Waiting list makes some dancers uneasy

Interest in the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon has continued to grow during recent years and increased student interest this year resulted in the first dancer waiting list in event history.

A lottery was held in past years to fill spaces which remained vacant after regular registration, said Tony Lombardo, dance marathon rules and regulations chair. Several spaces were assigned that way last year, he said.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't have a lottery this year," Lombardo said, citing dramatically increased registration during the regular period as the reason.

Before the initial registration period, the 1997 Overall Committee wanted to limit the event to 270 couples, Lombardo said.

"We knew the floor was going to be really crowded, even with that," he said.

Because interest was so high, the committee decided to allow the first five couples on the waiting list to take part in dance marathon as well.

Julie Carey (freshman-business) and partner Kelly Lyon (freshman-communications) planned to dance in the event as representatives from Collegians Helping Aid Rescue Missions.

"We'd been looking forward to it since we knew about it," Carey said.

Because spaces were filled sooner in the registration process than she expected, Carey and Lyon received a spot near the top of the waiting list.

But the pair decided to remove their names from the list because the committee would not have notified them of their status in the marathon until the day before the event, Carey said.

"We just needed to know what was going on," she said.

Nelson Yuen, executive director of CHARM, said he understood the couple's decision to remove their names from the waiting list.

"They just didn't want to go through the hassle," Yuen said.

Others remained on the waiting list and received spaces in the dance marathon. David Shields, director of student affairs at the Altoona Campus, said students from that campus were eager to take part in the event after being moved from the waiting list to the list of dancers.

Dancers from the waiting list discovered they had received a space only days before dance marathon, Shields said.

One of the problems facing students as a result of the last-minute notification was the difficulty assembling a support team for dancers.

"At some point, you've got to say we're going to cut this off," Shields said.

Dancers need to have more time to prepare themselves for the event, he said.

And while the waiting list is a positive addition to dance marathon, he said, he hopes organizers continue to improve the way in which dancers are notified of their status.