University Union Cinemas has appointed a new coordinator and revised its constitution, but former Cinemas coordinators are doubtful that the issues that led to the waste of an estimated $9,000 this semester have been resolved.

The problems, according to Alex Grosby and Kelley Krapp, who are former UU Cinemas coordinators and current members of WERW, were due to poor communication and mismanagement between Dennis Jacobs, the president of UU, and Tom Ptasinski, the UU Cinemas coordinator who quit earlier this semester after planning and holding just two events.

‘It could have been salvaged if something had been done sooner,’ Krapp said. ‘It’s moved beyond a concern for Cinemas board functioning, to UU as a whole.’

Jacobs, however, defends his actions as president, saying that although this semester saw UU Cinemas rapidly fall apart after years of smooth performance, it led to internal reforms and convinced him to be more vigilant in the future.

‘As the leader of one of the largest student organizations on campus, there are a lot of things that I should be held responsible for, and therefore there are a lot of things I must pay the utmost attention to,’ Jacobs said. ‘And as I understand now, if I miss something, the repercussions are huge.’

The UU executive board met Sunday to vote in Clarence Cross III as the new coordinator for UU Cinemas, as well as create guidelines for electing a replacement in the event that a coordinator leaves unexpectedly. The changes also require coordinators to maintain contact lists for the members of their boards, so that the UU executive board can contact members to keep the board running until a replacement is found.

The changes are designed to help UU pick up and move on in the event of a coordinator suddenly leaving, Jacobs said, adding that in the case of UU Cinemas, the crisis became clear only when Ptasinski quit. At that point, much of the damage had already been done.

‘Tom and I had had conversations throughout the entire semester,’ Jacobs said. ‘It wasn’t a day-by-day thing. As far as an apparent, ‘Cinemas is failing, it’s on fire, fix it,’ that wasn’t there.’

Krapp alleges, however, that there were warning signs from the beginning.

At the end of last year, she said she was already doubting Ptasinski’s interest in the job. She said that Ptasinski failed to attend any one of 10 screenings that she said would help him acquire an understanding of what to do and organize for a UU Cinemas event.

‘It’s multiple people’s fault. It’s mine for not putting up a big enough stink about Tom getting trained properly,’ Krapp said. ‘It’s a lot of people not talking to the right people who could have easily answered questions.’

During the fall semester, Krapp said the symptoms of a declining Cinemas board became more apparent. She said Ptasinski broke a number of guidelines the board had followed in the past.

Later, Krapp said Ptasinski would attempt to make contact with her, but gave little time to do anything before the event.

‘Tom’s idea of contacting people was, ‘Oh, I sent you an e-mail in not enough time to figure stuff out, right before or after things were done,” Krapp said.

Ptasinski resigned in October, at which point movies were paid for and piling up.

‘It could’ve been solved a lot faster, and I’m sure there still would’ve been a loss of a couple weeks of films, but if I knew sooner that he just wasn’t screening stuff, I could’ve canceled the orders,’ Krapp said. ‘We definitely could’ve canceled films so they weren’t showing up and sitting in the office until someone returned them.’

Jacobs and Adam Gorode, the UU Concerts coordinator, said that they were not aware that the situation would decline so quickly.

‘Everyone was aware that Tom was unsure of his position, and there was an attempt to fix that in a timely manner, and he just quit, and that is not always foreseeable,’ Gorode said. ‘That was the blow that did damage.’

After Ptasinski left, Gorode and Jacobs said the executive board immediately convened to discuss the situation, and began designing the revisions to the constitution that they voted on Sunday.

They couldn’t overcome the problems left behind by Ptasinski, however, and movies languished in the UU office until they were sent back to the film distributor. Krapp said she was contacted once Ptasinski quit, but was temporarily busy at that point with other work at WERW, and would assist when she had finished.

‘Because there was nobody there to fill that position, it would have been more irresponsible to attempt to show movies and waste more money,’ Gorode said, referring to the possibility of an inexperienced projectionist damaging equipment or the films. ‘We went to Kelley. There was no means of communicating to the current Cinemas board members, and there was no succession in the event of an absence.’

Despite the losses that occurred, Jacobs said that important changes occurred.

‘Taking a month off was more important for the future of Cinemas,’ he said. ‘The period itself was worth finding somebody who was going to be doing it.’

This has also led Jacobs to revise his approach to managing the boards.

‘As far as making sure that everyone is on top of their stuff, it starts with the directors themselves,’ Jacobs said. ‘I was coming in with a mindset of like, ‘OK, I’m keeping tabs on these guys, but they’re going to know what they’re doing.”

Jacobs said that he was learning about the Cinemas process himself, so that he could lend his assistance or take over in the future, whereas before he ‘could not have told you how much money was sitting there in those films.’

Krapp and Grosby, however, are concerned about the future of not UU Cinemas, but the whole organization.

‘A lot of people in UU don’t take time to find out about other organizations within it,’ said Grosby, also a staff writer at The Daily Orange.

Because UU boards operate independently of one another, knowledge of what’s going on within a particular branch or how to run programming is rarely shared between members of different boards, Grosby and Jacobs said. Grosby argued that this is why the collapse of UU Cinemas would be so difficult to recover from.

Also, the appeal of Cinemas is less obvious than for Concerts or Speakers, where members might meet famous people or bands, Grosby said. It is more about being part of the weekly event of a movie screening.

‘If UU wants to be the organization that wants to provide for students the most, they should be held accountable to the student body,’ Krapp said. ‘They should have more of a decision on how all of this money is getting spent.’

Ten new members have contacted UU about joining the Cinemas board, and Cross, the new coordinator, is currently being trained by a graduate student who held the job five years ago as an undergraduate.

Krapp questioned this decision, since she, Grosby and Matt Finley, former UU Cinemas coordinator and art editor at The Daily Orange, are all more familiar with the process and recently held the position, but Jacobs said progress was being made with Cross.

‘This was a crunch, so when Clarence was the only one that gave us the info and showed the interest, we didn’t want to waste any time at that specific time,’ Jacobs said. ‘We wanted to get going.’

Cross said he has already discussed a number of events and promotions, and although mistakes have occurred ordering films for this week, they have been corrected to prevent any loss to students.

‘We now are overcoming a huge situation, and I think there are things I could have done differently as a leader that I overlooked,’ Jacobs said. ‘I and UU have already taken steps to make sure this never occurs again, and will be completely conscious and aware that nothing like this occurs again.’

Published on December 5, 2004 at 12:00 pm