Despite the financial crisis and looming budget shortfalls, the University will hold its first annual Winter Forum this January, focused on “Making the Green Economy Work.”

Developed as part of Duke’s Quality Enhancement Plan, which sought to better integrate globalization into the undergraduate experience, the Winter Forum is a two-and-a-half-day symposium held prior to the start of Spring semester classes. The program seeks to provide a global experience for athletes, engineers and other students who often are unable to study abroad due to scheduling constraints.

Creating and carrying out a QEP is a required part of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools reaccreditation process, which the University must complete once every 10 years.

For reasons stated last Spring in this column, we have been skeptical about the value added by Duke’s most recent QEP. And although the Winter Forum component of this larger plan has the potential to enhance some students’ experiences, an event that lasts only a couple days is at most a supplementary and peripheral addition to everyday life on campus.

Now that the plan for a Winter Forum has been actualized, however, its cost—$100,000 this year—is cause for concern.

The QEP was drafted during a period of financial largesse when spending was not an issue, so at the time the program undoubtedly seemed reasonable. But in today’s economic climate, it is inappropriate to spend a large amount of money on a program that is short in duration and void of an essential purpose. For a University that is on the verge of layoffs, the $100,000 price tag is hardly justifiable.

Instead, the administration could have decreased the budget for the event and still fulfilled its obligation to enact the QEP’s programs.

Even after deciding to spend so much money on the forum, though, advertising and marketing for the event was lackluster. Aside from one mention in a lengthy DSG blast e-mail and a few posters inside campus buses, there was no widespread effort to get the word out about the Winter Forum.

As a result, it is not surprising that only about 75 of the University’s thousands of undergraduates applied to participate.

For a program that means so much to the University and the reaccreditation process, this is not acceptable. Moreover, given the lack of awareness on campus, it is likely that those who did apply already had an established interest in environmental sustainability. This would mean that the forum is not reaching out to a broad array of students and only attracting those who already have had global experiences.

To remedy this situation for future forums, personalized e-mails should be proactively sent to students targeted by the Winter Forum: athletes, engineers and other groups less likely to study abroad.

Still, e-mails are not enough on their own. The forum’s planners should reach out to faculty members across the University and encourage them to tell their students about the program. Additionally, more flyers and a banner in the Bryan Center would make a big difference in drumming up student interest. And if, in the future, the initial application level is low, the administration should extend the deadline.

The Winter Forum is too important and too expensive to enact poorly. For any hope of actually enhancing the quality of the Duke experience, better planning and proper marketing are necessary to get a diverse array of students involved.