The President’s Gala is an annual Plattsburgh State event held at the end of each fall semester to celebrate the school and the end of another Student Association term.
This year, the event will mark the 10th anniversary of the gala and the 125th anniversary of PSUC’s founding, and Leigha Merwin, co-chair for the Activities Coordination Board, said it is going to be made “extra special.”
Merwin said the event will have an anniversary theme because the inaugural gala was held when Michael Cashman, the current PSUC assistant director for the Center for Student Involvement, was SA President. During that gala, it was centered around a classy, sit-down dinner, which Merwin said they are planning to bring back for this year’s event, as well as celebrating the whole of PSUC’s history.
Themes in recent years have included Masquerade, A Night in Paris and the Roaring Twenties. This year in particular is going to be a throwback to the Cashman “era to help,” a nod to his attention to the SA slogan of students serving students.
Cori Jackson, the director for the PSUC Center for Student Involvement, said the event will be elegant with live music, dinner and dancing, featuring music from a live band, which is celebrating the college’s two major milestones.
Merwin said planning the event gave her and the rest of the committee the chance to look back at pictures of the first year of school at PSUC when it opened in 1898 and see firsthand how much has changed a lot over the years.
“It’s really cool to see how much it has grown and everything,” Merwin said. “So we are really just celebrating that.”
Merwin also said the school is trying to revamp both the ACB and the SA, and the gala will be a way to show off the start of the changes they are making.
The event, which will be held in the Warren Ballrooms, located on the second floor of the Angell College Center Dec. 5 from 6 to 10 p.m., is open to all PSUC faculty and students, but people who were personally invited to attend, Merwin said, include current SA President Priscilla Burke and PSUC President John Ettling, as well as administrators, Res Life staff and anyone who is in a departmental position at PSUC.
In addition, the event is used as a way to honor the PSUC presidents.
“It ‘president’s’ with an apostrophe,” Jackson said. “So the college president and the Student Association president host the event.”
Jackson said she hopes more faculty members will show up for this year’s event because it is the anniversary for both the college and the event itself.
In order to attend, students must pay $10 for entrance, while faculty members are charged $20.
“All the money gathered from the event is given back to the college for scholarships,” Jackson said. “It is usually about $3,000 that goes back for scholarships.”
Email Nick Topping at sports@cardinalpointsonline.com.
