Recently it was requested that I do a quickie presentation on Online Environments for students.  Now I have a lot to say about online environments, so a quickie presentation was difficult for me.  My presentation was for 80-100 of our Student Services workers – Advisors, Counselors, Student Employment, Registrar, Dean of Student Services, Health Services, Registration, Financial Aide, Admissions, the VP of Student Services and the College President.  That’s a rough crowd! 

I started with the assumption that they know nothing about MySpace/Facebook/Second Life.  These were my main environments to discuss.  The handout was a one page simple bulleted handout so that they would spend my precious presentation time listening instead of reading.  Included were quick facts on all three of these environments – who, when, where, what, how.  Also a small section labeled "Don’t be a n00b – learn the language, learn the culture" with terms used on these sites and in everyday student language such as blog, bulletin, tag, text, friend & message.  The next bulleted section gave the pros and cons of advertising on Myspace/Facebook.  Paid advertising is official, someone handles it for us BUT it’s $$$ and really how many students click ads and banners?  Profiles/Groups are free, students WILL join, can get more input from students BUT someone has to be in charge of it.  Second Life was very briefly touched on as that’s (for my college) far in the future.  But I talked about how you can take college classes, PR events, learn design and scripting.  I did a quick poll to see how many have accounts on any of these environments and there were unsurprisingly very few.

To end the presentation I let them all know that Mott Community College does indeed have a group on MySpace and it has over 6,000 members.  Who runs it?  Someone named Sarah Suicide who claims to be a marketing major at MCC.  There is misinformation and all sorts of "stuff" going on in the group.  Some members are under the impression that it is run by the college.  The VP and President sat up a bit straighter and took notice at that fact!  Kevin Prentiss directed me to the fact that there are 1,300 of our students on Facebook.  My ending question was "Why aren’t we there with them?"

I’m hoping that this presentation, although very brief (less than 15 minutes) will help to open Administration’s eyes and move us forward to keep in touch with our students.

I spent four years at the State University of New York at Cobleskill in a village with less than 5000 people.  The college had around 2500 students of which approximately 500 are commuters. 

I know what it is like attending a small school in a small town.  In a small town you can have large turnouts to multiple events each week.  No you don’t have to reread that, I said we would get large turnouts and we would put on at least 2 events weekly.

Of course not all of our events turn out to be a hit, but you can’t let that get you down.  In a small campus environment with a minimal budget you have to learn to accept that some events aren’t going to draw the attendance you hoped for.

Now you might ask, how can I pack my schedule full of quality events without spending the entire clubs budget in the first month? 

Creativity and “homegrown” events have been the backbone of our activities board at SUNY Cobleskill.  Creating your own events such as game shows, and theme nights is a very affordable way to pack your schedule.  Put a lot of thought into your homegrown events, they won’t work if you throw them together at the last minute.

SUNY Cobleskill won a national award at the 2007 APCA Nationals in Atlanta Georgia for a homegrown event called “Big Man On Campus”.  This event was modeled after “The Apprentice”, and took many hours of just sitting down and talking out the details with other students, and our advisor.  I would say it was worth the time we put into it, we put on a quality event which won a national award, all for a fairly cheap price.

I would have to say one of our biggest budget saviors would have to be APCA, The Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities.  We get Most if not all of our stage shows from APCA.  For those of you who do not already know what APCA is, it is an organization that promotes quality yet affordable programming for campuses.

Don’t expect your numbers to jump up instantly, your activities board needs to build a reputation among your students.  Cheap promotion is another hurdle you may have to overcome before you have a successful calendar of events. 

With your budget you can’t exactly have sky writers promote your campuses events, so you have to come up with creative ways to get your name out there.  There are plenty of blogs out there that you can get cheap promotion ideas from

http://swiftkick.typepad.com/activities_affairs/marketing/index.html

It is not impossible to pack your house with whatever budget you have, you may just have to be a little more creative with the way you plan your events.

Like Joseph Campbell’s famous Hero’s Journey philosophy, we like to divide college students into 5 different stages of engagement based on the Engagement Pyramid below…

Each stage is defined by a different set of characteristics of an individual. Fully engaged individuals display a different set of characteristics than apathetic/uninvolved individuals. Thus, the way we interact with individuals in each stage should be different. A “5″ doesn’t want to be treated like a “Neutral.” And treating a “Neutral” like a “5″ might be too much too soon and thus demotivating.

