity. We met students from Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois, New York and several other states. However, the West Coast was underrepresented. The University of Portland seemed to be the only school from this side of the country! Even so, Katherine Miller, Katie Greisen, Jenny Frey and I did our best to represent our school!
The weekend was packed with activities including showcases, marketplaces and education sessions that lasted from early in the morning to late at night.
At showcases, we watched performances from spoken word poets, acoustic musicians, comedians, bands, speakers and a variety of other talents.
Marketplace was the place to get information from all the performers' agents and other companies. They gave a ton of free stuff away, such as bags, CDs, DVDs, posters, buttons and more!
Marketplace was also an excellent way to meet people. Katie, Katherine and I met Ryanhood, Tyler Hilton and our representative from Swank Motion Pictures among others. There were extremely long lines to meet Lance Bass from N*SYNC and Darryl McDaniels, a.k.a. DMC from Run-DMC, but we decided not to wait and checked out other parts of Marketplace, like gaming systems with Rock Band or Guitar Hero.
Education sessions gave us information and advice on how to improve our programming board. This information will definitely come in handy for years to come; possibly next year if you vote for me as CPB Director!
Every thing I have experienced at NACA Nationals will help me improve our current program.
At education sessions, I made sure I went the information presented could immediately be implemented into our program. I looked at our flaws and found ways to fix them.
At showcases, we looked for performers for the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. Katie, Katherine and I discovered some awesome talent to bring to campus next year.
At marketplace, we visited their booths and even showed a strong interest in a couple of them. I am their contact person because I was the Co-Op buyer at NACA, which means I signed the paperwork. One group was already trying to figure out what dates would work best for them.
Attending NACA Nationals has been another inspiration for me to become your next CPB Director! The opportunity to go to this convention has been amazing!
I promise to do everything in my power to improve CPB by making it an organization worthwhile to join, changing events on campus as well as the image of CPB, collaborating with other organizations and providing lasting memories for everyone!
Tara McCurdy is running for CPB Director
