If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.

And that’s exactly what MSA is doing with their new CATS program.

The program, which rewards students for attending events, is a poor attempt by the MSA Cabinet to “change Mizzou’s culture” and does not address the real reason why students seldom attend events here on campus:

A majority of the events they are encouraging students to go suck.

I know a ton of people who work for the Department Of Student Activities and Mizzou After Dark as well as the professional staff who work closely with them. They are some of the most dedicated and passionate leaders on this campus. I’m not calling into question their work ethic whatsoever.

What I am saying is that students don’t attend events because they aren’t interested in what the events are. Not because they don’t get rewarded for it.

It’s because they just don’t find the movie or speaker or musician or event interesting. It’s that simple. 

People didn’t go to the Ben Kweller concert because couldn’t swipe their ID and get points that could go towards an iPad. People didn’t go because nobody had heard of Ben Kweller and didn’t want to waste a night on a nobody, indie musician.

However, the MSA Cabinet members who created this program are missing the mark on this. The CATS program is not the solution.

The solution is to go out and talk to people. Find out what speakers they want, what musicians they want to hear and what events they want and then bring them to campus by working together with the community, other organizations on campus and local businesses.

You don’t need to bribe people with iPhones and cars and gift cards to get them to attend events. It’s a waste of money and effort that fails to address the underlying issue that students don’t like a majority of the events provided by DSA.

While I applaud the effort on the part of those who worked on this, the CATS program is just lipstick on the pig and will do little to nothing with respect to the attendance problems at events. The real solution is to cut the events that have poor attendance and ramp up efforts to find events that students will go to without being bribed.

— Matt Kalish, student,

matthewkalish@mail.missouri.edu