Accent Speaker’s Bureau has reliably brought us great guests over the years. Thanks to the group’s work, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting such illustrious and enviable personalities as Carl Hiaasen, Kurt Vonnegut, George Takei, Queen Latifah, Dr. Kevorkian and Ben & Jerry — yes, THAT Ben & Jerry. Next week, they’ll be bringing us James Franco, who will converse with J-school professor and de facto journalism guru Mike Foley.
We’re excited for the chance to see Franco in the flesh. His celebrity transcends even starring roles in “Freaks and Geeks,” “Pineapple Express” and “127 Hours” The man is also an author and college professor, and he recently made a movie that came close to starting World War III.
That’s one of the many amazing things about going to UF — the opportunity to see speakers and performers we otherwise wouldn’t be able to see. But that’s the responsibility Accent has. The way it fills this role isn’t quite as warm and fuzzy.
Accent won’t be hosting a speaker for Women’s History Month. This decision went through even though the president of the Women’s Student Association, Diamond Delancy, reached out to Accent in August about the idea of bringing Raven-Symoné to speak in March for Women’s History Month.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to expect Accent to arrange a speaker for every history month. After all, Accent has neither an unlimited budget nor an infinite amount of time. But still, the lack of speakers for, or even recognition of, Women’s History Month seems like an oversight — especially when the list of previous speakers leans more than overwhelmingly male. Like, we get it, this is an old institution and a majority of speakers anywhere are probably male. But this seems like a much wider gender gap than normal.
Full disclosure: Accent will be co-sponsoring an event at the end of March in which former First Lady Rosalynn Carter will speak at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. But why can’t that be a part of Women’s History Month? It’s disconcerting; Women’s History Month clearly isn’t a priority.
Another, more daunting issue brought up in the story was Accent’s accessibility, or rather the lack thereof. When Delancy reached out to the organization with her proposal, only a few emails were exchanged before the idea was dropped. Perhaps Accent’s staffers have too little time and resources to devote to outside ideas, or in August they’d already booked themselves too far in advance to work with a major student organization.
At any rate, this situation reflects that of Student Government in general. While they do some exciting things for students, powerhouse SG organizations simply aren’t accessible to or representative of the average Gator.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 2/18/2015 under the headline “Accent’s Women’s History Month neglect concerning"]
