Reinhardt College Communication practices.
One would think that after over 125 years of being in existence, Reinhardt would know how to communicate with their students, faculty, and staff. Throughout this semester we have been gathering information about the different ways that Reinhardt attempts to get to communicate to faculty, staff, and employees. There were over a dozen different ways that Reinhardt tries to communicate with members of the Reinhardt community. As you will find out, some of these ways work well. Some of these ways could be good in the future, but are lacking a few key components. But then there are those certain ways that the school uses that absolutely do not work. Throughout this paper, we will explain what works, what does not, and what should no longer be used here at Reinhardt.
Web site of the Reinhardt College is part of the communication system in the institution. Like every web site this one informs the audience about events in the college, important dates, improvements or changes in the college system, new communication practices, news about the college, and registration for classes, every campus and different Reinhardt programs. The web site is connection for other communication methods that students, faculty and staff use (blackboard, Reinhardt e-mail, library, bookstore, student affair, college administration.). It contains information that everybody needs about the college. The most important question here is whether or not this information can be effectively received by the audience.
The college website should inform people of different ages who have interest in different types of information. The website is organized by different types of audiences. The division of the website helps faculty, staff, parents and new students to find the information they need to be informed about.
This communication method is easy to use for internal and external exchange of information in every institution. Because it is cheap and everybody who uses internet knows receive information from a website. Here there is another question that arises is it easy for Reinhardt college website audience to receive the information that is needed or not? The Reinhardt website automatically opens if you want to use the library. This makes in our opinion the website more effective because students can receive new information nevertheless they want or not. In emergency situations the news appears in the main web page and this makes the information easy to be read by everybody and the process more effective. Observing the website for more than a few months everybody can see that the main page doesn’t change. It is like there is no news that should be announced. The main page has the same image.
There are people who control the website and carefully observe what should be publicized or not when and how (Tomlinson, 2008). The college website is important external communication method as well and for this reason the information there should be selected and expressed in certain official way. There are organizations and people who are sensitive about certain information and for this reason people who work on the website should be careful about the audience they send their messages to (parents, students, faculty, staff, etc.).
In our opinion college staff is careful because the information in the web site is carefully selected there is no feminist, religion or other kind of issues that can offend some of the audience members or particular minority group (Tomlinson, 2008). Marsha White is the person who takes care about the publication in the website (White, 2008 ). She observes the information before it will be published and the way this information is expressed. Furthermore, the college has certain policies about the website and Marsha White and Virginia Tomlinson (Executive Director & Chief information officer for Information Technology) control the publications and assure that the publications are according the college policies (White, 2008). These people are part of the team who takes care about the electronic methods of communication in Reinhardt. They take care of the proper work of the technology related with this method of communication as well.
On the interview with them they expressed their opinion that the website is not the most effective way of communication for internal purposes. The reason for that is that students, faculty and staff use other communication methods as well; like: e-mail, cell phone services, Reinhardt Facebook group account, flyers etc (White, 2008). The problem for every communication method in the college is that nobody uses only one particular method. For the flux of information and because the purpose is that everybody should be reached the college should use every method of communication to be sure that the audience is informed (e-mail, website, flyers, etc) (White, 2008). In our opinion, using so many communication medians is time consuming and decreases the effectiveness of the communication. There too many people involved in sending the same messages and because nobody knows where should receive information that he or she need.
In our opinion other problem exists. The approach of the information published on the website is not easy. It is hard to find the information that somebody needs. There is a link for quick search that can make the search more time consuming. For this reason the web site should be changed, simplified for finding information and design to attract audience attention.
The college wants to be sure that people who are part of the internal communication are informed. The website is updated when is needed there is no certain policy when this should happen. There are different parts of the college website that are updated on a daily base, such part is student affairs (May, 2008). The reason for the updates are the large amounts of activities that student affair organizes. But this is not enough. In our opinion the website should be updated so that it will be able to attract attention of the audience and at the same time to improve their easy access to the information.
