Dean's List

At Trinity University, sending information to students has never been an issue. Getting students to look at it is the problem. Over the last several years, the University has thrown up its collective hands and decided that it is simply our job to send and up to students to open/read (and live with the consequences of accepting the information or not).

This is reflected in the relatively new Communications policy, which declares that e-mail is an official means of University to student communication. This applies to individual messages from faculty and staff to students, as well as all-campus e-mails. This policy is practical because all students receive Trinity e-mail accounts.

Students often tell me they simply delete e-mail that comes from the University because they receive so much that they don’t have time to read them all. This is ironic, in part, because when students discuss their biggest time wasters they inevitably talk about Facebook, My Space, youtube, video/computer games, and instant-messaging.

A closer look reveals that the University is pretty moderate in the number of all-student e-mails it sends. In the 18 weeks between mid-August and student commencement last fall, 60 e-mails were sent to all students. That may sound staggering, except that averages out to be a mere 3.3 e-mails per week – basically one e-mail every two days. The greatest e-mail traffic is from mid-August through September 1. This fall, 21 e-mails were sent during that period. Between September 1 and winter break there were 39 all-student e-mails sent out. Not bad.

The average time to look at a subject line and determine relevance is mere seconds.

In reality, students don’t want to read us, because we aren’t very entertaining. But we do have things to say that students should know.

Information Technology Services sent the most in fall 2006, contacting students eight times. Maybe they could have held back on the one on Cyber Security Awareness month, but others were about laptop battery recalls (3) and system shutdowns to forewarn students (3).

Campus Security sent out six e-mails about parking interruptions or parking procedures for Alamo Stadium. That seems important, but it pales in comparison to the three e-mails they sent to alert students about immediate campus crime issues and emergency procedures.

On behalf of the Association Student Representatives, President Manny Gonzalez sent eight e-mails in the fall. The e-mails promoted the fall concert, another in the Tigers’ Den, the Winter Jubilee, Tiger Bucks, and athletics-related events.

The Registrar sent four, the Dean of Students two, Residential Life two and four were sent to survey students. That seems reasonable. Two were sent to try to save students from themselves – detailing conduct sanctions and consequences for illegal downloading.

The Student Affairs TigerBytes newsletter is intended as a communication tool about decisions and issues that affect students. We want students to know the reasons for the things we do. John Greene’s Physical Plant e-mail about the loss of electrical power on campus on November 15 let students know that there was a city problem and not a campus problem. It was brief and informative. Two weeks earlier the President had sent a campus-wide e-mail that instructed students what to do in the event of a weather emergency (check local TV and the Trinity web page), not knowing that ice days would follow weeks later.

Understand that administrators try to avoid inundating students with meaningless communiqués. Certainly, delete messages that – based on their subject lines – don’t apply to you. Otherwise, read us. Sometimes we offer information worth knowing.