Campus Program Board (CPB) announced their decision today to cancel Dance of the Decades 2022 rather than postpone it, citing concerns about the surge in UP’s COVID-19 cases as well as Multnomah County’s.
“I decided that it'd be smartest to kind of see what the numbers in cases looked like after the third week of school after everybody settled into campus,” CPB Director Jessica Cramm said. “The bubble kind of reformed.”
The dance was planned for Friday, Feb. 11 at the Left Bank Annex. CPB has not hosted Dance of the Decades since Feb. 7, 2020 due to COVID-19.
In a statement posted on the CPB Instagram page, CPB stated their plan to hold a week of giveaways starting Monday, Jan. 27 using the money already invested into the dance. The post also mentioned a smaller event will be hosted on Feb. 11 in partnership with Pilots After Dark.
“We are going to be doing a 70’s kind of arcade night at Pilot House with a bunch of food trucks, a photobooth and the bar will be open as well for students over 21,” Cramm said.
Future CPB events such as Rock the Bluff are still being tentatively planned.
In an email to administration, Cramm emphasized that the safety of students is CPB’s biggest priority.
“CPB always holds the safety of our students to be of the highest priority and we do not feel as if sponsoring an event of this size would align with our goals as an organization,” Cramm wrote in the email.
Cramm reiterates that the decision was made in the best interest of the student body and the university as a whole.
“We want those in person classes and we want the best of our college experiences,” Cramm said. “I don’t want a CPB event to be the thing that takes that away from someone, to inhibit somebody from having in person classes the next week. It was a decision made out of respect for the University and the students of the University to keep everyone safe.”
Janea Melido is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at melido24@up.edu
