Focus group finds lack of involvement among freshmen

The Student Activities Programming Board conducted a focus group Tuesday to determine freshmen involvement in student activities.

The group of freshmen surveyed was selected randomly from UNI 101 class of 11 freshmen, said Mike Mellace, marketing and research intern for the Office of Student Activities.

"We want to basically find out, like on assessment day, what they think we're doing," Mellace said.

The students said they had not attended many, if any, student activities, Mellace said.

This confirmed what SAPB believed before conducting the focus group, Mellace said. It organized the group to test it theory and to determine how to increase involvement.

"We want to get these students' input and focus on events that interest them in order to draw more student involvement," Mellace said.

The group said it had not seen or heard any promotions for events hosted by SAPB, Mellace said.

"A lot of the students said things like, ‘Oh, if I had known about that, I would have gone," Mellace said. "They weren't seeing our advertisements."

SAPB determined the promotions were not seen because students are more receptive and attentive to different styles of advertising, Mellace said.

"Most of the room hadn't read The Parthenon and weren't looking for advertisements," Mellace said. "They said creating an e-mail newsletter about events or utilizing Facebook would be better ways to market to them."

The Office of Student Activities hosted events in the past and had promotional issues because of misunderstandings some students had, Mellace said.

"A few years back, we were handing out tickets to a comedian," Mellace said. "We had a giant sign that said ‘Free' and still had students walk up all day and ask us how much the tickets cost."

The activities are free to students because they pay a student activities fee along with their tuition each semester, Mellace said.

"That fee goes to student activities and student government," Mellace said. "We're doing this and want your input because we're spending your money on events. Tell us what you want, and we'll try to do it."

One of the goals for the response to the findings is to accommodate as many different students as they can when developing activities, said Luke Stanford, marketing and research intern for the Office of Student Activities.

"If you get more people involved, the event is a success," Stanford said. "You don't want to feel like it failed, and if it's not a success, we'll spend our money on something else."

SAPB is looking for ways to receive more input aside from their weekly meetings to communicate with students, Stanford said.

"We're putting comment boxes in the dorms and asking for student comments," Stanford said. "About 15 to 20 people show up to every meeting, but it's the same group each time, so we're reaching out to new people."

Stanford said students can also e-mail the office at student-activities@marshall.edu with ideas for events.

Erin Shaver can be contacted at shaver29@marshall.edu.