Opinion columns reflect the views of their authors, not of MU Student News.
Nobody designs a school event to exclude people. It happens by default, one reasonable-sounding decision at a time, and the results are so routine we’ve stopped seeing them. Permit me a short list from this term alone.
Tickets for the autumn concert released online at 9 p.m. — excellent for students with their own laptop and quiet evening, less so for anyone sharing a family computer or working. The photography workshop was announced only on a social platform not everyone uses; it filled in forty minutes. The quiz night was held in the one hall with a stairs-only entrance, which made the “all welcome” on the poster quietly untrue for at least three students I can name. And every sign-up-limited event this term has rewarded exactly one skill: refreshing a page fast.
Each choice had a defensible reason. Online release is efficient. The platform is where engagement lives. The hall was free that night. Speed is a tiebreaker of sorts. But stack the defensible reasons and a pattern falls out: our events consistently favour the connected, the fast and the mobile, and consistently cost the same students — who then, when they stop showing up, get described as “not interested.”
The fixes are boringly achievable. Announce everything in at least two channels, one of them physical. Hold sign-ups open for 48 hours and draw lots if oversubscribed — luck is fairer than latency. Book accessible venues first, not when someone asks. None of this is expensive. All of it is just remembering, at the planning meeting, that “everyone’s welcome” is a design requirement, not a poster slogan.
One model already exists in this building. The blood drive’s booked-slot system — announced on paper and online, held open for days, no speed required — produced the best turnout the visiting service had seen this season, with nearly half first-timers. Accessibility and success are not competing goals; the drive suggests they are the same goal. The events calendar for next term is being drafted now, which makes this the correct month to say all of this, and a wasteful one in which to ignore it.
