During the Buena Vista University (BVU) Student Senate meeting last Thursday, live-tweeting was used for the first time as a communication to the campus community.
Meetings have been open to the BVU community, but lately few students have taken the opportunity to attend or to take part in dialogue.
“In this day and age, you don’t see people who want to come down to a meeting and sit there and listen and be a part of it because they have a computer,” President of Student Senate Caitlin Hoffman said.
Social media is a part of the agenda for Hoffman’s first term as president. Previous leadership chose to send emails to current students by the division of dorm buildings. Periodically, senators emailed their recipients news on happenings on campus and initiatives they had chosen to pursue.
“Each senator was designated a certain floor, and that just wasn’t working,” sophomore Student Senate Parliamentarian Chase Werden said.
Student Senate has looked to organizations such as the Student Activities Board (SAB) and the success that has come with an online presence. Students interact much more using social media rather than during meetings or email.
“We’re just getting on our feet with it, but it’s ultimately our goal to live-tweet everything that we’re there to talk about. It’s going to be a year of trial and error where we’re trying to best figure out what’s best for the students,” Hoffman said.
Juniors Catie Bach and Aaron Burns run the student communications part of Student Senate. The section is called Senators Serving Students (sometimes called SSS, S-cubed or S^3). The SSS has chosen to push the social media manifestation to students by live-tweeting meetings and posing questions.
The early stages of the live-tweeting strategy has raised the conversation between Student Senate and BVU students. During Thursday’s meeting, one tweet read:
“Rumor has it that if we lose the RIDES bus and malarky’s takes over, police will be involved. #letsfixthat”
Another tweet read:
“Would you still ride the bus if there was a fee? #ridesbus”
The responses from BVU students were different forms of “no.”
“We use our Facebook and Twitter simultaneously so that we can really push to get all students regardless of which platform they use,” Hoffman said.
Ultimately, senate hopes the incorporation of social media into meetings will facilitate conversation between students and their representatives, and will lead to positive change on campus.