Virginia Tomlinson understands the problem and for this reason, she decided to change the website and simplify the access of the information (Tomlinson, 2008). She and her department want this communication method will be more effective and more attractive (Tomlinson, 2008). I observed in my interview with Virginia and her staff that they really care about the audience (Tomlinson, 2008). They realized that the only thing that matters is whether the audience receives the information on time and have correct information. The team realizes that the attractiveness of the website can provoke the audience to use it more. In my opinion the web site is good source for every kind of information, but is not effective enough. This way the college should be care more about the audience and create a channel for receiving feedback. The internal communication through the website is still a problem because the messages do not reach the audience. Virginia Tomlinson and Marsha White hope that the new website will be more clear and user friendly and so the message can be received by the audience.
Posters, fliers and signs are one of the oldest communication methods, but we think effective one. Reinhardt campuses are not big and posters, fliers and signs are easy to put everywhere around the campus. This way they can be seen and really inform the students. The posters are even on the bathroom doors called Toilet Paper (Wheeler, 2008). It is hard for students, faculty and staff not to see those flyers or not to pay attention to them.
The posters, fliers, signs and advertisements are made by different departments or organizations out of the Reinhardt administration. All the organizations have their own budget and ways to decide which communication method to use. For the official events in Reinhardt the college uses the college designer (White, 2008).
Posters, fliers and signs are made usually by student clubs and organizations (May, 2008). The college has some policies about them where should be posted or are they appropriate for the college students. Before they are posted they should be approved by Walter May or is the director of Student Activities (May, 2008). This communication method should take place in approved areas only: the residence halls, The Hasty Student Life Center and other buildings upon the specific approval, table tents are allowed in the Gordy Center after initial approval by the Office of Student Activities (May, 2008). Glass doors and glass areas are restricted areas for posters, signs and advertisements (May, 2008).
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His approval of the posters is effective because the organizations receive some feedback about the posters. Walter May claims that there are posters he receives for approval without the dates of the events or sponsors or contact information (May, 2008). Our opinion is that after the Walter May’s approval communication by posters, signs and advertisements is more affective. The organizations that make them are able to have feedback, to be reached and actually to make the whole communication process more affective. The college gives advices about the places of the posters too. In our opinion this makes it more effective too because the Office of Student Activities knows about the audience that visits different places in the campus.
Unfortunately, Office of Student Activities thinks that using only this method of communication is not effective because there are people who don’t pay attention to the posters, signs or advertisements. Like in the Information Technology office, the office of Student Activities claims the posters, signs and advertisements are not enough. Students, faculty, staff, and people that visit the campus need more methods of communications because everybody uses different communication method to communicate to the audience
Our group that experiences the process of receiving information by posters, signs and advertisements and we think that there is another imperfection that makes them ineffective. This is how they are organized and the way they look like to attract the attention of the audience. Most of the posters are on colored paper. They cannot attract so much attention because they always look the same. The design of the posters that are not produced by the college designer is always the same and doesn’t attract the audience attention. The communication is always about the audience not about sender of the information. Posters should be removed after the event happens or after it completes the purpose of the flyer. For this reason our group thinks that this method should be renovated and should pay more attention at the design that attracts the audience.
Mail is important part of the Reinhardt College like in every educational institution. Most of the letters should be received or send on time. Support Services is one of the most important departments at school. The mail seems that it is really simple and not a difficult job, but it is an important communication method to the college (Champion, 2008 ). This department should be very organized because the mail cannot be delay.
Campus mail is received every morning from nine to ten. Usually there is more mail on h Mondays (Champion, 2008 ). Here is when communication process begins because delivering and sending the mail is not only the physical accepting letters and packages. People who participate in the process should know how to use it. There are certain rules that faculty, staff, and students should know how to participate in the process. After the campus mail is delivered it is sorted by the mail personal. Three students that work there part time with Jean M. Champion. At 11am Karen Kitchen from Student Affairs comes and collects the mail for the students that live on campus and the mail for Student Affairs department (Kitchens, 2008).
