[TrumpCard]

- Return the LSJUMB to Incomparable status - admit more musicians, and fewer people who do the truly stupid things that we've seen in the papers.  Free housing from the week before football season starts until the normal start of undergrad housing; multiple fully funded road trips as carrots.  Winning football team also helps with Band recruiting.  Revisit show format & do some serious introspection on what the audience actually wants to see/hear.  Band is the soundtrack to the stadium experience - must recover ASAP from the COVID and culture impacts, and do better.

This seems like a low ROI.  

--The band was gutted by suspensions and other discipline issues over the years.  Then the pandemic compounded the problem.  Then during the pandemic, the administration rightly came down hard on the band for failing to address sexual assault.  As a result of the last round of discipline, alumni are no longer allowed to participate in most band events, meaning that some of the most experienced musicians who know the songs well are not playing at games (except reunions).  That all took a toll, and the band will need some time to rebuild before it will be incomparable again.  There are other, more immediate, measures that would increase the number of butts in the seats at football games.  

--On admissions, are you talking about changing *university* admissions or just which students are eligible to join band?  If the former, that's pretty unrealistic.  If the latter, then requiring auditions to get into band would be a significant change in culture (since the band historically has no admissions requirements whatsoever), but maybe one that would improve the music.  The change in culture would be disappointing for me, but I haven't been a student or band member in ages, and maybe the current students would rather have a bad comprised only of legit musicians.  Again, this would not pay dividends for years.  You might see a decline in membership (from people who already participate, but wouldn't like the change) before you see gains from new members who otherwise wouldn't join.  

--Funding a month of housing would be an enormous expense.  Food too?  That's a non-trivial portion of the whole budget for the band.  If done, would students really come back early to play in 1-2 home games?  What else would they do for that month?  

--Funding extra road trip(s) sounds great, but how does that put butts in the chairs at home games?  Is the idea that an extra road trip is such a draw that more people would join band?  Maybe, but the ROI is low.

--I'm all for updating field shows to something people want to see.  By the way, will the update require unpaid Stanford students to do like 15 hours a week of field rehearsals.  If so, that ain't happening.

[TrumpCard]

- Return the LSJUMB to Incomparable status - admit more musicians, and fewer people who do the truly stupid things that we've seen in the papers.  Free housing from the week before football season starts until the normal start of undergrad housing; multiple fully funded road trips as carrots.  Winning football team also helps with Band recruiting.  Revisit show format & do some serious introspection on what the audience actually wants to see/hear.  Band is the soundtrack to the stadium experience - must recover ASAP from the COVID and culture impacts, and do better.

This seems like a low ROI.  

--The band was gutted by suspensions and other discipline issues over the years.  Then the pandemic compounded the problem.  Then during the pandemic, the administration rightly came down hard on the band for failing to address sexual assault.  As a result of the last round of discipline, alumni are no longer allowed to participate in most band events, meaning that some of the most experienced musicians who know the songs well are not playing at games (except reunions).  That all took a toll, and the band will need some time to rebuild before it will be incomparable again.  There are other, more immediate, measures that would increase the number of butts in the seats at football games.  

--On admissions, are you talking about changing *university* admissions or just which students are eligible to join band?  If the former, that's pretty unrealistic.  If the latter, then requiring auditions to get into band would be a significant change in culture (since the band historically has no admissions requirements whatsoever), but maybe one that would improve the music.  The change in culture would be disappointing for me, but I haven't been a student or band member in ages, and maybe the current students would rather have a bad comprised only of legit musicians.  Again, this would not pay dividends for years.  You might see a decline in membership (from people who already participate, but wouldn't like the change) before you see gains from new members who otherwise wouldn't join.  

--Funding a month of housing would be an enormous expense.  Food too?  That's a non-trivial portion of the whole budget for the band.  If done, would students really come back early to play in 1-2 home games?  What else would they do for that month?  

--Funding extra road trip(s) sounds great, but how does that put butts in the chairs at home games?  Is the idea that an extra road trip is such a draw that more people would join band?  Maybe, but the ROI is low.

--I'm all for updating field shows to something people want to see.  By the way, will the update require unpaid Stanford students to do like 15 hours a week of field rehearsals.  If so, that ain't happening.