Memo To:
The Campus Community
From:
Darren Johnson, Assistant Dean of Planning, Accountability and Advancement
Date:
9/9/2011
Re:
Communications Strategies and Updates for 2011-12
Please note: This memo was aimed to be sent before September 1 with implementation of these initiatives set for the start of classes and training provided during Faculty Institute Week and Student Orientation. As Hurricane Irene rolled in, we decided to postpone these initiatives to provide continuity during a critical time. With Information Technology, we will set up training sessions for late September and early October. Until then, we will maintain a link to the old web site home page with traditional links to services such as Angel.
Introduction As my first year here organizing the communications efforts of SCCC comes to a close, it has been my pleasure to have had such a hardworking and capable staff and the help of so many departments on campus to transition and modernize our communications efforts. This memo will highlight some of the changes coming for the 2011-12 academic year.
SCCC Student Media Use Study At Open Houses and similar Admissions events, we have been polling prospective students as to the ways in which they hear about SCCC. A trend was developing over the course of the surveys – over time, a majority of the students had heard about SCCC simply by going to sunysccc.edu, our web site. We then decided to poll our current students with four pages worth of questions, getting a very healthy response. This polling was done live, on paper, as opposed to the web, as not to skew the results away from students who may be less technologically proficient. As well, morning, afternoon and evening students were polled. We figured what communications strategies worked with this demographic would also work in efforts ranging from recruitment to retention. The results of the survey are here, http://www.sunysccc.edu/pdf/student-media-use-survey-highlights.pdf, and helped form the initiatives mentioned further in this memo. The short of it is, students have changed a lot in recent years as far as their communications preferences go, and we must change with them.
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The Web Site As of this writing, we have received design templates from In10sity, a college web site design firm, after much collaboration and back and forth. You may have noticed some pages look quite different than before. We are updating the pages from back to front, one by one. A new homepage will be unveiled on 9/15. You can get a sneak peek at it here: http://www.sunysccc.edu/index-new.html. This web site will be more in line with modern design standards with an easy navigation and up-to-date graphics. The primary focus of the web site is recruitment and student success, while branding SCCC as the gem we all know it is. There will be a link to the old home page in the Quick Links tab for those who can’t find a link they regularly use on the new site.
MySCCC Prominent on the new home page will be a link to MySCCC, the new portal for students, faculty and staff. Information Technology has helped lead this effort working collaborative with our office in creating a onestop-shop for official email, notices, Banner, message boards, student elections, polls, surveys – you name it. The direct address is http://mysccc.sunysccc.edu. Once you get the hang of the portal, over time, you will likely find it very useful. With IT, we will be offering training sessions for students, faculty and staff in the weeks ahead.
Content-Heavy Publications As a revolutionary trend, content-heavy college publications have gone the way of the phone book, and most colleges have been digitizing these efforts. SCCC is doing the same, and realizes that there’s also a demand for a limited number of printed copies. Working with Student Affairs, we have moved the Student Handbook online. Working with all divisions, we have also moved the College Catalog online. These are not just dumps of PDF files, but “living” documents that can be tailored for the individual reader. These documents are on the publishing platform Issuu and may be downloaded and printed by the reader. They are completely keyword searchable, as well. Advances in print-on-demand technology will also allow SCCC to print and bind our own copies of the Catalog for high school counselors and those students who do not have computer access. This way, we will only print the amount we need and can update year-to-year. We also will be able to use higher quality paper and color photography. In the past, Catalogs were printed every two years, on pulp paper. This new technology is being spearheaded by the Office of Administration to be available later this semester. To see our burgeoning digital publication library, please visit: http://www.sunysccc.edu/news/publications.htm. Our recent press release on Issuu about classes being delayed has received over 1400 views in just a few days, proving the usefulness of the technology.
E-Newsletter At approximately 11 a.m. at the start of each work week, you will receive an e-newsletter titled “This Week at SCCC” with everything you need to know for the week, including events listings, interesting information, links to SCCC news articles and updates. The first edition will hit 9/12. To have your item included in the newsletter, please send your news and events to PR@sunysccc.edu by Friday at 1 p.m. of each week.
Social Media Over the past year, we have developed YouTube, Flickr and Issuu presences and will develop further social media sites, including Twitter, to go with the Facebook presence managed by Student Affairs.
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These will be linked to our new home page, and integrated into our marketing efforts and “This Week at SCCC.”
Contact Us We welcome your input. Please submit your thoughts, ideas and newsletter items to PR@sunysccc.edu. Thank you!
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