The Student’s Association and the Campus Activity Board are planning the first sponsored dance party in ACU history for next month. The costume dance party will be March 20 in the Hunter Welcome Center from 8:30-11:30 p.m.
The university announced its revised dancing policy on Feb. 21, which now allows university and official organization-sponsored events to include approved forms of dancing. Julianne Hart, vice president of the SA, met with Student Life the day the announcement was made to schedule the first ACU-sponsored dance. The senior political science major from Austin said the planning for this dance began long before the revision was made official.
“The results of last spring’s student survey showed the overwhelming majority of students really wanted social dance,” Hart said. “We’ve been in conversation with the Board of Trustees since August about the possibility of a revised policy. Once we got it officially approved we wanted to get the first dance started immediately.”
The dance, themed “A Dance in Disguise,” will be on the Tuesday night after Spring Break and will include a costume contest, a DJ and free food and drinks.
Tom Craig, director of student activities, said the decision to make the event on a weeknight was so students would have fewer potential schedule conflicts.
“A lot of students already have things planned for the weekends so it’ll be a sort of weeknight de-stressor,” Craig said. “It’s also scheduled so people can come after their Tuesday night classes.”
The biggest difference in planning this event will be the dance floor, Craig said. While most of the other components of planning the dance are similar to other events, the floor surface has to be taken into consideration.
“We’ve never had to make sure the surface is necessary for dancing,” he said. “We’ll be looking at bringing in portable flooring. This dance will be in the McCaleb Conference Center, which is carpet, so we’ll bring in some wood flooring.”
Hart said having the dance two days after Spring Break will make marketing the event a challenge. The Students’ Association and Campus Activities Board will advertise the dance heavily, before and after the break.
“We’ll be working together on an ad campaign that is all encompassing,” Hart said. “We’ll be trying to flood the media scene and making sure that everyone knows this is happening. We want everyone who would want to go to know about it.”
Hart said the dance was scheduled as soon as the dance policy was revised to get students excited about the opportunities it opens up.
“We really wanted students to see immediate results after the policy was changed, and we want this to be a kickoff event for the campus to celebrate the first dance,” she said. “This is a monumental event in ACU’s history, and we want students to be able to come out and be a part of history.”
