Last week, our Government of the Student Body allotted $40,000 to its president to fund an effort to coordinate a campuswide event. The event, dubbed the GSB Comedy Festival, is scheduled to take place sometime in November – in roughly eight to 10 weeks. It’s also designed to engender a sense of unity on campus.

The event is the brainchild of GSB Vice President Joe Darr. In the Aug. 26 article “With Dead Week tackled, GSB focuses on outreach,” Darr told the Daily, “The idea is to bring outreach programs to students, probably in the form of a concert or a comedian. We hope to have a few thousand students and bring a sense of cohesion to the campus.”

Before the wildly successful performance by Lewis Black the first week of classes, packing in several thousand ISU students didn’t seem likely. The comedic performance the year before, given by former ISU student Jake Johannsen, drew a crowd of only a few hundred. Playing off of that event, however, it seems GSB may have a lofty but achievable goal. And the $40,000 President T.J. Schneider now has certainly helps.

Darr does not want to compete with Veishea in any way, which makes this event’s success this fall all the more important. They also want to make money from the event, which means students will pay for tickets, in order to host it annually with the profits made from the previous year. Finally, they want the event to build a sense of community, which justifies using student fees to draw a celebrity to campus.

Let’s review: GSB wants to pull this off in a matter of weeks, they want to turn a profit, they don’t want to compete with Veishea but they do want to create a campus tradition, and they want all to be involved and feel a sense of community, though the limited venues on campus and ticket prices will undoubtedly deter that.

There is good news. GSB is working with the Lectures Program, which consists of not only a full-time professional staff member who coordinates event planning (including Lewis Black), but also several committees of students, faculty and staff. Still, it is worrisome how quickly GSB must now wheel and deal its way not only with a name so large it will truly draw thousands (who, by the way, doesn’t need to be booked any longer than two months in advance), but how GSB intends to create a sense of community through such an event.

Darr doesn’t want to replace Veishea. But to truly create any sense of community or tradition on campus, why birth a new event? Why not repair the dying tradition that is Veishea?

The effort is noble. The strategy makes sense. But the goals, timeline and outcome seem, at this stage of the game, unrealistic. Best of luck, T.J. and Joe. But it seems it’s not luck or money that’s in short supply – it’s time.

Editorial Board: Cavan Reagan, Erin Randolph, Rachel Faber Machacha, Charlie Weaver, Zach Calef, Ayrel Clark.