Campus Cinema should strive for higher standards in serving NMU students and earning funding given from the Student Activity Fee.

I remember seeing advertisements for Campus Cinema everywhere when I lived on campus. Posters were in the Marketplace, the University Center and other posting areas. There were also table tents, student announcements and the campus event calendar. Every student knew what movie was showing and attendance from the student body filled at least half of Jamrich 102.

New posters were posted announcing the second half of the semester’s movies in a timely fashion.
The announcer before the movie explained the exits and trash can locations, asked that people clean up after themselves and told us what organization was selling concessions in the back. After the film, both the organization selling concessions and Campus Cinema would clean up.

The students in Campus Cinema were easy to find during the movie. If they weren’t sitting at the entry table, they were sitting in the audience near the door.

Then the announcements for the second half of the semester’s movies arrived later and the table tents disappeared. Not all students knew what was playing the upcoming weekend, but it wasn’t too difficult to find out.

Then I moved off campus and lost the benefit of the Marketplace’s poster and walking past my resident adviser’s poster every day. I relied on the student announcements and the Campus events calendar. But the entries for them came even later and sometimes not at all.

The student body attendance at Campus Cinema began to wane. But whenever a big movie came to campus, every seat would be filled. Never again will I get the opportunity, or grueling torture, of watching Twilight with more than 400 girls and 10 men dragged by their girlfriends.

I still went every weekend, but that was my main source for knowing the following weekend’s movie. Fast forward to last semester and it was almost impossible to find out what movie was showing. There were few or no posters showing the second semester’s half of movies.

I decided to show up on a random weekend, hoping that the movie would be something I’d like to watch. The movie was forgettable and there were barely a handful of students present. I looked around and saw something weird: the Campus Cinema students were gone, not just sitting in the audience near the door but gone. If one of them did stay, they had completely blended in with the audience.

What if something happened? Parents drop their children off to watch movies at Campus Cinema. Who would answer to that parent if they came in and their child was missing?

I stayed until the end and saw something else rather troubling; no one from Campus Cinema was there to help clean up. The projector employee was the only person checking for trash.

I know when there is an organization selling concessions, they sign a contract stating that they will stay until the end to help clean up. It makes sense.

I also know that Campus Cinema students don’t stay to help clean up. Those who come to Campus Cinema are allowed to bring their own food, so it shouldn’t just be a student organization selling concessions taking responsibility for the cleanup.

As a student, I feel that my Student Activity Fee could be put to better use than Campus Cinema. This makes me incredibly sad because I enjoyed it so much, and it gave student body the opportunity to watch some relatively new movies that they wanted to see for free.

With the Stop Online Piracy Act getting shelved and NMU encouraging students to not illegally download movies, I wonder why Campus Cinema doesn’t work harder to advertise their movies, to stay throughout the movie and help clean up afterward.