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| Siemens, R. (2009). Students Union Building. [Photograph]. Retrieved on March 31, 2012 from http://www.su.ualberta.ca/media/uploads/72/sub.jpg |
I am currently volunteering with the Students' Union (SU). I have been working on a research essay to try and find the best ways to communicate with students.
First, I started by asking myself why do students need to know more about SU? The answer to that question is that students might complain and have certain issues regarding policy, classes, tuition etc and don’t know who to go to or if there is anyone that can help them to begin with. Also, student’s knowledge about the SU will help the SU and governance take into consideration students concerns because the students are involved and are voicing their opinions.
Next, I started looking at different means of communication, and considering the pros and cons of each. For example, the pro of newsletters, emails, and Facebook is that one is spreading the knowledge/ information in an accurate, unified way. Also, the students will have the email/newsletter for future reference. The con is that not many students will read emails and notifications from the university; hence less people will get the information. Moreover, the con of this type of communication is that there is no personal engagement between students and the governance. This will decrease the interest of students and may lead to student apathy. Moreover, the pros of in class talks, word of mouth, and personal networking is that the information will be heard more than via email or newsletter. Also it will spread faster throughout the student body. Furthermore, students will trust reps and leaders more if they get to know them on a personal level. Students concerns will be addressed directly and on spot rather than later via email. On the other hand, the con of this mode of communication is that if the information is not said in a proper way, it might be misunderstood or misinterpreted by students causing some problems. Finally, after considering these pros and cons, I believe that the best way is a mixture of both social networking (emails, Facebook etc) and personal engagement.
Being in CSL part of the class, I did not have to write any Wikipedia stubs. However, I would still like to comment on my colleague Jami Frederick that was did one. His post was about Blackleg, apparently it is a bacteria infection that affects cattle and sheep. I did not know anything about blackleg, after reading his blog post and the Wikipedia page, I learned a lot about this disease and its symptoms.
References:
Lizzo,A., Wilson, K. (2010). Students participation in university governance: the role conceptions and sense of efficacy of
student representatives on departmental committees. Studies in Higher Education.34:1 69-84
Hey Lina,
ReplyDelete"The con is that not many students will read emails and notifications from the university", which is soooo true. I always delete the university email straightly, haha.
Like my placement,CFB(Campus Food Bank), we do newsletters, tabling and class presentation to let students to know more about our organization. Among those, I think class presentation is the most useful one to convey information, since it is like face-to-face communication. Reading an email or newsletter is an initiative motion, while listening to a class presentation is passive motion, so it is easier to convey information by taking presentations.
Hope you have fun with your placement in last days of winter term!!
Hey Lina, I think your project is so important for different student bodies like the Student's Union. If they don't know how to communicate with the people they represent, how can they possibly do it well? I like how you've highlighted the pros and cons of communicating in different ways and I definitely think you're right that it needs to be a combination of both. In my placement they rely pretty heavily on social media to get themselves known, however, they do host exchanges which gives participants a chance to have face to face meetings with experts.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lina for a very well rounded post.
Hi Lina! You provided a very interesting comparison between different means of communication. I think different people learn and obtain information differently so it's important to use a variety of communication tools. For me, I actually prefer reading newsletters/emails over class talks/word of mouth because I'm much stronger at visual learning than auditory learning. But for sure, personal engagement with students will be much more effective for the most part! Thanks for the informative post!
ReplyDelete