Student Life has not been able to coordinate graduate students at Vanderbilt consistently. Dean Lehman would like our help to create long-term solutions to expand Owen’s social/business network to other graduate programs. We seek to diversify the core of the relationship to benefit personal and professional relationships for graduate administrators, faculty and especially students.
SATCO SATURDAYS: NETWORK, MEET AND EAT!!!
Satco Saturday’s 2:00-4:00 pm. Enjoy some sun, fun, and tacos at SATCO every Saturday from 2-4 pm. Network with other graduate students over tacos and beers on the Satco deck. Graduate school students will receive a discount for specified buckets and tacos. Marketing will come from weekly reminders on the Vanderbilt University Events Website, Owen Daily News, Facebook pages, and word of mouth. The idea here is to create a traditional meeting spot.
VANDERBILT GRADUATE STUDENT SOCIAL NETWORK
facebook/LinkedIn Graduate Student Page
The goal of the Vanderbilt Graduate Student Social Network is to bring Vanderbilt graduate students together for social and business networking. This is done by reaching out through social networks to fellow graduate students at Vanderbilt and planning some fun events. The ‘home’ would be a dedicated web page with event board, suggestion forum, calendar, etc, on facebook and/or LinkedIn. Membership growth through word of mouth, ODN, flyers in buildings on campus. Minimal cost and majority of student population have accounts on these networks already.
GRADUATE CORK BOARD
Cork boards will be placed in every graduate school as a medium for graduate students to communicate with other graduate school students. These boards will allow graduate students to post messages ranging from (but not limited to) social events, collaboration opportunities, housing, and clubs. Each cork board will contain an overview of the project and its purpose, as well, it will include the locations of the other places the boards are on campus.
Short term goal- To immediately increase awareness of the greater Vanderbilt graduate school community and to bring graduate school students together. In addition, the board will be linked to a Facebook page so students will have a centralized location to make all postings.
Long term vision- Should this initiative be successful we hope to eventually upgrade to a graduate version of “Owen Daily News” and create an email system where graduate students can automatically receive periodic reminders of school wide events and opportunities. As well, we hope to broadcast these opportunities through a network of televisions located in the different graduate facilities on campus.
Lane & team,
ReplyDeleteIt seems there are so many web based groups, especially in Facebook, that people don't take any of them seriously. I think what's important is not how we communicate or stay in touch with other graduate schools, but what fun events we organize to actually interact with them in person. That's why your best idea is definitely no. 1. In addition to idea 1 you could create a Facebook group to update members on socials at SATCO. I really like this idea. I am not sure if Saturdays would be the best time. I am thinking maybe happy hours on a weekday. But you might want to ask more people on this. I know that former students of my university would gather every Thursday or so at a bar for happy hour and it was a huge success!
I really like the idea of having a facebook page that announcesSATCO SATURDAYS: NETWORK, MEET AND EAT. The problem is not lack of information, the problem is a lack of regular events. This would be a great way to alert people ahead of time, and create a central location for meeting at a consistant time. I like it
ReplyDeleteI like Idea 2- the networking pages to connect students. I don't think that SATCO Saturdays would be as effective. It would be similar to kegs- after awhile only certain people would show and little actual networking would take place. Additionally other schools may not be as comfortable as Owen students in an open network forum.
ReplyDeleteThe Facebook page is a great start. It would seem as if the "Cork Board" idea is a little antiquated.. and has been long since replaced by websites. In this case it basically serves the same purpose as the "Wall" on the Facebook site.
ReplyDeleteSatco reuses their food.
I think that a combination of ideas #1 and #2 could be very effective here. Bear with me on this one:
ReplyDeleteStart by championing and executing the creation of a social network page where people can connect and view events, post pictures, share ideas. This would be idea #2. Then, as a weekly or monthly agenda item, have each graduate school in rotation plan that month's/week's social event. I think you should place a small constraint (i.e. it always happens on Saturday), but allow the school's to get creative on venue and content. This will not only encourage interaction between the "greater graduate school community", but will allow students from different disciplines to enjoy the diversity of ideas we would see from different school planning the events.