The communication process can be divided in two main parts. Support Services in the Administration Building has the mail for faculty and staff. Also, mail is collected from Support Services and is brought to The Hasty Student Center for Students Affairs department and for students. This dividing of the correspondence makes the system more effective in our opinion because this way the correspondence process becomes simpler. There is dividing in responsibilities. Karen Kitchens collects the mail and divides it for students and Student Affairs Department (Kitchens, 2008). Mrs. Kitchens has student workers bring mail to the individual rooms. It takes her about an hour to deliver student mail to every building. Mail which is important like checks or documents should be received in person. So where students can be sure that its important mail will not be lost or read by somebody else (Kitchens, 2008). This system is very effective in our opinion because students to receive their mail and simultaneously on time. If somebody needs to receive a letter that is not delivered, he or she can call to the Hasty Student center and ask if the letter is received. Students who don’t live on campus anymore, mail are forward back the sender. This system works perfectly because students have the comfort to receive their mail at their rooms and be sure that they will have it on time. Big packages are received in the Support Services will receive a call to pick their packages (Champion, 2008 ). This creates comfort because the receivers have information on time about their delivery.
There is an outgoing mail box for only faculty and staff. Student Affair mail is collected in a basket (box) and administrative assistant brings this basket to the mail office where the mail is sorted depending where should be delivered.
The mail office is a small, very important machine that works perfectly because is very well organized. Every letter is sorted by different departments after it has been received. Every department has its own representative who picks up the mail. This person delivers letters to people on his or her departments. Every department has a box in the mail office and this way is easy the mail for certain department to be found.
There is another communicational system that exists and is very important; this is interoffice mail. Every representative from different departments brings the interoffice mail to a box called interoffice mail. Jean Champion or some of the staff sort this mail by departments (Champion, 2008 ). There is no confusion and nothing is lost. The order that college policies had been created is perfect and doesn’t create lost of time for the participants.
The mail is not only ingoing process of course. There is a lot of letters everyday that should be sent; outgoing process. The representative of every department collects the mail and brings it to the mail office. There the mal is divided: Waleska mail, out of town, international mail, library mail, media mail and bulk mail. The mail office works with shipping companies like FedEx, UPS and Express mail as well. They use these services for mail that should be delivered very fast- overnight mail. After the mail is delivered to the mail room workers there use their postal software to mark the letters, pay to the postal service and report the amount for every department for every letter. The postal officer collects the mail at 9:15 am and if there is any other mail at the end of the day at 4:15 pm the rest of the mail is send to the Waleska Post Office across the street from the college (Champion, 2008 ). Reinhardt College also uses Inter Library Loan System. This system is for libraries that exchange books are cheaper than using regular mail. The other system that the mail uses is Bulk mail. This is service that is appropriate when the college sends more than 200 letters at once. Using this system the college save a lot of money because letters send buy this system are almost 50 % less (Champion, 2008 ). Here there is one more proof that this communication channel works good based on very good organization. Student, faculty and staff receive their mail on time in spate of the small number of people who are in charge of the delivering the mail. The mail is safety system and everybody who uses it can be sure that it can receive the feedback of his or her mail on time. The outgoing mail is delivered on time too is sorted be the mail office and there is no exception. Our group has an opinion that the system works perfectly.
Campus e-mail or GroupWise has been an important communication median since 1995 according to David Doster. The college uses the GroupWise system because it is more cost effective than Microsoft Outlook (Doster, 2008). Usually, students and employees find the system easy to use, however only about fifty percent of the network uses it regularly (Doster, 2008).
Campus e-mail is used to spread news and events to hundreds main campus students and North Fulton Campus student. Usually student mailboxes are filled with updates about the latest academic events and other activities on campus. This can be done easily by e-mails can typing in Waleska-Students@reinhardt.edu and NorthFulton-Students@reinhardt.edu. On a giving day a students will receive on average between two to four updates about school activities.
Often the Reinhardt E-mail is more effective communication median for Reinhardt College faculty and staff. One can send campus wide e-mails faculty and staff by typing Waleska-Faculty@reinhardt.edu and Waleska-Staff@reinhardt.edu. Many of the staff members spend hours of their work day checking e-mails and sending responses to members of the Reinhardt College community. However, some of the faculty and staff do not check their Reinhardt e-mail regularly and other do not even know how to use the system. This could be a major problem when communicating the latest events of the college. Some staff members seem to check there E-mail almost religiously. Some staff members like Walter May and Eric Booth respond to E-mails within a couple hours and spend much of their work day checking e-mail. Some even use the accessories like the calendars to make their work day more organized.
