As restrictions on public gathering sizes are being loosened and lifted campus-wide and state-wide, several classic events are making a return to AU to wrap up the semester. Several of these events to which students can look forward are below.
April 26 – Pitch on the Prairie
Each year, AU’s MBA program hosts a Business Plan Competition, allowing students to pitch business ideas to a panel of judges. This year, the event is titled to reflect its venue: Conner Prairie.
“Competitors from various cohorts of AU’s MBA program will present their capstone business plan projects in a ‘Shark Tank’ style competition, which will be judged by four members of the community,” said senior project management major Lucy Stultz, who is heading up the event.
This year’s judges are Clayton Whitson, Alicia Honeyman, Adam Hoeksema and Pete Bitar.
Although in-person attendance is limited due to COVID-19 safety restrictions, the event will be live-streamed on Facebook.
Questions about Pitch on the Prairie can be sent to Lucy Stultz at ljstultz@anderson.edu.
April 27 – Senior Chapel
To honor the class of 2021, Senior Chapel will be held in-person in Reardon Auditorium at 11 a.m. All students, faculty and staff are welcome to attend.
Select seniors will deliver speeches to the students body and special awards will be presented to distinguished seniors.
April 28 – Black Bird Film Festival
A mix between the Oscars and a Hollywood movie premiere, the festival is put on each year by AU’s cinema and media arts program to show off student-made short films, commercials and even music videos.
“After a year of being isolated and not having many activities, this is a great way for everybody to get out of their dorms and come together and experience a fun night of films,” said host and founder of the festival Jack Lugar, associate professor of cinema and media arts.
According to Lugar, it’s important for students to share their films with a live audience.
The films being screened this year come from a variety of classes—practicums, independent studies and other cinema and media arts classes—and span a variety of genres. Attendees can expect to see a documentary, a number of commercials and three short films.
Free to attend, the red carpet will be rolled out at 6:15 p.m. and the screening will begin at 7:00 p.m.
May 1 – Encore and Bond
Usually held four times a year by the men’s social club Avanti Boosters, Encore has become a staple of the student experience at AU. Unfortunately, the options for hosting such a large event on campus have been limited since the beginning of the pandemic.
Before the semester ends, Boosters hopes to give students a taste of post-pandemic normalcy—for the first time since February of 2020, Encore will be held in Reardon Auditorium. The theme for this long-awaited Encore is “Anything Goes.”
To add to the fun, Boosters is partnering with CAB for the show. Per usual, there will be two Encore shows—one in the early evening, and one later in the evening. This time, however, there will be a beloved CAB event in between the two shows: Bond.
“Bond—which is historically a stand-alone CAB event—we’re putting it in between the two Encore shows to capture people leaving the first show and to entice people to come early for the second show,” said Thomas Piotrowski, the band coordinator for Encore.
Attendees can expect typical Bond games and typical high-quality Encore performances.