In your recent editorial, you mentioned the perception that the Student Center is dead after hours. We would like to take a few moments to address this gross misconception and present a few simple facts:

This year, over 120,000 students have enjoyed our facility since we opened our programming season in August. With over 150 events programmed this year, The Cats Den has delivered some of the best touring standup comedians in the nation through its Comedy Caravan series. Our concert series has seen pop and rock groups from London, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta through its doors. Nearly a dozen local bands have had the opportunity to perform on stage, a small contribution to shine the spotlight on our city’s grossly ignored music scene. Our artist spotlight series has included a multimedia artist from Berlin starting his first U.S. tour on campus and one of spoken word poetry’s foremost poets, Black Ice, during our Hip Hop Week programming in October.

All of these events are absolutely free of charge to students.

Throughout the year we averaged nearly a tournament a week featuring video games, billiards, table tennis and other recreational activities. We have offere­­­d several sneak peek advance movie screenings and have partnered with over two dozen student organizations for weekend activities. We have produced fashion shows, Vanity; reality television competitions, UK Star — in production with UK Channel 50; and most recently a drag queen pageant, in collaboration with OUTsource, which made the front page of the Kernel. To top all of that off, we have also hosted town hall forums with President Todd and other members of government.

We are already addressing the perception that “there is nothing to do but go to bars or go home” by providing educational, cultural, and recreational programming on campus. Therefore, The Cats Den invites the student body to come on down and experience what we have to offer. And if none of our programming interests you, at least come by for the free popcorn. However, to dismiss our efforts so flippantly by declaring the Student Center programming “boring and redundant” is an ignorantly placed smack in the face to what we’ve accomplished.

Jesse Wingert

Cats Den coordinator