Block seating at football games hasn't been considered the fairest way of deciding seating arrangements for students in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Just as coach Gene Chizik's arrival dawned a new era of Auburn football, a new seating program will implement a more inclusive way for students to enjoy the game.
"What we decided is we will only use Ignited points as a means for garnering points," said SGA President Owen Parrish. "The only way to gain points toward organizational group seating is through attendance at athletic events and the Ignited points system."
Parrish said a group of leaders was created last fall to establish what would comprise a new spirit system. Meeting for nine weeks straight, the group was equally represented from all parts of campus, including Greek life, independent students, SGA leaders and other smaller group leaders.
Last year's SGA President Kirby Turnage began the process of seeking a new system but eventually passed on the responsibility of making a decision to the current SGA staff.
"They worked through the whole system and all the questions that you can ask," Parrish said. "They came up with this long packet of what do we want and this is something they all agreed upon and all signed off on. It was kind of their set of recommendations, so that set of recommendations ended the spirit program as it existed."
Parrish emphasized the importance of having a program that includes everyone, not just members of large organizations.
"There are small benefits added in for using social media and things like that, but the majority of those points come from attendance at Division I athletic events, and that is how the Ignited points system will be transferred into organizational group seating into that competition," Parrish said.
Parrish said the program is open to any organization, no matter the size.
"It's not fair to just do sheer number because then a group of 150 is going to have a huge advantage over a group of 20."
Director of Traditions Billy Walick created an algorithmic system that evaluates organizations based on their size, but also keep organizations evenly matched.
"I collected attendance data from hundreds of previous Ignited events and used those historical trends to create a mathematical formula from which points are scaled off of the new Auburn Ignited point system," Walick said. "These new scaling factors are specific down to a single member of an organization, and they are easily altered through the formulas if membership size changes. This creates an even and fair opportunity for organizations of all sizes to earn the most amount of points."
Walick said after a year of the new system has passed, data can be collected to double check the system to ensure all formulas are providing a fair result.
"This system in general is an improvement from previous spirit programs because it removes all monetary factors and disingenuous involvement, while focusing on athletic events and supporting the programs they establish," Walick said. "We believe the privilege of grouped seating at football games should be earned by fully supporting athletics itself, which the new program is centered around."
Unlike the former program, the new program will not have monetary incentives such as buying apparel for a certain organization.
"You could go out and spend $100,000 on concessions or on apparel or anything like that if you wanted to, but that wouldn't make any difference at all," Parrish said. "Nothing is incentivized as far as the spending of money."
Parrish said the need for a new program was realized some time ago.
"When you're looking at it, the first step in this whole thing was why did we change what we had. (The old program) incentivized athletic events and attendance, then it was also attendance at essentially anything that was deemed worthy of receiving spirit points," Parrish said. "But also, it was a means of raising money and so if a fraternity or sorority or an organization offered spirits for attending their philanthropy and it was $10 to do it, tons of people would do it. It was very much an attendance-based program, but it was also a money generator, and so regardless of all the other factors, the people with the most money had a leg up."
Parrish remembers witnessing people exploit the spirit system a few years ago.
"I was the director of Big Event my sophomore year, and it was great to have 2,400 people that came to Big Event. It was great to have a little over 3,000 last year, and there were some people that absolutely loved it," Parrish said. "You look at the other side of the table and some people go and sit down on the bench and they stay there for two hours because they have to stay there for two hours to get their spirit points. It was not creating genuine involvement; it was creating disingenuous involvement."
Parrish said although people would attend activities, some would not invest their time appropriately and instead would do only what they had to do to receive credit for the spirit points.
"We knew it was broken," Parrish said. "You could never really know that if I did this one thing better than anybody else, that's how I win."
Seating at football games remains the payoff of the program, and the student sections in Jordan-Hare Stadium will remain the same.
The old spirit contract was signed last fall and extends through the upcoming football season, putting the new system's rewards off until next season.
"We are still rewarding wristbands and seats to organizations that won block seats through last year's spirit competition," Parrish said. "This is looking at next year, seating for next football season."
There will be organizational group seating informational sessions starting Monday, Aug. 27, in Room 2218 in the Student Center at 4 p.m. and Tuesday, Aug. 28 at 6 p.m.
In these sessions, organizations will have the opportunity to register for the new seating program through September 14. Groups can also register online on the Ignited website at auburnignited.com.
After Sept. 14, organizations are responsible for turning in a roster that matches the list of members who registered for the new program to the SGA Traditions Council.
The rosters, Owen said, are in place to protect the integrity of the program and ensure organizations list the appropriate members.
"Just to make sure that everything is done correctly and people are where they need to be," Parrish said.
Points will begin to be counted Sept. 14 and will count for organizational group seating for the 2013 football season.
"With this new program, I can sit down and explain it to you in five minutes and that was my goal...to have something simple and to the point that still provides incentives and a way for students to get the group seating and encourage organizational involvement," Parrish said.
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