By Eyeopener Staff
After weeks of bickering and backpedalling, it looks like the month-long saga that was this year’s Mass Exodus fashion show is set to end with the university covering the rental cost of the Ryerson Theatre.
Fashion chair Mary McCrae says Ryerson v.p. Academic Erroll Aspevig told her over the phone that this year the rental fee would be paid out of his office’s budget. As of next year, Aspevig has made no promises. McCrae says the discussions with administration about any future rental fees will start sometime in May.
We’ve got it resolved for now,” says McCrae. “We’ll be dealing with the future in the near future.”
Last month, show organizers found out they would be charged $2,500 to use Ryerson’s theatre for the show, which is a requirement for students in the fashion program. Mass Exodus have been using the space at no cost for the past 10 years. When they were told a $2,500 fee might come out of an already tight budget, organizers feared they would have to make cuts to the production.
On March 15, Linda Grayson, Ryerson’s v.p. Administration and student affairs, met with the organizers to tell them the fee was never meant to be paid by students—it was meant to be covered by the school of fashion.
But McCrae argued that because the show is a class project, the fee shouldn’t have been imposed in the first place. Aspevig intervened on behalf of fashion after hearing students’ concerns at an academic council meeting in early march.
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