People waited in lines for hours on two separate occasions to catch a glimpse of President Barack Obama on campus.
Wednesday’s lines were to obtain tickets; Thursday’s line was to get into the event.
At the last minute, however, some who had received tickets were turned away because the fire marshal said the Martinez Sports Center was filled to capacity.
“It’s just a disappointment,” said Valeria Lean, a senior marketing major from Honduras. “I didn’t get a chance to be inside and hear the speech or the see the President.”
Eric Cardenas, director of public information was unaware that students were turned away and said that White House officials were handling the crowds and the ticket distribution.
White House officials were aiming for an attendance of 2,500-3,000 people but the capacity for the event was 2,600.
Lean, who waited for four hours to get her ticket, said the opportunity would have been great since she is an international student. She waited 2-3 hours to get in.
Students weren’t the only ones who were turned away. Kelly Polk, staff assistant for the communications department procured her ticket from the office of Human Resources and still did not get in.
Polk said she wasn’t even at the end of the line across the street from Thomas Parking Garage when someone came and told everyone that the Fire Marshall apparently was not allowing anyone else to enter the gym because it had filled to capacity.
“They were as disappointed and heartbroken as we were,” Polk said.
The remaining people who did not get in were taken over to the Pepin Stadium to hear audio of the town-hall meeting.
“I’m heartsick over it,” Polk said. “I’m very disappointed.”
Charlie, Great coverage of the event. People waited in line on Wednesday for tickets and THURSDAY for the event and not Friday. Do you know who was in charge of the lay-out? By pulling out only the visiting bleachers they made more room on the floor but less over-all room in the building (More blue ticket seats but less total seats). It’s unfortunate that some people didn’t make it into the building and poor planning on somebody’s part but faculty need to be a little less entitled. I had seats way up in the bleachers and some faculty members in a section at the other end of the bleachers saw seats opening up on the floor and went down and took them despite the objections of student volunteers who were in charge of working the event. They basically declared their superiority and told the young lady what she could do with herself. I’m not a hero worshipper so it would have been nice to be on stage but it would be far from a highlight of my life. It seemed to me like deans and faculty senators got those prime locations which is as fair an arrangement as I can imagine. I’m pretty sure blue seats went to chairs etc. Maybe time at UT would have been more fair but who knows. It’s events like this that reveal where you are in the pecking order and where people feel like they are. Fascinating stuff really.
Though I agree with the first Sue that has posted, I don’t think it is fair to come down on the people who were invited to sit on stage. I also think it is only fair to have a mix of people, those who LOVE Obama, and those who don’t. Not being an Obama fan is certainly not the “popular” view right now and there are those of us who appreciated seeing both sides on stage. Maybe those people who were asked to be there, even if they didn’t like him were chosen because of their work with the University, interest in and knowledge of politics. Is it their fault that the person who had the tickets asked them to be onstage? NO! I find it funny that you feel that the only people looking for their “15 minutes” were the ones who don’t agree with his policies.
A few were turned away???? Try several hundred. After the bogus “Congratulations, your name was picked to receive a ticket” faculty and staff, under the impression that their ticket guaranteed admission, were turned away after standing in line for several hours. Of course if these people had not been doing their jobs in the morning and had instead gotten in line first thing, the outcome would have been different. Better still, if many of them had the “connections” to the UT parties in charge of distribution, they would have found themselves on stage or at least in the first rows. Instead the world got to see several people who absolutely hate Obama, yet managed to get their fifteen minutes of fame because of “who” they knew.