Dr. Barry Corey enjoys a donut while conversing with a student during the "Donuts With DBC" event that took place on Wednesday evening, May 2, 2012. The event was held in the fireplace pavilion, where campus leaders such as Dr. Corey met on a panel to discuss campus concerns and issues via questions that were raised by students. | Deborah Lee/THE CHIMES

Nearly 100 students gathered at the Fireplace Pavilion to nosh on donuts and ask questions of the President’s Administrative Council at Donuts with DBC on Wednesday, May 2. The event was set up by Associated Students and focused on gauging student concerns and questions about goings-on at Biola. The eight members of the PAC sat in a row at the front of the fireplace and took questions in an open forum style from the students.

Doughnuts and pink lemonade were served starting at 5 p.m. and the question-and-answer session began soon after. AS president junior Janine Marderian began the event by asking each member a few icebreaker questions and then started fielding questions from the student body.

Some of the topics brought up included future plans for on-campus housing, sustaining the impact of Year of the Arts, the allocation of tuition money, Biola’s approach to possible Cal Grant cuts, and whether communion wine constituted breaking contract. The PAC took turns answering questions based on their specific areas of expertise, and took the time to respond to each one — even if they didn’t have the answer at hand. For instance, the question about communion wine caught the council off guard, but president Barry Corey promised to look into the matter and speak to the student individually about it at a later date.

The question-asking ran up until the end of the event at 6:30 p.m. Marderian ended by asking for overall prayer requests for the PAC and Corey closed out the session in prayer.

Largest turnout of students in three years

Overall, Marderian felt the event was a success. She noted that AS had sponsored this event three times in the past, and this had the largest turnout so far.

“I think it went really well. We have not been doing this event for very long. It’s only been around for a few years and every time it’s kind of an experiment,” she said. “The attendance really impressed me. … I was also really pleased that everyone [on the PAC] participated.”

PAC member and vice president of university communications and marketing Irene Neller agreed that the event was relatively well-attended.

“It looked like we had about 100 students and last time we did this we literally had about eight,” she said. “I think what that shows us is that our students really want to hear what’s going on behind the scenes. … I love that there is an interest in where Biola’s going.”

When asked about improvements to Donuts with DBC that she would like to see the next year, Marderian mentioned that the time wasn’t the best because many students had class, and that the doughnuts ran out fairly quickly. Neller brought up the idea of serving pizza at the next event and calling the event “Pizza with the PAC,” because it fell during dinner time.

Neller also praised the students for coming out to the event and asking the questions that they did.

“The feedback is the best marketing research survey we have,” she said.