February 28, 2002
Students host open house on campus communication
An open house next week in Mary Gates Commons will give business communications students a chance to hone their skills while introducing ideas to improve campus communications. The open house, which is intended for the entire campus community — students, faculty, staff and administrators — is scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday, March 7.
The event is the culmination of a class taught by Business School Lecturer Mary McGough which has revolved around a service-learning project. Usually, McGough explains, students doing service learning work for a community client. But in this case the client comes from within the University — Gus Kravas, vice provost and special assistant to the president for student relations.
“He issued the students a very simple challenge,” McGough said. “He wanted them to think of ways the administration could improve its communication with students in an effort to overcome the University’s reputation of being large and impersonal.”
Students brainstormed ideas and then divided into teams, each of which developed one idea. At the open house they’ll present those ideas in poster sessions, including:
- making undergraduate professors more accessible to the student body;
- creating monthly forums on specific topics to increase communication among deans, directors, chairs, faculty, ASUW, and the general student body;
- marketing a “survival kit” to be distributed to incoming freshman; and
- promoting the creation of ongoing student support groups composed of students from the same field of study who are on a similar academic path.
Attendees will have the opportunity to respond to each session they attend and give the students feedback on both their ideas and their presentations. Students will be analyzing the survey results and will also debrief with Kravas, who will be attending one of their classes.
McGough says administrators have received special invitations to the event so that they can get a student perspective on the issue. “So many students,” she says, “just assume that the administration isn’t doing anything about this. This is the administration’s chance to hear their ideas.”