Campus E-mail isn’t effective with communicating with students and alumni about events and news on campus. To be effective, students need to be shown how to forward Reinhardt E-mail to personal accounts and be thought the importance of checking campus e-mail (May, 2008). Frequently, the Reinhardt community overuses and abuses campus-mail when communicating to the receiver about events that do not have anything to do with receiver. Some members of the Reinhardt community send campus wide e-mails about personal interests that have little to do with the receiver. This “junk mail” makes campus e-mail less effective communicating to the audience because of the overuse of campus e-mail. Often most mail never gets open and is deleted by people who use GroupWise. In contrast to students, campus e-mail is one of the more effective median for communicating to faculty and staff. Usually, they do a good job checking and responding to their E-mails within twenty-four to forty-eight hours after receiving the e-mail.
Meetings are important for communicating and planning for all organizations. Colleges like Reinhardt use meeting to communicate the latest issues and events. Often, faculty, students and staff spend much of their work day going to meetings and classes. Those meetings and classes are excellent times to communicate the events of the college. Furthermore, most of committees or department meetings have a chairperson who facilitates and lead the group discussion. Like committee chairpersons, professor often lectures or facilitates classroom discussions. Some meetings like Student Government Association and the Reinhardt College Faculty Senate use proper procedures like Robert’s Rules, while other committee meetings are more casual in nature (May, 2008). All the meetings and classes at the college are face to face, usually with two way communication. Usually, committees are made up of people from different departments different reasons. Reinhardt usually does a good job at including people from different departments.
Meetings at Reinhardt College come with mixed effectiveness. The Faculty Senate is not effective, because they only meet a couple times per semester and usually have a difficult time making decisions on issues acording to members of the faculty (May, 2008). Meeting every week doesn’t make much of a difference. The Student Government Association Senate meets once a week has a difficult time making decisions on issue. Furthermore, committees of these bodies are not effective. Most committees do not have sense of interdependence and lack open communication between members. For instance, the Student Government Association committees only meet for 20 or 30 minutes which is not enough time to debate or brainstorm about an issue. Frequently, even if these meetings last an hour, they are little order and have no agenda.
The classroom could be one of the most effective means in communicating events and policy changes on campus. Frequently, students that are not active in student life are left of the loop on changes effecting students. Professors should be open with students about what is going on at Reinhardt and get feedback on the latest issues. The professors need to take the feedback from the classroom and bring it to the faculty senate or to school deans through horizontal communication. The same is true with the SGA senate. Elected and appointed senators should take feedback from the club or students to the student assembly. Moreover, information learned at senate should be brought back to the students the senator represent (May, 2008).
To have more effective meetings the employees and student leaders need to be trained in the use proper team building skills to get the most out of the assembly. This will allow for effective high performing team, which will be effective for making decisions about the future of the college. Also, these members need to inform their departments through horizontal communications about the activities of the committees and ask for feedback.
Under the Bell Tower is the official new letter for the Reinhardt College faculty and staff. It is edited by Lauren Thomas who is coordinator of media relations with the college. Under the Bell Tower comes out every month; every faculty and staff member of the college receives a copy in their campus mail box (White, Under The Bell Tower , 2008). Some of the articles include history of the college, recognition of members of the Reinhardt community for their accomplishments and articles about the latest events of the college (White, Under The Bell Tower , 2008).
Under the Bell Tower came from three news letters about events and activities of Reinhardt College. One of the newsletters went to the students of the college and the other went to the faculty and staff of the college. The third news letter went to the Lake Arrowhead community (White, Under The Bell Tower , 2008). All of the news letters were similar in information value, but consisted of different formats and on different colors of paper. In the 1990s, the employee and student newsletter was combined into one newsletter called the Blue and Gold. Much of the Blue and Gold was devoted to the school calendar (White, Website Publication, 2008). Around 2003 calendars started to be sent through mail and e-mail to students and employees, so reduced the importance of a newsletter. Under the Bell Tower was created because President Isherwood wanted an internal newsletter to improve communication among faculty and staff (White, Under The Bell Tower , 2008). The news letter got its named from Dr. Donald Gregory, sociology professor at college. The newsletter has gone from a once a month e-mail to the four page April addition.
Last year Under the Bell Tower was one of the things to improve on the agenda for marketing and communication department. In August of last year, surveys went out to the faculty and staff about improving the newsletter (White, Under The Bell Tower , 2008). This year faculty and staff have been active in contributing news articles to the newsletter. However, the marketing staff still has to go through campus e-mails and the college achieves to find information for the news articles.