Once we’ve recognized an individual’s stage, then the next step is to move them gradually up the Engagement Pyramid step-by-step. In our Dance Floor Theory program, we call this X+1. “X” being the stage an individual currently is in and “+1″ being the next step that is challenging enough for that indivdual, but not too challenging (e.g. +3) which might be demotivating. If you think of it like a video game, video games do an amazing job of knowing your current level and knowing what the next motivating challenge is for you. That’s the same thing as X+1.

The hardest step on the Engagement Pyramid is moving someone from a “Neutral” to a “1.” Where a Neutral is someone who doesn’t care and is indifferent to anything you do and a “1″ is someone who actually pays attention and is curious. Once someone is a “1,” it’s much easier to continue to move them towards a “5.”

Ask most educators and they will tell you student apathy is huge on college campuses. Campuses are filled with “Neutrals,” however most of the activities we do on campuses are geared towards “1″ through “5″ people because they are the ones who will pay attention to our flyers, emails, and Facebook invites and take the extra effort to actually show up to an event. But what about the larger percentage of our campus that are “Neutrals?” What can we do to engagement them? To give them their X+1 moment? To move them from a “Neutral” to a “1?”

Enter Free Hugs…

Well actually, Free Hugs is just one example of thousands of examples of events we call Blender Events. Blender Events serve two purposes…

1. Cause people to have a pattern interrupt throughout their day. Or as we say in Dance Floor Theory, get people to go from “Meh” to “Hmmm.”
2. Build peer-to-peer relationships by mixing people together with near-peers. Near-peers are people who are models of success that are just a stage or two ahead. In the Engagement Pyramid, a near-peer to an “X” would be a “1.”

Every time we host a Blender Event on campus and cause a “Neutral” to have a pattern interrupt in their day, or get them to go  from “Meh” to “hmmm,” or connect them with a “1,” then we are supplying them with an X+1 Moment. The more X+1 Moments they have, the harder it will be for them to stay a “Neutral” as they will start to display characteristics of a “1″ whether they want to or not. And once they are a “1,” then we can work on getting them to become a “2.”

So there you have it, That’s the ‘why’ behind Free Hugs. As you may have noticed, it has very little to do with the actual Free Hugs event and more to do with the introductions/connections/relationships that happen from the Free Hugs event.

I promised everyone that I would put the slides up from the Dance Floor Theory Ed Session in Orlando.

You can download them as a .pdf here. (It’s a 7.5 MB file, so it will take a bit.)

Hope it serves for:

A few things to keep in mind – DFT is a much longer program, this is just a slice.

This was delivered to advisors, with the intent of illustrating some of the educational principles that are embedded within the design of the DFT curriculum.

So slides 44-48 are not usually present in DFT, but were added to give a few primers for developing your own curriculum on whatever you would like to teach.

All 4 serve as important reminders for any leadership training. No better way to learn than by doing : )

The trend is moving toward more institution staff and faculty having accounts on Facebook and other social networking sites. Thousands of educators are already engaging one another on Facebook and seeing the networking benefits among themselves and their students, a few of whom are writers/readers of this blog.

Though many advisors already have accounts, some are unsure of how to get started, so here’s a step by step guide to get you started on Facebook. I am focusing on Facebook since it’s the dominant choice among college students.

Step 1: Sign Up

Visit www.facebook.com

Step 2: Sign Up

Click on "Register"

Step 3: Sign Up

Fill in your information.

- As an employee of an institution, you want to mark yourself as "in college/graduate school" then it will pop up another list to mark if you are "undergrad, grad, alum, faculty or staff."

- You can use any email address to register for Facebook and no longer is it restricted to only .edu addresses.  (Though joining a particular school network may depend on your .edu)

Step 4: Confirm your Email

Go to your email account and confirm your email.

Step 5: Search for your Associates

Connect with other people at your institution. You can either search with your institution email ( e.g. johnsmith@osu.edu) or you can click on "Find current or past university classmates."

Step 6: Edit Profile

Set up your profile. Click on "edit" at the top of the page.

Step 7: Edit Profile

Input personal information. Start with the "Basic" info and work your way across from "Contact" to "Picture." You only need share what you feel comfortable sharing. If you are unsure as a professional what you should or shouldn’t share, read this and this articles to start.  

