With Passion Pit only a week away, SUB has been putting in time to make sure the event runs smoothly. Let’s take a closer look at the history of SUB and the changes that have occurred within the past few decades.

Kathy Svec had been working at the union for over three decades until her retirement in 2010. Svec recalls the years when SUB worked with the board of directors for the MU.

“When I started working at the Union…it was still run by a board,” said Svec. “And the students that were on that board developed a dual role. They were on the board of directors, but they also started to do programming in the building because the feeling was they had a say in it and they wanted to create reasons for students to use the building.”

The M-shop was also a young venue at the time of Svec’s arrival in 1978, and that programming board of students was responsible for the creation of the venue.

“The students at that time knew the space was becoming available. And they thought it would make a really great informal performance venue. The programs that grew up in that space was both live theatre as well as live music.”

Five years ago, George Micalone took over as adviser to SUB. At the time SUB’s schedule of events was fairly sporadic, “[the events] weren’t really systematic.” Said Micalone. “There would be random performances in the Great hall on say a Thursday night. And the M-shop only really showcased one genre of music.”

When Micalone took the job, he began to push for more student involvement and increase the amount of students in SUB.  “SUB is student run and student driven,” said Micalone.

The growth SUB has experienced over just a few years is something to behold.

“In the years I was associated with SUB, they were really focused on using the Union as their headquarters,” said Svec “I think the concept since George has arrived is to use the whole campus as their venue…bigger ideas are playing out as well as larger shows.”

Hilton Coliseum has hosted those larger scale events such as Lupe Fiasco in 2011 and Brantley Gilbert in 2012. Micalone and Svec agree that SUB is on the right track “I get the Daily fairly often and read through to see what SUB is up to,” Said Svec. “It’s tantalizing to me. And I see their big ad on Wednesday with all their stuff going on. It’s totally appealing.”