Letter to the Editor:
New class offers practical experience

This year, Rider offered a new minor to our academic selections — event planning. Many students have long awaited this opportunity. Even though I am a senior and will not be able to fulfill the entire course requirements before I graduate in May, I still chose to take some courses in the event planning minor. Why? I feel that event planning knowledge is a very useful tool to have no matter which career a student wants to enter into.

Dr. Moore, a new professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism, which houses the new minor, is teaching COM 280: “Issues in Event Planning” this semester. I am in this class and so far it has been nothing but a wonderfully enlightening course. Dr. Moore split the class into four groups and each group is actually putting on four different events on campus between this semester and next. We are gaining plenty of valuable experience in the field of event planning.

The event planning class isn’t limited to just these group events; we achieve many other constructive and educational tasks as well. Dr. Moore has scheduled some local event planners from the area to come speak to the class. On Nov. 1, our class met at the Nassau Inn in Princeton where Mary Ann Bilsky, the director of catering and conference services, fielded our questions, told us about her position and gave us a tour of the Inn’s beautiful ballrooms. I feel that having the class meet someone in charge of planning events for a well-known business like the Nassau Inn was a great experience — textbooks can only teach you so much. Meeting a professional and getting to ask her questions about the responsibilities that she is entrusted with was a great opportunity.

Dr. Moore also teaches us the basics of event planning. He shows us how to write proposals, contracts, troubleshoot event problems, be creative and basically have all your bases covered to be able to put on a successful event.

I recommend everyone take this class. You don’t have to be an event planning minor for this class to benefit you. The tools that you learn in this class can help in any career.

— Lynn Brown
Senior, Journalism Major