By Meghan Runte
Dr. Denver Stanfield, McNicholas’s President, has made all home events free for students, this includes both sporting events and preforming arts events. Stanfield stated he made the decision in hopes to have more students come to the games and show support to their fellow Rockets. “We want as many students to come to our events as we can,” Stanfield said, “we don’t want the cost of the tickets to be the reason students can’t come.”
Tickets for sporting events cost about $5 for students, and theatre productions exceed $10 a ticket, and although that may not seem like a lot, it adds up over time. Stanfield wants students to attend these events without worrying about costs. He recognizes that this will affect how money is spent at the school, and he said they are being more attentive to how funds are being spent, since so much money is being lost from students not paying to get into sporting and preforming arts events. “We have to be certain that we manage the budget,” Stanfield added.
Stanfield believes that this is overall an advantage for the McNicholas community. “It’s all about our students being bonded together,” he said, and he strongly believes that this will bring McNicholas’s students closer together, in and out of the classroom. With this decision including any sporting or performing arts event, Stanfield said it is an opportunity for all students to be involved, with no limit on the interests of students.
Stanfield encourages all students to come and show support at school events. Furthermore, he doesn’t only want students to come, but he wants them to be a part of the community. He believes it is great to come to the games but even better to really be a part of what’s going on. “We want students to participate,” Stanfield said, “it means being a part of the audience, being a fan.” Since the events became free, there has been an increase in student attendance at events, just as Stanfield hoped.
Junior Grace McCafferty said, “I feel like being able to go to home games for free builds a stronger sense of community among the students because it encourages more people to go to the games which means more support for our athletes.”
The McNicholas Milestone 