Tickets for spouses might be possibility

Members of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation are looking forward to the end of basketball season.

Their “wait until next year” attitude has emerged from a yearlong struggle to establish a program that would supply students’ spouses with tickets to games at the Smith Center — an effort that soon could be a reality.

“This is really a major shift in how things would be done in athletics,” GPSF President Jen Bushman said. “But I think their ears are open.”

Clint Gwaltney, assistant athletic director for the Smith Center and ticket operations, said that once the dust settles after this season, a newly created ticket distribution advisory group will discuss options for providing spouse tickets.

“It’s definitely something that needs to be considered, and we’ll do our best to make the ticket situation the best for everyone,” he said, noting that it’s too early to say if and how such an idea will come to fruition.

Bushman stressed that the block of tickets reserved for spouses would not be drawn from the same pool as student tickets but would come from general admission seats.

Although the push for spouse tickets emerged with Bushman’s constituency in mind, student leaders said any program should also affect undergraduates — meaning the effort’s success could have widespread consequences.

Last semester 1,748 students identified themselves as having spouses. This population breaks down into 1,348 graduates, 193 professional students and 207 undergraduates, said Tawnya Simmons, assistant to the registrar.

Justin Johnson, Carolina Athletic Association president-elect, said that he wants to exploring the feasibility of tickets for spouses and that he plans to attend the group’s meeting.

Both Bushman and Johnson said restricting such a program to spouses would be difficult, noting that if one student can take a spouse, another might be able to make a valid argument for taking a parent.

Bushman said a pilot program for early season nonconference games and games during Winter Break is feasible for next year.

Though Bushman has not been able to provoke change in the ticket policy this year, she said great strides have been made by weighing concerns from all sides and setting a date for representatives of the GPSF and the ticket office to meet.

Improving graduate students’ access to tickets is one of the top five items Bushman has worked on throughout her tenure in office.

She said the effort to acquire tickets for spouses gained momentum because Student Body President Matt Calabria included it in his platform.

But after months of lobbying, Bushman said all involved parties are still in the discussion stages.

“Some of these things are such a big change that it takes a lot of little steps to get them done,” Bushman said. “I think we made a lot of little steps this year.”

And the project still will take a while to get on its feet.

“It’s a much bigger logistical problem than any of us realized,” Bushman said. “You have to be careful with making promises as a student leader before you know all the information with what’s possible.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.