Kristian Singh and Dominic Hardaway are this week’s Campus Celebrities because they organized all of the events for this past weekend’s TheConnect Conference. Movement Entertainment the event planning and consulting firm run by Singh and Hardaway and this gig was kind of a big deal because it was no small task. Read about how they got involved and how they completed their mission in their answers below!
HerCampus: Tell me a little bit about the Black Student Government movement
What inspired you to get involved?
DH: Well black student government is essentially a governing for the majority of african american based organizations. I became involved in African American Student Association (Afro-Am) my freshmen year mainly because the leaders within our community were leaders of that organization. From there I began to start joining other organizations that fit my interest and major.
HC: How did you go about organizing such a big event here at OSU?
KS: Organizing this event was a hard task, but within TheMovement we deal with tough situations on many occasions. Since the Big XII consulted us on the entertainment portion our first step was coming up with a theme that would correlate back to the conference. We came up with TheConnect which represented all the different departments, schools, and businesses that helped make the Big XII Conference what it was. Our promotion scheme was to make every school or department feel needed. We created custom flyers for schools that featured their school colors to help them better market to their students. As well as promotional videos that better explained where different aspects of the entertainment where coming from. Since the main portion of entertainment was the conference afterparty we next chose the basic essential things to have a great party with connection based theme. We chose to have the host of the party come from a neighboring school as well as DJ’s from Oklahoma City, Norman, and even Dallas, TX. Our Security was approved through OSU police department. With all these things handled all we had next was to promote to as many people as possible.
How much time do you think you put into it’s organization?
KS: Its hard to calculate how much time went into the planning of the entertainment package for the BIG XII conference. I just know we had tasks that needed to be completed everyday.
What kind of problems did you face when trying to organize the event and how did you stay positive about beating those problems?
DH: There seemed to problems at every turn but we just understood that we committed to assist in hosting this event and wanted to remain loyal our word. We understand that entertainment might seem like a small portion but its something that people look forward to and we wanted to make it as successful as possible.
Finally, if there are any readers who want to get involved in the Black Student Government movement, where do you suggest they start?
KS: I would suggest they do research on different organizations through the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Figure out what organizations could help benefit their portfolio as well as making quality connections