I sat down with Jason Kabir, a junior at IUPUI and Executive Director of the Regatta Steering Committee to chat about this year’s Regatta, dubbed RegattaX in honor of its 10-year anniversary. This Regatta milestone will also be the first signature event to kick off IUPUI’s 50th anniversary year of events. During this short Q&A, we discussed the exciting things to come with this year’s new race and festival location, what it’s like to plan such a monumental event as a student, and why, according to Kabir, “if there’s any year to come, this is the year for alumni, because this is going to be our biggest year yet.”
Team registration for the race goes live on August 22 at 8 a.m. and alumni can register to race.
To read more about the Stefan S. Davis IUPUI Regatta Scholarship or to make a donation, please visit the IUPUI Regatta webpage.
K: What does Regatta mean to you? Why is it important to you and why did you get involved?
J: I applied to be on the committee and didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into and didn’t really realize how passionate I would become about it, but I love it because it gives me a connection to the campus. It’s our biggest event here and I love [Regatta] because I feel like no other event on campus brings the whole campus together like Regatta does.
K: What would you say are some of the biggest challenges of planning such a large-scale event as a group of students, who don’t really have all the resources of a full-on company?
J: One of the biggest challenges is balancing school and such a big event. You have to be flexible because a lot of things change, kind of like our leadership turnover in the past two years and we have to be able to go with the flow.
K: What are Regatta’s ultimate goals?
J: To provide a fun tradition for this campus, something that will mean a lot to this campus and of course the scholarship, so raising as much money as we can for this scholarship fund. I think in recent years we’ve been trying to push that to the forefront and remind people that the reason we do this is for student scholarships. I think a lot of people just think of this as a fun event in September and a lot of people don’t realize why we’re doing this.
K: What is it like working with city officials and the Chancellor’s office?
J: The committee doesn’t have to do much with the city officials, so the city is actually pretty easy to work with and they were even the ones who suggested the move to a new location this year. As far as the Chancellor’s office, it’s been really great working with them. We’ve never had this kind of support from them before and that’s really contributed to our ability to make this event that much bigger this year. So, I guess you could say that I don’t mind working with the Chancellor’s office.
K: What has been the most exciting part of working with Regatta?
J: My favorite part is the canoe race. Last year I was director of rules and teams and I did all the team-related stuff. So last year, I had a pretty busy role day-of because I was handling all the teams and making sure everything was moving forward. We had some issues last year with the power so we were delayed by 45 minutes and I had to get us back on schedule, so honestly I say that it was both the worst day of my life and honestly the best day of my life.
K: Can you tell us what the vision is with Regatta’s new location and if this will be a “thing” going forward?
J: The reason that we have switched this year is because they’re doing construction at the other end where we were, so it was going to take out a lot of what had been our community festival area. And I’m actually really excited about it because I know I said my favorite part is the race, but with this [move] it’s really going to expand our festival. I think the idea is that we’ll stay in this location…and moving to this new location is a good step forward for us.
K: How is the Team incorporating the celebrations for both the 10- year anniversary of Regatta and the 50th anniversary of IUPUI at Regatta this year?
J: This year will be a lot bigger just by virtue. We started our 10th year anniversary celebrations in the spring. The Steering Committee hasn’t had a lot of presence on campus in the spring, so that’s why we did our 10 Days of Regatta back in April to start to the 10-year anniversary celebrations and get people excited. In the fall, we’ll have [another] ten days leading up to Regatta to give it that Homecoming feel. This will also be the first signature event of the 50th anniversary of IUPUI, so it’s just building around Regatta.
K: What would be your vision to get alumni more involved with this specific event?
J: This year we’ve actually started a project to kind of transition Regatta into IUPUI’s Homecoming and honestly this has always been our campus’s Homecoming. It’s our signature fall event where everyone gets excited and there’s an obvious connection to alumni and a lot do come out. But going forward, I think we just associate the Homecoming idea with Regatta, I think hopefully that will do a lot on its own to get more alumni out. One of the things they’re doing this year is hosting the Alumni Luncheon, so I think that’ll be great. Giving more outreach to them just in general, but also giving them a reason to come to the event [in a way] that’ll honor them, would be really cool. And alumni are eligible for the race, so keep that in mind.