Duke University Union members elected junior Kawon Lee as the Joe College Day committee chair Tuesday, with the goal of improving and attracting more students to the event.
Lee, who served on DUU’s Joe College Day and Marketing committees for two years, said she wants to restructure the event and bring in more local vendors, adding that she thinks this will increase student attendance.
The last Joe College Day was held on Oct. 2 and lasted from 2 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. This year, the committee plans to hold the event from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the first Friday of classes in August.
“It should be a welcome back concert, where everyone can gather and get pumped up for the upcoming year,” Lee said. “It would be great if we could incorporate local bands as well so that it has more of a Durham personality to it. More student groups would be great as well.”
According to Lee, the budget for the event is undecided, but the committee hopes to try to bring in more mainstream artists.
From the 1950s to 1970s, Joe College Day flourished as an annual Spring festival, with floats, boxed lunches and musical acts. Then in 2007, after 30 years of absence, Joe College Day returned with a successful debut. However, attendance has steadily declined in the past few years, something that DUU hopes to change.
Sophomore Nathan Nye, the outgoing Joe College Day committee chair, said Joe College Day did not attract as many students this year as DUU had hoped.
“This year we saw that due to midterms and other events, we were losing the crowd we could’ve had,” Nye said. “Our daytime program went really well, but once the sun went down and there were other things going on, we saw a decline in attendance. Hopefully with the restructuring we won’t run into conflicts with nighttime events and also won’t run into issues with midterm exams and having people worry about studying.”
Freshman Forrest Etter, member of the Speakers and Stage committee, said he would have gone if the event was earlier in the day and school year.
“I was busy studying and doing lots of work, and then I had a social event to attend during the night,” Etter said. “Also, if it had been better publicized, I would have gone.”
Lee said that next Fall, the Joe College Day committee plans to increase publicity for the event to attract more students.
“Last year, marketing was a bit of a problem because we were rushed towards the end thinking about marketing strategies,” Lee said. “We want to do a lot more print advertising and make the event more visible.”
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