Recent backlash over a leaked Frolics performers list broke out around campus this past weekend. Outraged students and faculty alike united against the announcement, publicly expressing their disappointment at a demonstration in the Union ampetheatre. Often times, students and faculty represent differing opinions, as seen with the implementation of the Chick-fil-A last semester, which brought about discourse among professors, while the student population largely supported the fast food chain. This raises the question: did the faculty know that we would never actually get the Chick-fil-A? And what now has caused these two demographics to join forces? 

A leaked photo, posted to YikYak, exposed Union Board’s budget and dependencies for the upcoming academic year. Safe perhaps for some minor laundering, the budget appeared to be quite straightforward. A netizen responded to the YikYak post, highlighting the Frolics budget, listed as $0 for performance, tech, food, and other related facilities. The fear was that there would be no Frolics this spring without any budgeting, but one netizen revealed the following: Joni Mitchell was intended to be the headliner but had since withdrawn. “So still no frolics?” one concerned netizen replied, to which the original poster of the budget leak confirmed that Frolics will still happen, but it has been fully funded by an anonymous donor. 

Later analysis of Union Board’s budget leak found that, while there was not enough flexibility in the budget to get Joni Mitchell, the thought alone of bringing in Mitchell caused a flock of performers to swarm the Frolics sub-committe of UB. In particular, since he was already on campus speaking to the Turning Point USA students, Alex Jones offered to foot the entire cost of Frolics in exchange for the opportunity to perform. Union Board’s unpopular decision to accept Jones’s offer and the subsequent diffusion of this information encouraged the students and faculty to, as one netizen put it: “pitch a fit.” Union Board published the following statement:

Davidson’s Union Board is dedicated to encouraging cross-cultural critical thinking and bringing diverse perspectives onto campus. This decision, with the benefit of full funding, aligns with the mission statement of the college. If students find themselves to be upset, they can simply transfer.

This controversy follows a long string of Honor Council hearings for Union Board on laundering. Last semester UB was $5K short of their budget, hence the early budget planning which would otherwise take place in the spring. 

Students and faculty are calling for Union Board to be dissolved. Union Board has provided no further statements.