Summer camps attract potential students, add income

Residential Programs and Services make the majority of their income by housing students in the dorms during the academic year. But when the summer hits, most students go home, leaving an enormous amount of space open for other uses. \nHow enormous? This summer, there are only 22 IU students living in the dorms. \nRPS fills the void left by students by filling the rooms with potential students. Over the summer an estimated 22,000 guests -- mostly high school students -- come to IU for over 137 different groups, camps or conferences. This summer the total income is expected to reach nearly $2.5 million, which is only a "sidebar" in terms of their overall profits, said Graham Shepfer, manager of RPS special services. \nVarious conferences hosted by and around IU use the money for different things, Shepfer said. \n"Most of the academic departments use the money for that program and run approximately at cost," he said. "Coaches run the athletics camps as personal businesses, so I am not sure what they do with the profits." \nThe biggest block of summer guests is consistently in athletics camps -- around 30 sports camps are taking place this summer. The athletic camps are unique from academic or research related camps that use profits to run camps. Essentially coaches operate on subcontracts and run camps as personal businesses. \nHowever, there are similarities between all the groups, camps or conferences. They all plan to provide a profitable summer experience, through whichever medium is desired whether it is football or astronomy, which will attract campers to come back to IU. \n"We believe that any time you have kids coming to look at the University there is a reasonable chance you'll be recruiting that student," Shepfer said. "We think that if you show up for soccer camp or cheer camp there is a chance you will remember the school as a nice place." \nThe Midsummer Theatre Program sponsored by the IU Department of Theatre and Drama is a camp designed for students interested in acting. About 30 high school students, who have completed their sophomore, junior and senior years, annually come from across the nation to this two-week camp grounded in acting, which also takes into account things like voice, movement and dramatic literature. \n"The big goal for the participants is to grow as theater artists," said Midsummer Administrative Director John Kinzer. "We want to give them an opportunity to taste the life of a college student studying theatre; if they come to IU, it's gravy." \nAround 60 percent of students who go to Midsummer come to IU and roughly 90 percent end up studying theater, Kinzer said. The Midsummer program typically makes just enough money to run the camp. \nThe periodic programs of the summer typically run no longer than five days. This is partially because of renovations and upgrades that must be done during this time. \nThe camps and conferences that take advantage of the space provided by dorms tend to start one to two weeks after the academic year is over and run no later than August 1, although there are occasionally exceptions. In August this year the Junior Classical League will bring about 1,500 high school students interested in Latin to IU.