Being involved in community events is something that helps make Haskell home to many people, so what happens when the events aren’t shared early enough for students to attend?
The primary form of communication from the University to students would be their university emails, which has begun to cause students to stop checking their email. When asked how often they check their email, Haskell student Delores Boldwarrior said, “I don’t really check my email anymore. I used to read every email, but we get so many now that it feels overwhelming to read them all. If something is happening on campus, I’ll find out from Snapchat or my friends.”
With students moving away from email, clubs have had to get creative in how they are sharing their events and activities with the campus. Most campus clubs have created different social media accounts to be able to share their events, as well as asking the library to share their events. When asked, 7 out of 10 students said that the only university Facebook page they follow and regularly check would be Tommaney Library. This begs the question, “Is there a better system that could be in place?” After reaching out to the Office of the President to find out what the correct and up-to-date system for communication is, the office declined to respond.
An unnamed source said, “KU has someone that’s dedicated to career services, but also community health, and they put on events around the city of Lawrence, but Haskell doesn’t have anything like that; so like an outside entity that wants to do anything has to get lucky and meet or know a professor.” Without an office dedicated to serving the area of need, students are missing out on events, are late to events, or don’t have anyone to contact about the event. In the past, anyone who wanted to share an event with the community would have a deadline to share this information with the University so that the event could make it to the weekly newsletter, “This Week at Haskell.”
Angelina Adams, the head of Haskell’s Career Services, said, “When I was in the Office of the President, I would make a newsletter to send out each week; that way, everybody knew what events were taking place at a glance, rather than getting 20 emails every single day.” This could be the future of communication at Haskell, creating a newsletter for students and faculty; the only problem would be the public still not having access to events that are happening on campus. Without the public having the knowledge of what events are happening on campus, there is potential for loss of profits for fundraising, loss of attendance for sporting events, and a loss of participation in cultural events. As a community, there needs to be a push for better communication from the University and clubs, resulting in a better informed and connected campus.