Step 8: Join Networks

On the top of the page click on the arrow to the right of "Networks." Then click on "Join Networks."

Step 9: Join Networks

In Facebook, networks are the large groups you affiliate yourself with. Currently, networks are based around Workplace, Region, High School and College. Enter your school email and Facebook will detect your institution network for you. Then click "Join This Network."

Step 10: Join Goups

Within each network and across multiple networks are a plethora of groups on any topic from  "Addicted to Taco Bell" to "Abolish Monday." Within the 10000′s of random groups are several directly related to student affairs. Try these to start:

- Student Affairs Professionals Unite (2,300+ Members)

- Student Affairs (1,025+ Members)

- Student Affairs Professionals (1,376+ Members)

 

Step 11: Celebrate Your Genius

Once you are up and running on Facebook, take some time to do a little dance, sing a little song and celebrate how cool you are now that you have a Facebook account.

That’s it! You’re done for now.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I share some of the advanced things you can do on Facebook.

Jeannette Sullivan from Palm Beach Community College was looking for some examples and guidelines to creating a student club constituion. With the help of my infinitely knowledgeable friend, Mr. Google, I found this detailed outline of a student club constituion:

College of XYZ University

Constitution 

XYZ Club 

Article I: Name and Purpose 

Section 1: Name

State the name of the club – you may abbreviate the name after this section if you identify that abbreviation here. 

Section 2: Purpose/Mission

State the purpose/mission of your organization – the reasons why you exist. This can be in a list format, or in a paragraph. 

Section 3: Affiliation:

If your organization is affiliated with any regional/national organizations, please state those affiliations here.

Article II: Membership 

Section 1: Eligibility for Membership

CSB/SJU joint clubs must be open to any CSB/SJU student. Non-students [e.g., faculty/staff] are not allowed to be full members, but they can be non-voting, affiliate members. State all categories for membership – voting, affiliate, non-voting, etc.

Section 2: Voting Member Criteria

State how a student becomes a voting member [e.g., attends a certain % of meetings/events, pays dues, etc] and if there are any criteria for any other membership categories. This is an important issue for your organization – you want to make sure that students listed on your voting member list are active, interested students in your group.

Section 3: Removal of Members

State the process to remove any member who is not in good standing with the club. Due process must be followed. Things to consider are: reasonable notice to the person being considered for removal, opportunity to defend their position, quorum* needed to vote, timeline for the process, appeal process.

While you will hopefully not need this section, it is very important that you have a process in place. When you need it, this will clarify the procedure and take out some of the difficult personal issues….

Article III: Officers 

Section 1: Officer Qualifications

Identify what qualifications a student must have to be eligible to be an officer. This may include GPA, length of time in organization, previous experience, etc. All officers must be current CSB/SJU students. See Article IV for Election procedures.

Section 2: Elected Officers

List the positions in descending order (e.g., President, Vice-President, etc). If you choose to have a non-hierarchical structure -–that is great! Then just list the Department of Student Activities contact person first. Also clearly identify the Co-Funding Board (CFB) and Joint Club Board (JCB) contacts.

Section 3: Duties of Officers

List each officer position and their duties. You can include this information in Section 2 if you prefer. You may rename positions and form a non-hierarchical structure (we encourage this actually!). Term of office should also be addressed (e.g., academic year, April 1 – March 31)

Typical duties include: 

    

President: preside at meetings, call special meetings, primary contact with the institutions, appoint committee chairs, runs the election process, other Vice-President: assume President’s duties in his/her absence, schedule meeting/practice rooms/facilities, primary contact with the JCB, plans member/officer training programs, other Secretary: takes and distributes minutes of all club meetings, recorder keeper (current and past members, files minutes, etc), club historian, notify members of meetings, handles the official correspondence of the club, other Treasurer: keeps all financial records, submits monthly audit statements to CFB contact (this is a mandatory requirement if you receive CFB funds), notifies organization of financial issues, prepares budget/allocation requests,

Section 4: Vacancy in Office

In the event a vacancy should occur (resignation or removal), provisions must be made to fill the vacancy. Officer succession/"chain of command" should be addressed (e.g., in the event that the President leaves office, the Vice President will assume those duties until a special election is held. Then refer readers to the special election section of Article IV.

Section 5: Removal of Officers

Grounds for removal of an officer must be clearly identified. Similar to the removal of members, due process must be followed. (see above) Make sure you note the role of your club advisor.

