Miss IU loses funds

Just more than a year ago, stage lights shone brightly on IU students as they competed for the title of Miss IU. But this year the lights are out after the Union Board pulled sponsorship for the pageant.

IU’s preliminary event for Miss Indiana did not take place this year after new leadership at the Union Board discontinued its partnership.

Lindsay Shipps, the director of Miss IU, began planning the 2010 pageant during the fall semester, and by August, she secured scholarships for contestants from the IU Foundation and had begun communications with the Union Board leadership, hoping to set a date and reserve rooms for the event. 

“It’s very helpful to have an active dialogue, if you will, with members throughout the year,” Shipps said. “It doesn’t just have to start in January when there’s new membership that comes in.”

The Miss IU Pageant restarted in 2006 after a break of nearly 40 years. Some of the winners have earned awards at the state level and garnered national attention.
Perhaps most notably, Betsy Uschkrat, Miss IU 2006, also won the title of Miss Indiana. She then represented Indiana in the Miss America Pageant, where she won a national platform award.

The pageant was first approached by past Union Board leadership willing to work on the event. Shipps and senior Tyler Coward, the 2009 director of the Union Board Spirit of IU, established a relationship between the pageant and the Union Board.
In October, Shipps said she received a surprising e-mail from Coward. It stated that due to current monetary situations, the 2009 Union Board could not commit to sponsoring the pageant.

However, Coward said he would pass on the information to the incoming board and would strongly suggest the new board to continue its partnership with Miss IU.
“I did not feel comfortable with passing on the financial burden to the incoming board,” Coward said.

However, Coward sent another e-mail confirming room reservations for the pageant. So Shipps continued with plans for the pageant and set the date for Feb. 20.  She then spent November on a letter-writing campaign. Past titleholders, contestants and a state house representative wrote letters to the Union Board encouraging its partnership.

Some highlighted the interview portion of the pageant as critical for real-life work situations and the platform experience as a love for community and giving back.
One month before the pageant, Coward sent a message regarding the Union Board’s involvement in the pageant.

The e-mail invited Shipps to a meeting to discuss the matter with the new leadership and revived Shipp’s hopes that it was still possible.

Nineteen days before the program, Shipps received the final word on the pageant in an e-mail from Jeffery Williams, the new director of Union Board Spirit of IU. Williams explained that the Miss IU pageant had been greeted by opposition amongst the board members and the proposal was not going to be brought to a vote. He did not mention the source of the opposition.

Williams later pointed to the past history of the program and students’ attendance at the event. As a student programming board, the leadership aims to sponsor events that will appeal to a wide audience, not just parents of contestants and pageant-goers.
Williams also stated that the board needed to be fiscally responsible when deciding whether to spend $5,000 on a pageant.

“We’re definitely interested in future involvement with the Miss IU pageant, but we want to be involved more than just financially,” Williams said.

With only weeks remaining before the pageant, Shipps did not have enough time to find a different sponsor and canceled the event.

She explained that changes in leadership present obstacles to maintaining a solid relationship with Union Board, especially with new leadership taking over in January.

“I’m not ready to throw anybody under the bus here,” Shipps said, “I just want there to be an active dialogue and to continue talking about it.”

Other organizations have faced similar obstacles, including the Miss Gay IU drag pageant.

The program also recognizes the difficulties of receiving aid from groups that switch membership every year.  

Senior Joshua Sutton, president of OUT GLBT, said Miss Gay IU receives a portion of its funding from IUSA, but he would like to see student-run organizations reach out to the Miss IU and Miss Gay IU communities.

“I won’t deny and say that they’ve never reached out because they do reach out to us,” Sutton said. “But it’s usually inconsistent with the board changing each every year.”

Although Miss IU did not take place this year, Shipps said she is hopeful that the pageant will resume next year, either with help from the new leaders of the Union Board or aid from a new sponsor.

“They say it takes a village to raise a child,” Shipps said. “Well, it really takes a village to have a pageant. No single organization can do it alone.”