Anchorage Daily News

Aasif Mandvi from "The Daily Show" packed Williamson Auditorium in September by promising the standard college act. He cracked a few jokes, ran videos of his work, talked about "the real fake news" and let questions from the audience take on a hilarious irony of their own.

But fortuitous timing generated buzz. With a historic election hitting full stride, Mandvi's presence drew students and nonstudents alike, the young and old, the politically active and the comically obsessed.

In some ways, the gig sets the stage for a University of Alaska Anchorage events schedule that looks bigger, better and broader than ever before.

Getting Mandvi to Anchorage began when staff from the campus newspaper brainstormed ideas for celebrating its 20 th anniversary. As adviser to the Northern Light, Annie Route suggested that the newspaper collaborate with Student Activities. "It was the perfect marriage," said Route, director of Student Life & Leadership, the department that envelopes both groups. "Both sponsored the event financially and coordinated it together."

Another of the groups under her wing, the Concert Board, heats things up further by bringing the iconic hip-hop outfit The Roots to Egan Center on Friday.

The board could only afford the band after students supported increasing their Concert Board fees from $5 to $10 last year, the first boost in those fees since 1993.

"This increase will allow us to bring up bigger names," said Zac Clark, coordinator of the Concert Board. "The Roots show is a direct result."

Former Concert Board member Eddy Ozoma saw a price list for bands when he joined the board several years ago.

"They were less expensive than I thought a band of that caliber should have been," he said, so he rallied behind the cause every chance he got.

"With a school like UAA -- established, but still growing -- the more the board can bring up as far as concerts, the better the university's name gets," said Ozoma, who graduated last August and already has his ticket to The Roots show.

Going into his fourth year as coordinator, Clark has seen the fruits of his labor pay off the past two seasons in concerts by Cursive and Bright Eyes in 2007 and the Builders and the Butchers last month, in addition to The Roots next week.

"We're looking to step it up, get artists with name recognition and continue to present diverse acts," he said.

KNOW-HOW COUNTS

Formerly an educator in public schools and museums, Mike McCormick sees his role as assistant director of Student Activities as that of a guide and mentor for students who spearhead whatever events happens at UAA.

These students not only learn how to organize events, get publicity and streamline logistics, he said, but they also develop leadership skills. Where he used to show up at events to take care of last minute tasks, he now usually sees the students doing it.

As for the student body in general, the sense of community can make a big difference. "If you get students to concerts and events, they're more connected to and more positive about the university," McCormick said, "and we know that that energy helps people stay in school."

The fact that UAA leaders support the idea of the university as a public square makes his job easier. It was essential to his taking the position in the first place, he said.

Student Activities presents everything from lectures and art shows at the Student Union Gallery to comedians, spoken word artists, performance art and even concerts. Where the Concert Board aims at big acts like The Roots and popular annual performances like A Cappella Festivella, Student Activities focuses on smaller gigs like last year's free acoustic outdoor concerts downtown.

"The roads go both ways," McCormick said. "We invite people here, and we reach outward too."

Route believes the Concert Board fee increase accelerates what it can do, but when it comes to student-driven events, hard work and experience matter most. And McCormick, well-known in Alaska music circles for his role as a promoter of folk and alternative music groups with Whistling Swan Productions, is a big part of that.

"The experience Mike brings and his connections have really helped us," Route said. "He's sort of the Renaissance guy."

At the same time, Clark's former experience as a student radio DJ and Concert Board volunteer have tapped him into what students want to hear and enabled him to increase the Concert Board's event load from about two events per academic year to closer to six.

Reputation matters, Clark said. When he started his job, he rarely heard from booking agents, but now he gets e-mails and phone calls every week. "Mike and I have been doing our jobs for years, and we're capitalizing on that energy and excitement now."

GOTH TO GOSPEL

McCormick supervises 18 to 20 students and works loosely with dozens of others on the Concert Board, in the office, at the radio station and newspaper and in student government.

"These students have open minds," he said. "They'll listen. They pay attention to what people do and can bring up here."

Not all were happy with the gothic rock of Builders and Butchers, he said. But they recognized the need for a wide range of events and knew that variety made it possible to bring up a gospel group too along with comedy and lecturers.

Nowadays, Student Activities and the Concert Board look far beyond the college circuit with an eye to diversity in programming.

Upcoming events, aside from The Roots, include the 23 rd annual No Big Heads Self-Portrait Exhibition next week, comedian Andy Hendrickson in December and Arun Gandhi, grandson of Gandhi, as the keynote speaker for January's Martin Luther King Day event. Earlier this year, UAA students spearheaded a show and lecture by funk/hip-hop/pop artist Jim Mahfood.

Student fees subsidize most events, so UAA students often get in free or get substantial discounts. Others pay closer to the market rate, in turn subsidizing student projects.

Fifteen percent of proceeds from public ticket sales support events or services that benefit the student body. These grants have paid for things as varied as tools for the student bike club to do bike tune-ups on campus to materials and labor for a physics conference.

Because of the success of recent concerts, the fund hovers around $6,000, "the largest I've seen since I've been here," Clark said.

Not all students attend the events their fees support, but the student body as a whole benefits, Route said. "Not all students go, but all students remember that this band or that comedian came to their school."

The sky's not the limit, of course, but the foundation is set. As Ozoma sees it, "The Roots is where they're at now, but with the fee increase, they can get even bigger bands soon."

For a more thorough look, visit www.uaa.alaska. edu/studentlifeandleadership/activities or

www.uaa.alaska.edu/concertboard. You can also check student events www.uaa.alaska.edu/eventstudent.cfm.

Upcoming events

• THE ROOTS, Grammy-winning hip-hop dynamo outfit plays at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Egan Center. Tickets cost $25 for students with UAA ID cards only at the UAA Student Union Information Desk and $35 general admission at www.ticketmaster.com. (Enter "Anchorage, AK" in the upper left side of the page to access tickets in the area.) The UAA Concert Board is presenting the event.

• NO BIG HEADS SELF PORTRAIT EXHIBITION opens with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the UAA Student Union Gallery. Juror Steven Assael, an art instructor at The Pratt Institute in New York City, will present a lecture and Q&A session from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the UAA Fine Arts Building, Room 150.

• ANDY HENDRICKSON, noted for his demented humor, hits the Student Union Den at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5. Look for admission prices on the Student Activities event page soon. Find out more about the warped comedian at www.andyhendrickson.com.

• ARUN GANDHI, grandson of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, will present a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 22. Check the Student Activities Web page for confirmation of the time and venue.

RELATED

• GULLERMO GOMEZ-PENA will perform "The Mexorcist 4: An Evening of Spoken Word Roulette and Critical Theory" from 8 to 9 p.m. Nov. 12 in the Fine Arts Building, Room 150. This is not a presentation of the UAA Concert Board or Student Activities but is sponsored by the UAA Art Department in conjunction with Out North and the Diversity Action Council & the Faculty Senate Diversity Committee.

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