Good work - can't wait to see the outcome.
I like the 2nd idea best for implementation purposes. I don't think that people would regularly attend events at SatCo, though, maybe if you were to hold it at rotating venues, it could be more interesting. Though the corkboard idea is great in theory, I just don't see students taking the effort to physically go to each of the schools to post announcements. This is why I think creating a "virtual corkboard" on facebook or linkedin is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of having a recurring event because I think a lot of people want to interact more with other grad schools but few people actually want to make the effort to plan something. And SatCo is kind of like common ground to everyone, so I think it would work well. I also like the idea of bulletin boards because people would see them everyday. It would be helpful to know what is going on in other schools.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the social network ideas, I think this would be a good way to support other ideas like the SatCo Saturdays. But I think creating more awareness will not be as effective as actually planning events for people to attend. The success of the Haiti party at Red Rooster demonstrates how eager people are to mix with the other grad schools!
I like both #1 and #2. For #1, you might want to pick one Saturday per month as opposed to doing it every week. If you have it every week, it doesn’t seem so “special” and less people will turnout. However, if you do it the 1st Saturday of every month, you might get a better turnout, which would help the idea live on. I’m not a huge fan of the corkboard idea – I don’t really look at bulletin boards – and the facebook group seems to accomplish the same thing but does it more effectively.
ReplyDeleteI think the social networking group has the greatest chance of the most people participating since there is minimal effort required to click to join if you are already a member of one of these sites. However, since social media in general is exploding right now, I would make sure that there is always relevant content on there so people don't lose interest.
ReplyDeleteI think the Satco Saturdays are great in theory, but may be hard to implement in reality...people like to have their weekends free.
The cork board poses several problems....I really don't think it would get much traction. Stick with the social media idea.
Excellent problem to take on. I think there has definitely been a lack of interaction between the graduate schools. Especially considering how many grad students there are here on campus. The cork board option could work for events that have already been planned but wouldn't stimulate the creation of new interactions.
ReplyDeleteI think the social network site may be easier for interaction between the grad schools but I'm not sure everyone would interact with each other until after they knew each other.
The Saturday get together at SatCo allows for grad students to interact with one another but getting people to actually show up is the issue here. Meetings on Saturday from 2-4 may be tough to make for a lot of students. An idea to force interaction may be to setup small games or something during these events as well. It could be as simple as board games, card games, or puzzles.
I think of all the ideas, number 1 is the most pertinent. Although a weekly get-together is a little excessive, I think it is important to put a face to a name, rather than just an online profile. So a bulletin board seems a little too remote as well. Rather than just a get together for the sake of a get together, give it an edge. Maybe a monthly grad school Olympics competition, where teams (one member per school max) would compete in Trivia, Cook Offs, or (ahem) Beer Pong. More facetime means more collaboration.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of having a social network community that ties Vanderbilt's graduate organizations together under one common heading. You could set up a social network using Ning for very little money and/or time and have hundreds of students signed up by the end of the mod. Moving forward, you could then "will down" the administration of the site to future Owen students by using the platform's permissioning tools.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Digital Nashville: http://www.digitalnashville.net/ . Their site is a Ning community with a ton of features, tools, and capabilities (including a job board!).
This could be an awesome forum for people to post their research studies or connect on ideas. Lawyers helping business students troubleshoot incorporation or trademark issues? Medical researchers working with Owen MBAs to help get their future pharma empires off the ground? Divinity students syncing up with researchers at Peabody? There are so many ways that our worlds overlap. Having a way (and place) to share knowledge would be a great innovation for the school.
More interaction between the grad schools is a great idea. The social media and ODN type announcements are good starts. I think it can be challenging to get people to join those groups initially since you have a new group invite everytime you log into facebook. You could use everyone's fear of a bad picture of them after too much to drink (particularly the Law students!) as the hook by taking pictures at the Haiti party this Saturday. Once the group exists, post the pictures, and get word out that there might be a picture of them enjoying Yuri's 2500 watts of sound a little too much.
