I want to build community at my university, but how?

[Dan Carter]

Hey everyone,
I'm in a position on my universities student council. I know I want to make a difference at my university, but I just don't have any clue how to.

Here's a bit of background on the situation:
I returned to university from an internship in Japan this past year and and trying lots of new, crazy things.

One of those things was running for a position in my university's student council, and to my surprise I got elected as a faculty representative. My platform was basically to help build a community and connect people together during their short stay at university. I'm against silent bus rides and all for talking to random strangers in the hallway.

My question is this: What is the best way to help connect people and build a community where there may not be one right now? Most of the events that happen on campus seem to attract the same group of people, and I'm not the biggest fan of beer gardens in the world.

I'm in a position where I can generally pursue projects I want, but I've never had experience with this before. Over the past couple years I've undergone my own personal transformation from a very shy, quiet person to one of the more outgoing people I know. I'm good on a person-to-person level, but how do you bring people together on a more global scale?

A friend of mine suggested that it has to all start with me as the social catalyst. I need to make friends with other very social people on campus who know a lot of other people. Then, if I plan events, I can count on a lot of these people showing up and intermingling.

Another idea I thought is really cool is during exam period, volunteers go around campus at 1 or 2am and give out food to students who are staying up late to study. Another universities council did this. I love the idea and if more things like this were done, I'm sure students would feel like they're part of something special.

What do you guys think? I'd appreciate any input at all.

Dan - Trying to fight the "apathetic student" image

[smartile]

I find it interesting when people on this forum post 'their history' before summing up their problem. As if their history really matters - you're a living, breathing, creative magnet every day of your life - it doesn't really matter what happened last year or even 2 minutes ago for that matter - you can create anything you want starting now!

Ask yourself, 'What do you want to create?'

... and then start thinking/feeling/acting like the person who has already gotten those results.

Dan Carter - I apologize for the rant, this was not directed strictly toward you; Besides this is more about ME than it is about you!

PS - you don't need to know the 'how' to reach your goal. Focus on what you're creating and solutions will be provided for YOU.

[Brutha]

How good are you funded? How much money are you able to invest into the project? The student universtiy council of my university with 30.000 students has a budjet of around 500.000€. Obviously you can do different things when you have a lot of money to spend then when you just have your time to spend.

In my own university the first thing that I woud do as member of the student council is to make the student council itself transparent via publishing everything that it decides on the web.
If you make regular events such a website is also a good medium to promote them. An RSS feeds that tells me the events in my university would be good.

Good events would be in my find competitions.
Maybe one should have groups of four people that are randomly assembeled (to get people together that didn't know each other before).

There are a variety of desciplins you could have in which everyone could participate. One would be debating.
Another would be a paper chase.

[Dan Carter]

Hey Brutha, thanks for answering.

We get quite a bit of funding. It's around $1.2 million per semester, so I think there is a lot floating around.

You're right about getting a good website to advertise events. Right now there really isn't such a thing, at least not something that a lot of students look at. I especially want to make it easier for clubs to advertise their events, because I know there are lots of events that just randomly pop up in the hallways and no one knows who they're run by.

And I'm pretty sure they're not transparent at this point.

What is a paper chase? Does it involve a scavenger hunt of some sort? That's my best guess based on the name :P

[Trezker]

No matter how good your websites and notice boards are it will still only attract those who care. I think it's more important to figure out how to make more people care.

A good website is still a good project though. My #1 tip for that is to use an existing content management system. I vote for Drupal.

[thirial]

Originally Posted by Dan Carter

Hey everyone,
A friend of mine suggested that it has to all start with me as the social catalyst. I need to make friends with other very social people on campus who know a lot of other people. Then, if I plan events, I can count on a lot of these people showing up and intermingling.

i think your friend is right, you have to be the glue that brings all these people together, although meeting them may prove to be a challenge.

Facebook is a great way to bring people together, and much cheaper and easier than creating a forum. Very recently a lot of nightclub promoters have started using it get people to come to events, the "invite" function is genius. I would suggest you start a College Campus facebook profile and then go around asking people for their emails. You should "double up" with a friendly, vivacious attractive college girl, this sounds shallow but my experience promoting for nightclubs is that its much more effective that going alone (and much more fun! ) You approach, tell people what this group is all about, she can hold the clipboard and write down their emails while smiling and giggling :P

This is very important because it will instantly give you Social Proof, something that can be hard to convey in a 2 minute chat with someone. This will also give the Facebook group a more human face, hopefully the girl is also passionate about the cause because when you Invite people to some function through facebook they will be thinking that you two are going to be there.

On the Facebook group you can add lots of photos and tag people, make sure photos of these "very social people" are up there just for more social proofing, another cardinal rule for running nightclubs, if you can get the girls to come the guys will follow (we are sheep :P )

hope that was of some use! sounds like a great project, keep us posted

[Brutha]

And I'm pretty sure they're not transparent at this point.

I personally find transperancy really important and I think it also gets people involved.

What is a paper chase? Does it involve a scavenger hunt of some sort? That's my best guess based on the name :P

Yeah I used a dictionary to translate the term (my native language is German) scavenger hunt means the same as paper chase (or what I would want to say )

One a website you should also think about having a forum and/or a wiki to get people to participate. I would not allow "guest" participation, so that people have to register accounts.

A plan:
1. Get the website up.
2. Promote the website via. flyers and invite people to give you the informations about their club for the website.
3. Make a big competion event and promote it with flyers, and print something on them like if you want to know more about this event and others visit the website and subscribe to the RSS feed.
4. Make another more partylike event and promote it the same way.

You might also want to approach some of the clubs that exist and give them the opportunity to make a big event be giving them funds and promoting it via the website.

[The Cloud]

I don't know how feasible this is, but in my experience most powerful social catalyst by far is power/internet outages. If you could organize something like a give-up-the-internet-and/or-electricity-for-a-day event, in conjunction with a few other events, the outcome would likely be phenomenal. The biggest problem with that is getting people to voluntarily give up their internet addiction