What does Dining Services have to do with Sara Evans?
By Nick Claussen
May 5, 2008
Country music star Sara Evans will perform in Athens tonight thanks to the sponsorship of the Horizon Concert Series at Ohio University, the University Program Council and OU Dining Services.
If one part of that sentence looks odd to you, don’t worry you’re not alone.
Dining services is co-sponsoring the concert, and it’s not the first campus event it has helped fund.
Some on campus and around the community have seen the advertisements and wondered why a service that students sign up to eat at and practically have to eat at if they live in the dorms would sponsor a concert. Some also may question why money is spent on this when dining services is connected to the Baker Center dining services, which is running a deficit of nearly $1 million and is looking for ways to reduce expenses.
Emily Howard, marketing manager for auxiliary services at Ohio University, explained on Friday why dining services sponsors events like this, where the money comes from and why it is a community-service type program for dining services.
“Basically, it’s money we receive from Pepsi,” Howard said.
Pepsi has the “pouring rights” on campus, which means that the company has a contract with OU that states that the majority of beverages sold on campus are “Pepsi-branded beverages,” Howard explained.
The university has “prime vendor agreement” with other vendors on campus, and the vendors sometimes pay the university grant-like money for these agreements.
With Pepsi, the university looks at the money like it is grant money because it is not part of the regular income, and puts it into student programs, Howard said.
“It’s been just the focus that we put it into performing arts sponsorship,” Howard said. In previous years, dining services gave $30,000 per year to these sponsorships, but with recent budget cuts dining services only gave $15,000 this year and is committed to giving $15,000 for the 2008-2009 school year, Howard said.
The university is not required to spend the money on these programs, but Howard said OU officials wanted to use this money from Pepsi on events such as concerts that the students and community would benefit from.
“We made a commitment to use that toward student and community initiatives,” Howard said. She added that this is another way dining services is able to partner with other parts of the institution.
“We wanted to directly impact students,” Howard said.
While the advertisements say dining service sponsors the concert, Howard said that it is actually sponsored by auxiliary services. Dining services falls under auxiliary services, which also includes the markets on campus, the food operations in Baker University Center and the retail stores on campus, Howard said.
“They are all under one department within the university,” she said.
The concerts also to help to advertise Baker Center to the public, she added, as the Latitude 39 restaurant is promoted as a pre-show destination. The university offers a dinner theater package, which includes reduced prices on appetizers or desserts with the purchase an entrée for patrons of the Performing Arts Series on campus, Howard said. The university also provides a complimentary shuttle to and from Baker Center to the concert, and audience members can park in the parking garage at Baker Center, according to Howard.
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