Under the Bell Tower seems to be an effective internal newsletter. Faculty and Staff are informed on events of the college, which is the internal communication that has been lacking in the past coupe of years. Furthermore, the newsletter seems to improve morale of college employees because they are recognized for their accomplishment. Under the Bell Tower seems to be receiver focused because the editor values feedback from the employees of the college. The feedback used from the surveys is used to make the newsletter more interesting and informative. Since Under the Bell Tower is delivered to all employees, all should know the important events and accomplishments of the school.
Student policy is important to communicating college policies to members of the Reinhardt community. It is important for all organizations to have written policies and procedures to be in writing. If polices are not in writing often they can not be enforced. Currently, Reinhardt has several written documents of student policy. These policies and procedures include: the Student Constitution, Club and Organization Policy Handbook, Homecoming Policies, Code of Conduct, and Student Activities Fee Policy Handbook and the Tobacco use policy. Also, policy and procedures on academic integrity could be added next year.
Furthermore, student policy is amended every year during the spring semester. The committee responsible for amending student policy is the Student Government Association Policy and Procedure committee. This committee meets every two weeks to discuss issues in student policy and the enforcement. Some of the latest suggestions included amendments to the SGA Constitution, homecoming policy and the Code of Conduct.
Written policy and procedures are not effective in communicating information to the students. Moreover, many of the policies are overly detailed and receivers often get lost in the document. For example the student club and organization handbook is wordy and makes it difficult to understand what the sender’s message. Another example is the Student Code of Conduct. The school policy is not often updated and many of the policies are not enforced for various reasons. For example, gambling and wearing apparel with alcohol logos is a level one offensive and are hardly enforced by judicial staff. These policies are still on the book because it is difficult to change student policy. For instance, to make an amendment to the SGA constitution it takes a three-fourths senate majority vote and a majority student votes casted to pass an amendment. This is difficult because it takes numerous hours of time and effort to make amendments.
In conclusion, student policies are not receiver focused, and are confusing if not explained by qualified individuals. College officials need to spend time editing the documents making it more students friendly. The wording of the documents, needs to be written in an eight grade to eleventh grade reading level so where it could be understood by all receivers or students. Finally, policies need to be updated to the 21st century and follow the currently enforced policies.
One on the major communication tools in use today at Reinhardt is that of voicemail. Voicemail, in its simplest form it mimics the functions of an answering machine, uses a standard telephone handset for the user interface, and uses a centralized, computerized system rather than equipment at the individual telephone (Booth, 2008). Voicemail systems are much more sophisticated than answering machines in that among other things; they can store incoming voice messages in personalized mailboxes associated with the user’s phone number, send messages to one or more other user voice mailboxes, and play different message greetings to different callers.
While using voicemail may seem like an easy process, there are actually some guidelines that on should follow. The first thing one should do is clearly state your name, company, and number to which you can be reached. After that, you want to leave a clear and cut message. Finally end with thanking them for taking the time to listen to your message and tell them you hope to hear back from them soon. Once a voicemail is received, there is a common courtesy to return the call to the person who left the message within 48 hours. These are just some of the basic rule of voicemail that one should try to follow to the best of their ability.
Here at Reinhardt, both students and faculty utilize voicemail. As far as resident students go here at Reinhardt, every room has its own its own number and voicemail service. The campus voicemail is used for those students how wish to have a landline phone in their room. This is the number that professors will try to reach their students at. Of course, just because every student has it, does not mean they use it. On average, less than 40% of the students use their voicemail (Booth, 2008). There are many reasons why this might be. The first reason is that of cell phones. In today’s society, almost everybody has a cell phone. With cell phones, comes with, you guessed it, a voicemail system. With the convenience of being able to bring a cell phone everywhere almost negates having a voicemail service.
There are pros and cons to students’ voicemail. One of the pros includes that of the professors having a way to reach their students if they need to. But along with this pro come with one of the major downfalls with the Reinhardt student voicemail system. Reinhardt’s voicemail system is very hard to set up. This is actually the biggest problem with our voicemail. Reinhardt gives out instructions on how to use the system. The only problem with these instructions is they are very unclear and hard to follow. This is a major reason why most students don’t use their room voicemail. They just don’t know how to set it up.
