The Undergraduate Student Government’s new communication plan was the focus of last night’s general assembly meeting.
President Johnnie Lewis said the plan would go into effect this Monday, a week later than originally expected.
‘This week was originally supposed to be the kick-off week,’ he said. ‘But due to a number of concerns and misunderstandings, it’s been pushed back in order to ensure clarification.’
One of the main goals of the communication plan discussed among the student government was the ‘Got Issues’ boxes.
The boxes, which will be placed in residence halls around campus as well as in Olscamp, will offer students a chance to voice their concerns. The boxes will be checked once a week and issues from them will be discussed at general assembly meetings.
‘We want to make them cute, make them stand-out and make them noticeable,’ Vice President Nick Gamero said. ‘One idea is to put shoes at the bottom of the boxes and make them look like they have feet. It will say something along the lines of them being our little campus communicators that walk the issues to us.’
Gamero also plans to have the box in Olscamp appear different than the others.
‘It will be in the shape of a bottle and will say something like ‘don’t keep your issues all bottled up’,’ Gamero said. ‘People may think it’s dumb or lame, but if we show that [USG] cares, then [students] will start to care too.’
Along with the addition of the boxes, USG has also created a new logo.
‘Our old one was out of use,’ Speaker Jeremy Lehman said. ‘I saw the logo recently and I know it’s going to be good.’
The logo will be available to students next week.
USG’s Web site has also received an upgrade thanks to the focus on communication. The Web site will contain executive blogs that will be available to students.
‘It’s just a click away from being uploaded,’ Lewis said.
Along with the number of improvements and renovations, USG also plans on marketing their Facebook group to all undergraduate students across campus.
‘Our goal is to get as many undergraduate students in this group as we can,’ Lewis said. ‘We plan on sending out invitations to everyone.’
Mass e-mails will also be sent out to undergraduate students once a month. These will include direct links to the new USG newsletter and a focus on the senator of the week.
‘[The e-mails] will be very simple and straightforward,’ Lewis said. ‘People want to know more about [USG], but we don’t want to overload them with information at the same time.’
Lewis said that the information covered in the e-mails would be significant to everyone in the student body.
Although there were concerns about the legalities surrounding the e-mails, Lewis said the idea had been cleared by University marketing and communications.
There was some initial confusion among the senators surrounding the new plan but USG has high hopes the plan will be effective.
‘We didn’t even have a [communication plan] last year,’ Lehman said. ‘This whole thing originally stemmed from Johnnie’s campaign and it’s definitely a big improvement.’