One example:

A petition to remove the officer in question must be submitted to another officer. This 

petition must contain the signatures of x% of voting members. When such petition is 

received, the officer shall call a meeting of the club to determine whether or not the 

officer should be removed. 

Grounds for removal are to presented by the officer in charge at a regular or special club 

meeting. 

The officer in question shall be provided an opportunity to present a defense either in 

person or in writing. 

A quorum shall be present, and a (x%, 2/3, simply majority) vote of the voting members 

shall decide upon removal.

While you will hopefully not need this section, it is very important that you have a process in place. When you need it, this will clarify the procedure and take out some of the difficult personal issues….

Section 6: Appeal of Removal of Officers

This section clearly outlines what procedure a removed officer can take to appeal the club’s decision.

Article IV: Elections 

Section 1: Nomination Process

State how officer candidates will be nominated (by a current officer/member, self-nomination, etc.) and the timeline associated with the nomination process.

Section 2: Election

Election procedures, quorum present, method of voting (secret ballot, etc.), number of terms a person can serve, and when the elections will be held (the JCB mandates that by April 1, officer elections take place and that they and the Department of Student Activities are notified of the new officers).

Section 3: Special Elections

This section outlines what procedures will take place if an officer leaves/is removed from office. Clearly state the timeline for these procedures (e. g, within "x" weeks of vacancy occurring). You may use the same procedures from Section 2, with a revised timeline.

Article V: Advisor 

Section 1: Selection

Indicate how your club will choose an advisor. Note: All club advisors MUST be an employee of CSB or SJU. 

Section 2: Duties

What do you want your advisor to do? See advisor contract for ideas.

Article VI: Meetings 

Section 1: Regular Meeting/Club Activities

Address how often business meetings will occur, any regular club activities, etc., process to notify members of meetings/activities.

Section 2: Special Meetings

Identify why you would call special meetings, and the process used to call these meetings/notify members, etc. Will these meetings be run any differently than regular meetings?

Section 3: Parliamentary Authority

Will you use Robert’s Rules of Order? How will the meetings be run… 

Section 4: Quorum*

What % of your membership must be present for official club business to occur? 2/3 is a standard number. 

*A quorum is a certain percentage of voting members required to be present during a vote. It is VERY important to clearly indicate what your quorum will be (often, it is 2/3 of the voting members). You want to make sure that when a vote takes place, that you have a representative sample of your voting membership present.

Article VII: Committees 

Section 1: Committee Structure

Include what committees (if any) that your club will have. Include responsibilities of each committee and who is responsible for each committee. Examples include Membership, Programs, Elections, Fundraising, etc.

Section 2: Special/Ad-Hoc Committees

State that special/ad-hoc committees may be formed if needed…

Article VIII: Finances 

Section 1: Co-Funding Board

State whether or not your club will apply for CFB monies and that if allocated resources, your club will follow all CFB and institutional regulations.

Please note that recognized clubs MAY NOT have an off-campus account, even if it is from club generated funds. This is an institutional policy.

Section 2: Honorariums

State whether or not any officers or members will receive an honorarium/stipend from the organization. Note: if honorariums are given, they must come from club generated funds.

Section 3: Dues (optional)

State here if members are required to pay dues, and if so, how much that will be.

Article IX: Amendments 

Section 1: Ratification

Identify the process to be used regarding proposed constitutional amendments: voting procedures, timeline, etc. 

Section 2: Submittal to Department of Student Activities and Joint Club Board

Any changes made to this constitution must be submitted to the Department of Student Activities and the JCB.

Article X:

         The following is a required statement for all organizations:

       The (name of organization) admits students without regard to their race, religion, color, sex, age, sexual orientation or national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and other activities, generally accorded or made available to members of the organization.

Article XI:

       The following is a required statement for all organizations:

       The (name of organization) considers hazing to be a degrading and destructive activity which is inconsistent with the standards of this student organization.  The (name of organization) recognizes the dignity of every person and opposes all forms of hazing.

 

Date of recognition/revision:

If you are still itching for some more examples here are a few more:

1. University of Notre Dame
2. Madison Area Technical College
3. Washington University in St. Louis
4. Campbell University

Does your university have anything special not included above? If so what is it and why? Or if you have a digital copy of a student constitution at your university, post the link in the comments to share with us.