As far as the faculty goes, voicemail is a very important communication tool. Whether students or other faculty members are trying to reach them, voicemail is a very reliable tool for the faculty and staff. All of the professors here at Reinhardt are very good about checking and responding to the voicemails they get.
So overall, voicemail can be a very reliable communication tool among professors and staff. But as far the student voicemail system, there is a need for some serious improvement. Like in every way of communicating, it also has a lot to do with the other person. If the other person is unwilling to learn how to use voicemail or respond well to voicemail, then it would not be a very effective tool.
Another tool for communicating in both the business world and the “real” world is that of the Grapevine, or word of mouth. Word of mouth communication can be both the best and worst communication tool that people can use. Dictionary.com says, “Word of mouth is a reference to the passing of information by verbal means, especially recommendations, but also general information, in an informal, person-to-person manner. Word of mouth is typically considered a face-to-face spoken communication.” There are both positives and negatives of using word of mouth communications. One of the biggest positives is the assurance that the person the message is meant for gets that message. This is because you tell the person face to face.
At the same time, this could also lead to the biggest negative of the Grapevine. That of the message either, (A) not being received by everyone who needs to gets the message. Or (B) the message is altered is some way. An example of the message being altered is that is one person hears that a meeting starts at 9:00 am, but in reality, the meeting starts at 8:00 am. This is why the Grapevine is such a dangerous way to communicate with other people. It is just like that game telephone everyone played as a kid. The first person creates a message, and then passes it down the line one person at a time. The best part is to see what the message is by the time the last person gets it. Usually, it is nothing like the original message.
Another part of the Grapevine is that or rumors. Dictionary.com says that a rumor is “a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts.” This means that a rumor is spreading information about someone when you don’t know if that information is true or not. Here at Reinhardt, rumors can be quite a common thing. If you pay attention to what students are saying in class, there are many people that are brought up in the conversation that are not taking part in the conversation. The rumor list is not limited to students either. Anyone and everyone are liable to have a rumor started about them at any time. If someone were to say something false about someone else, it would be considered slander. There have been many people to get in trouble, and even sued, over slander.
As far as using this word of mouth at Reinhardt goes, it is just like every other business. It can be either very good or very bad. When you look at it through the eyes of the students, they often rely on the Grapevine quite a bit. Often one can overhear students asking each other about things such as when homework is due, whether class is canceled or not, and what is going on that night. If you were to walk through the hallways of any of our academic buildings during the day, you will more often than not overhear at least a few students speaking through the Grapevine.
While word of mouth is a popular thing among students, faculty, and staff do not like to rely on it as much. This is because they know that there are many, much better, ways to communicate with each other.
In the end, word of mouth, or the Grapevine is not very good way to communicate with people. There are some advantages of word of mouth communications. But overall, there are too many big disadvantages of using the Grapevine. Word of mouth might be good for just chatting about things of little importance. But, try avoiding using it for your important matters.
The next form of communication that Reinhardt uses is that of the campus wide newspaper, the Hiltonian. The Hiltonian is a school wide newspaper that comes out once a month. (May, The Hiltonian , 2008) The Hiltonian was started in 1925. It was appropriately named for the way the campus use to be up on a hill. The campus use to just be a few buildings. These included Paul Jones and the administrations building. The newspaper was on and off for about twenty years until 2003.
This is when the paper’s staff decided it was time for a change. The Reinhardt news paper was changed from Reinhardt Eagle back to the Hiltonian (May, The Hiltonian , 2008). Although the new name was popular among some people, it was not very well received. So this name change was quickly forgotten about. In 2004, the paper was once again named the Hiltonian.
Company wide newspapers or newsletter were once very popular, but are now slowly fading out of circulation. Company wide papers, like every form of communication, have both positives and negatives with it. One of the positive effects of a company wide newspaper is that you can mass-produce it very well. You can get a few hundred copies for relatively cheap. Here at Reinhardt, it cost somewhere around $300 a month to produce our paper (May, The Hiltonian , 2008). So for an entire year of newspapers, it cost Reinhardt about $2000 a year.