ReplyDeleteHey guys! Great idea. Interaction within the Vanderbilt campus is definitely lacking in this program and this is a great way improve our social status. I like all three of your solutions, it's hard to choose one, but let's go through the details:
ReplyDelete1) Satco Saturdays sounds like fun. Only issue is will students come out to campus on a saturday just for this? It'll be good for those who are already here and need a study break, but on the other hand they're on campus to study and probably wouldn't want to take a 2 hour break. I like the idea of having a intergraduate hangout spot and meeting time, but the timing may need to be tweaked. I'd say happy hour (4pm friday -> ) but law school has kegs at that time.
2) Are you the ones who started up that "graduate alliance" facebook page? If so, sounds like you're already off to a good start. (if not, you can piggyback this idea off that). The key to this one would be a good PR campaign to get the other schools to sign up.
3) Bulletin boards are a good idea. I don't know why we dont have one at owen. The other schools have them, but there isn't one specifically for intergraduate events. So if the schools agree to this, try to find a prominent area in each building to set it up. Just make sure they're well maintained, since, for example, the law school bulletin boards can be a cluttered mess at times.
So #2 sounds like the most implementable and the most likely to be picked up by the Vandy populous. But any of the 3 would work well. Great job!
First, I would echo some other comments in that there are already so many "web social groups" in existence. Moreover, there are a lot of Owen and Vanderbilt groups already on LinkedIn and Facebook. There is much "noise" already when it comes to online social groups..."not another online group" might be the (unfortunate) reaction.
ReplyDeleteSecond, given my first point, I think a low-tech solution will actually cut through the noise. A corkboard would be easily visible and would give people a definite physical place to post information. While this seems a little old-fashioned, I think it would be different and get people's attention.
I think the facebook idea is great. We've already seen success using it to communicate about the Haiti fundraisers to get students from the various schools together. More regular information regarding joint events/socials would build a stronger cross-graduate network. An event like the SATCO Saturdays would be a great starting point.
ReplyDeleteI like idea#2 the best. Since we live in a technology/internet era where Facebook, Linked-in, and/or other social network is hype/huge right now, we need to better utilize this social media to strengthen the network. Creation a new media based on web 2.0 tailored to school will also be great, so the non-Facebook/Linked-in user can participate also. On the other hand, idea #1 is time consuming, and there is going to be a lot of schedule conflicts; also, if it is repetitive, it is going to be a boring venue. Idea #3 is not really effective since it is requires a lot of work and not all people will pass the board; it is also too complicated and require a creation of a new habit.
ReplyDeleteWhile I like the concept of the SATCO Saturdays the best, I think it may be difficult to get buy in from the larger community. I cannot speak for all, but personally I tend to stay away from the school during the weekends. Saturday afternoons are generally time for me to relax, have some fun, or get some things done that I've put off around the house. The 2-4 slot also may not be the best for eating - after lunch, but too early for dinner. Changing the time may help, perhaps for happy hour on Friday? (I know I said I stay away when class is out, but the other schools are in session Fridays, right?) If you can secure specials with SATCO, I really think people would go for a cheap, nearby happy hour on Fridays.
ReplyDeleteThe social network would be easy to implement and could have great utility if you can encourage use. LinkedIn can be very useful during job search, and if it can be developed over time will have long term implications for Vandy grad school alums in business contexts.
The cork board, while a good concept, may be too easy to ignore. It may also be a chore to go to each individual school to post something... the social network would do this much more efficiently. Everyone checks their facebook updates these days, right?
Both #1 and #2 are great. Currently, most events revolve around alcohol and light snacks. By making snacks prominent, students who do not drink will be enticed to join in. #2 is also awesome, since most of the current students are increasingly connected to the internet. Relevant information will increase the usefulness of #2.
ReplyDelete