A pair of Saint Vincent students have found an novel way to reach the SVC community and their peers across the country. Russell Clark and CC Surovec, junior communication majors, have started an online video talk show called “Talk About it Tuesday” to discuss issues relevant to students and their age group in general. The show’s first episode was released on Oct. 17.
The idea for the show was born after one of Dr. Jack Aupperle’s “What’s in Your Heart” meetings, according to Clark.
“One evening after [“What’s in Your Heart”] we were talking about issues and things that happen around campus and that we think are important and a way that we could send a positive message, putting these issues on people’s radars that would have them think about it. And I said, ‘I wish that we could just create videos or something and do that.’ And I said, ‘You know what, why don’t we?’ And she said, Let’s do it!’” Clark said. “We went to my room and sat for three hours talking about topics and things we wanted to do.”
They recruited Samantha Sluger, senior communication major, to serve as creative assistant.
In their first episode, Clark and Surovec decided to discuss parking tickets at Saint Vincent. They found that the college takes in $45,000 in revenue from parking violations annually.
Clark explained in the video that the revenue goes to the general fund.
“The general fund is what a non-profit would use as ‘profit’ […] the general fund is used for things around campus, if there’s a year that the school comes up in the red, this money will balance it out, if there’s a disaster, something happens on campus, a repair, a building, miscellaneous things,” Clark said in the episode.
Fr. Joseph Adams, O.S.B, head of public safety, explained that that figure is in fact far less than Saint Vincent could take in.
“It’s about half of what we could be taking in. We void a lot of them,” he said.
Adams provided documents showing that $34,915 in tickets were voided last year. A further $4,007 were credited, for example, for students who had a permit but were obliged to use another vehicle temporarily.
Adams commented that most parking violations are at the fault of the student.
“My issue here,” Adams said, “is that 99.9 percent is self-inflicted.”
He explained that repeat offenders account for a disproportionate share of violations.
“I got students for this semester that have eight to nine hundred dollars worth of tickets who just refuse to either get a parking pass, or even when they do get one, they just continue,” Adams said.
There are also plenty of fire lanes around campus due the old architectural layout. He explained that some students object to the way they’re marked.
“Some people cite a state regulation that says it has to be red, and this, that and the other thing, but that doesn’t apply to us on private property. But in the parking guide from Saint Vincent, it clearly states that it’s yellow,” Adams said.
Adams would prefer to reduce the amount of tickets issued.
“I wish we weren’t making that much money,” he said.
Clark and Surovec’s discussion of ticketing received many comments from students.
“We have some interesting feedback to share about violations,” Clark said, which they’ll release in the next episode.
“A lot of students came up to us and questions or had comments about it, so we wanted to address that in our video. I didn’t expect that many people to be so interested in it,” Surovec said.
Clark and Surovec want the show to keep growing.
“We want it to be something that’s larger than the scale of Saint Vincent,” Clark said.
They’d like to increase the number of videos they put out as well. So far they are releasing one on the second Tuesday of each month, but they would like to upload episodes bi-weekly.
And in the long run, too, what they are doing is more than just producing a small talk show, Surovec explained.
“This is what we want to do with our lives. We’re very much into broadcasting, and our ultimate dream would be to be on a talk show or have our own talk show […] you have to start somewhere,” Surovec said.
“This is what we want to do with our lives. We’re very much into broadcasting, and our ultimate dream would be to be on a talk show or have our own talk show […] you have to start somewhere,” Surovec said.
Episodes can be found on Facebook and YouTube, and the show has Twitter and Instagram pages as well. The second episode, a Thanksgiving-themed video, was released on Tuesday, Nov. 14.
Photos: Surovec and Clark