While this might not seem to be that much money, there is also a major downside to Reinhardt spending this money. Research has shown that there are very few people who actually read the Hiltonian. Among students, the Hiltonian has a very low fan base. You don’t even have to really ask around or survey people about it. All it takes is to just take a look around campus to all of the spots where the newspapers are put out. One thing you will notice is that the racks are still there. This is why some people seem to think the $2000 a year is too much to be spending.
One of the more discrete ways of communication at Reinhardt is RCTV. RCTV is maintained by a group of communication majors. The benefit of having RCTV is the fact that it allows those participating in the program to gain hands on experiences in broadcasting and communication as well as the ever so popular form of television to inform students of events, activities, and other goings on with Reinhardt.
As far as RCTV itself, they currently have a series of episodes that is called RCTV today. The series is designed to give students an insight to certain aspects of life at Reinhardt. The most recent episode, which was episode 3, highlighted campus life with topics ranging from arts and sports to books and recreation. The counterproductive aspect of this show is that it represents campus life, however, the only student that are able to view it are those that are on campus. This means that for any commuter student, they would have to go out of their way and either stops at the resident hall or find a television on campus in order to watch the show. The other setback is that if a commuter student wanted to view the show they would need to know the times when the show would be aired. One would automatically think to check online for airings of the show, however that information isn’t currently available.
In viewing the Reinhardt Info Channel as of April 12, 2008, we viewed a page that showed Gordy dining hours, an ad for the Varsity, a Career Services ad, a notice to students regarding the parking policy, upcoming events and concerts at the Falany Performing Arts Center, a how to guide for students to check if classes are cancelled, as well library and SERF hours. This is all decent information that is being relayed to students at Reinhardt; however this channel is only available on campus. In regards to any student that is commuter, they do not have the option to view the channel at their own residence; this isn’t exactly considered full exposure. As we all know, the goal of any communication is to reach out to as many people as possible within the given population, this particular population being Reinhardt students.
While the Reinhardt Info. Channel does provide information that can be useful to students, that audience that it reaches out to is not what would be considered effective coverage. In viewing the channel, one can expect to find essentially a PowerPoint presentation, otherwise known as series of slides that displays basic pictures and basic information. One of the great benefits it does offer is free advertising to anyone who would like to utilize their service, this can be great for the community of Reinhardt as well as surrounding communities the would like to advertise.
As a whole, we would not consider this an effective means of communication due to the simple fact that their ability to reach to any student is limited to those who live on campus. In this in age where television dominates marketing and communication of information, it’s hard to believe that a college television program wouldn’t be more effective.
Launched on March 24, 2008, EagleAlert is one of the newest ways of communication on campus. With so many students carrying cell phones, Reinhardt has created a system that sends out alerts and updates to anyone who has registered for the service. Robby Westbrook, who is the director of Cherokee Sheriff’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, recently stated in an interview found at reinhardt.edu, said that, “Communication is the most important aspect of an emergency response.” It is an opt-in service; you must sign up and register in order to receive the alerts and updates. This allows students and faculty to have other options of receiving information from the school quicker, and many would say the most convenient way. Another great feature to the service is that parents will also be able to receive the same information via cell phone, PDA, or email.
The central focus of the system is for the school to be able to deliver important and emergency information to each student, parent, and staff member that is enrolled in the program though either the Waleska or North Fulton campus, in a more accurate and timely manner. In a recent interview posted on the Reinhardt college website, Dr. Roger Lee stated that, “We anticipate using the system to quickly issue severe weather advisories and school closings, as well as in times of campus wide emergency situations” (Lee, 2008). Such alerts would include emergency broadcasts, terrorist alerts, weather advisories, school closings, and event cancellations. Students and staff can register as many as two phone number as well as two email addresses, making the chances of the information being received promptly, that much greater. Reinhardt has recognized that due to the structure of many cell phone plans that not everyone will be able to register for the service without incurring additional fees through the cell phone service provider. To offset that barrier, they have set the system up so that you can opt in to the EagleAlert service without opting in to the text service. This means that you will be able to receive the updates and alerts via email without incurring any additional fees.
The EagleAlert system is created and run by a company called Omni Alert Network and the system used is the E2Campus. A recent survey was done by the company, showed that just over 90% of college students currently carry a cell phone. They send out mass messages to any school that enrolls in the usage of their system. They are the 1st and most trusted company in campus notification. They currently have over 400 colleges and 1 million students enrolled, making them a very reliable source for such an efficient way of delivering important information to students, faculty, parents and staff.
