Nights on the Heights (NOTH), a student-led programming body that plans late night activities for students on weekends, is undergoing changes this year.
Headed by Director Iulia Padeanu, A&S ’12, alongside graduate students Kara Londe, GLSOE ’13, and Dennis Carr, GLSOE ’15, NOTH has long provided free programs for Boston College students as an alternative to the “party scene.” Events take place on campus and are open to the entire student body.
Traditionally, events revolve around fields such as arts and crafts, music, comedy, and other more active forms of entertainment. Past events have included things like laser tag, rollerblading, trivia, and scrapbooking, all taking place on the weekend between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.
However, this year, NOTH has decided to try to sponsor bigger and more high quality programs rather than smaller ones in hopes of appealing to a wider audience. Pandeau said that the NOTH programming board wanted to branch out from the more standard programs that only appeal to a certain kind of student.
“This year we are going to be focusing on quality over quantity,” she said. “Of course we always try to put on the best programs we can, but this year we are trying to sponsor bigger programs, bring bigger names to campus and generally cater to a wider audience.
“We hope by putting on high quality programs we will attract a larger turnout.”
These programs include bringing more musical guests to campus, which will be a welcome relief to students in light of the recently cancelled fall concert. This fall, both Matt Kearney and Vanessa Carlton will be playing at BC, in October and November, respectively.
Sharon Blumenstock, assistant director for Late Night Programming, said that NOTH was also going to incorporate more student-run musical events, in addition to already established ones such as Acoustic Chocolate.
“NOTH is planning many exciting large and small scale events on campus,” she said. “We are trying to provide students with many social options such as student-run music events, for example Sound of the Heights. NOTH has grown tremendously these past few years and I know the board and myself want it to continue to grow in popularity.”
Another new facet of NOTH is a continued increased collaboration with UGBC, which is fostered by the fact that both NOTH and the UGBC’s Campus Entertainment Department are advised by Blumenstock in the Student Programming Office. Both groups are steadily beginning to work on planning more projects together. Pandeau said that they are currently collaborating on a project to bring a writer from The Onion to BC.
Mike Kitlas, UGBC president and A&S ’12, said he hopes to further increase collaboration between UGBC and NOTH by instilling a joint programming caucus, a plan he mentioned often during his successful campaign last year.
“We wanted to increase the collaboration between UGBC and NOTH by creating a programming caucus where we would be able to sit down and plan events together,” he said. “The programming caucus is still in the process of being developed and finalized, but even still we have been in constant communication with members of NOTH and have begun to co-sponsor events with them.”
Kitlas also said how he believes this plan will increase the effectiveness of NOTH programs.
“I think the plan we have chosen to take with NOTH is an effective decision as it is bringing two very strong programming boards together and allowing us to reach out to the largest percentage of students on the BC campus with a great array of programs,” he said.
Pandeau echoed similar sentiments, however noting that for the near future the two groups will be separate, yet collaborating, entities.
“I think Mike [Kitlas] is right, eventually we will be moving towards uniting the UGBC programming board and NOTH,” she said. “But I think for right now we are just concentrating on planning the best events we can, and increasing the collaboration between our two clubs to find common ground and the best way for us to combine our missions.”
