After hearing students’ positive feedback regarding The Optimist Sing Song predictions, The Optimist staff has been chosen to judge all future Sing Song acts.
Over the past several years, The Optimist has had unprecedented accuracy when it comes to predicting the winners, never failing to pick the winners with limited drama around campus, said Courtney McGaha, manager of student productions.
“It really is impressive,” said McGaha, “The Optimist somehow manages to pick the winners without ever hurting anyone’s feelings or causing drama. I don’t know how they do it.”
The predictions are even more impressive considering they are solely based on the practices early in the week before the show.
“It would be easy for them to get it wrong,” said McGaha, “I mean if there was an act that was unorganized, boring, or had costumes that fell apart, it would be easy for The Optimist to assume they will lose, but somehow they always predict who will win.”
The decision to let The Optimist staff predict who will win came after a stream of positive feedback from YikYak flooded the student life office on Friday.
“We’ve seen your posts on YikYak, and we also support The Optimist,” said PJ Martinez, associate dean of student engagement. “We want to acknowledge that it is the students who are putting in the hard work of Sing Song, and if they want The Optimist to judge, that’s exactly what we will let them do.”
Dr. Phil Schubert made the announcement after the last Sing Song show.
“We love getting to include our students in everything we do on campus,” Schubert said, “Our motto is ‘to educate students for Christian service and leadership throughout the world,’ and we think this will provide The Optimist staff with real world experience vital to the formation of their careers.”
In support of The Optimist, some students began ripping up the papers around campus.
“We think it’s insane that the opinions of The Optimist are relegated to only being in the paper,” said Curly-Headed kid from The Optimist. “Their predictions of each act are always so good. They need more of a platform to discuss who they think should win.”
In the past, the acts have been judged by professionals or alumni who know about each of the categories being judged: set design, costumes, choreography, entertainment and vocals.
The political science department also expressed support for the change. Allowing The Optimist to judge helps show support for freedom of speech, said Dr. Peter Benson, assistant professor of government and criminal science.
“It’s about First Amendment rights,” said Benson, “Media is the fourth branch of government and letting a newspaper participate in Sing Song helps fight fascism and hold the ACU institution accountable for poor judging.”