EagleAlert would have to be considered one of the most effective options as far as delivering an alert or update provided once again, that an eligible participant is enrolled. This system would be especially beneficial to any student that commutes. They would be notified immediately in the event of any cancellations or closing of the schools. The other aspect of the system that makes it effective is that students will presumably talk to other students about the notifications via email and text which will ultimately increase the effectiveness of the system.
Next, Facebook is by far the most dominant use of communication when it comes to recreation for students as well as staff. The central idea behind Facebook is like many others on the web; it allows you to create your own homepage so to speak, in order to represent yourself to everybody. Facebook allows you to connect with anyone you currently know or anyone within a network of people you know, or even people you haven’t seen in years. As of April 10th, 2008, a search using the title Reinhardt 2009 will net you 467 results, a substantially large portion of that particular class.
With Facebook, you can display detailed or general information about yourself, such as your favorite movies, TV shows, music, books, hobbies, and interests. It also gives you the option to display contact information like your name and address and past school history and employment information. One could deem it a resume of your life, or even a small window into your everyday life. The feature that ads to the idea of the window into your life, is the option to display pictures. So not only can someone read and understand more about you, but they can also view pictures of what it is that defines you. Many of the pictures found on Facebook are of family, friends, hobbies, pastimes, favorite memories, special events, school, work, and the list goes on. With so many features to display yourself, and so many people using the site, it truly is a network that allows anyone to connect with anyone.
Facebook is an excellent source of communication and that statement is especially true if you want to stay in contact with people that you don’t see on a daily basis. While the site is a great network to stay in touch with your friends that you see regularly now, it is even more valuable in staying connected with those people that you don’t see consistently. There is always the option to interact with those that are far away by using the wall or messaging, you can talk and chat at your own leisure as well as have insight into the other person’s life. You just don’t have that type of contact with someone for example that is 1000 miles away. While the use of phones and email is respectable, they don’t allow viewing and reading everything that someone wants to share like Facebook does.
As far as immediate contact, it has the same disadvantages that email does. The person you are contacting would have to have web access which limits the ability to reach someone in a timely manner. That is why Facebook is considered more of a recreational type of communication; I don’t see too many people considering Facebook as the 1st option if an urgent message needed to be delivered. Nonetheless, the ability to communicate as well the amount of information and type of information you can share makes it one of the best sources available.
After researching many different aspects of communication within the Reinhardt community, it is clear that while there are many forms of communication, very few of them can be deemed effective. What is most concerning is the fact that the two most highly touted ways of communications among students and faculty are Facebook and text messaging, ironically neither one of these services is provided or mediated by the college. The college has become saturated with flyers, bulletin boards, and unread newspapers. The computers have become overloaded with emails that are of no concern to most individuals. The barrier lies between identifying who the audience is and what the best way to convey a message would be. Case in point, the death of a student should not take the length of time that it did in order for it to be a campus covered message. A paper that is supposed to cover recent campus news and events took more than an ample amount of time to convey a message. More than likely there isn’t just one simple solution to the breakdown of communication on campus, but the effort and system that is in place right now is clearly not effective.
Works Cited
Booth, E. (2008, April 8). Voice Mail . (A. Hise, Interviewer)
Champion, J. (2008 , April 5). Campus Mail . (B. Histova, Interviewer)
Doster, D. (2008, April 5). Groupwise . (B. Wheeler, Interviewer)
Kitchens, K. (2008, April 5). Campus Mail. (B. Hristova, Interviewer)
Lee, R. (2008, April 6). EagleAlert . (J. Weber, Interviewer)
May, W. (2008, April 6). The Hiltonian . (B. Wheeler, Interviewer)
May, W. (2008, April 6 ). Website . (B. Hristova, Interviewer)
Tomlinson, G. (2008, April 2 5). The College Website . (B. Histova, Interviewer)
Wheeler, B. (2008, April 4). Flyers . (B. Hristova, Interviewer)
White, M. (2008, April 6). Under The Bell Tower . (B. Wheler, Interviewer)
White, M. (2008, April 5). Website Publication. (B. Hristova, Interviewer
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