In an effort to improve communications about campus events and help ensure that organizations, departments and offices have equal opportunity to advertise their events effectively, Kenyon is introducing a new set of guidelines and tools for promoting events. The College will pilot the program after spring break to collect input and refine tools for the next academic year.
We are clarifying our guidelines about who can advertise events at Kenyon.
Much of what makes our campus a thriving and engaging community — with dozens of events scheduled during any given week — also creates an abundance of options for how Kenyon students, faculty and staff spend their time. The event guidelines help ensure that:
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The sponsor is a Kenyon academic or administrative department, registered student organization or other recognized group;
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Space for the event has been reserved;
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The sponsor has thought about accessibility, and promotional materials respect nondiscrimination and copyright laws.
We are enhancing and streamlining our channels for promoting events.
We often get questions and comments like “How do I promote my event” or “I didn’t know that was happening” or “My inbox is flooded with events I’m not interested in.” A streamlined set of channels makes it easier for people to know where to look for event information and for event organizers to know how to get the word out:
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Online events calendar (www.kenyon.edu/events);
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Designated email distribution list (events-digest@kenyon.edu);
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Printed posters and flyers;
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Kenyon Connect (KCon), a new online platform for student organizations.
In addition, the Communications Office, together with other departments, curates a selection of events to feature in other channels:
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Digital signs;
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Newsletters to campus, parents and alumni;
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Social media.
We are introducing a dedicated email distribution for event promotion.
Instead of emailing event announcements to multiple distribution lists, event organizers now email a single list: events-digest@kenyon.edu. An event may be promoted twice. All students, faculty and staff will receive a digest of these announcements once every weekday when the College is open. Event-related emails will no longer be accepted for employee-info, student-info and faculty-info, which will be reserved for other College business. This is intended to make it easier to differentiate between event promotion and other important announcements, while also giving people more flexibility in how they manage their inboxes. To learn more about our guidelines for email event promotion, click here.
We are piloting these tools this spring so that we can test and refine them.
Beginning March 18, the new tools for event promotion will be available for all Kenyon-recognized organizations, departments and offices. Training sessions will be offered for key users, with more details to come. Your feedback will be important to our success and is encouraged to be shared in the feedback form.
We are expanding the program in the fall to include designated bulletin boards and other posting locations.
We recognize the value of physical postings but also encourage practices that minimize paper usage and waste. In the spring, we will gather input from students, departments and space managers about preferred locations for bulletin boards, and introduce a set of designated posting locations this fall.
We are creating greater awareness of the many opportunities available for community engagement.
For several years, the College has been considering ways to improve communications about campus events. The new set of guidelines and tools reflects contributions from campus stakeholders and key administrative offices — including the Offices of Campus Events, Communications, Information Technology and Student Engagement — who seek to support the diverse interests of our community and to be good stewards of community resources, whether that be paper, printing, email or time.