In covering events such as Transfer Day and the Student Involvement Festival, numerous students mentioned that they were feeling uninformed of events taking place on campus.

They also said that they were not notified of events that were taking place, and referenced that they had noticed a decrease in the number of informative e-mails coming from the marketing department about events such as Transfer Day and others.

Shannon Musser, who is filling in for director Amber Chiang while she is on leave, is BC’s web content editor. She has been tasked with managing a lot more than just web content since Chiang went on leave.

When asked about why students would claim they are receiving less informative e-mails, Musser explained that it was not until recently that she gained access to the active student e-mail list, and as a result she could not send out as many e-mails as Chiang could.

“A lot of it is I’m still trying to figure out a lot of what the policies and procedures are. I only recently got access to the enrolled student list server for example, and Nicky Damania and I have been working through what are the rules for when we can send to that list. Were very protective, we tend to get a lot of pushback when we send too many e-mails so were trying to find that balance,” she said.

Musser went on to point out that she has found when e-mails are sent constantly, students tend to stop reading them. “We find that if students are getting e-mails from us every day or every week, they stop listening to us, where as if we can send a few more important e-mails we can target students.”

Musser claimed that while e-mail was the best way of reaching students in the past, it is not as effective in reaching students today. “We’ve been thinking that e-mails aren’t the best way for students but maybe that’s something that’s changed. We want to reach students however they want to be reached, if e-mail is a good way to do that than it’s something we’d like to do.

“The most response we get to e-mails is, ‘take me off your list’,” Musser said.

Musser believes the best way to reach students is not just through e-mail, but a combination of methods. “I think it’s combinations, we do a lot of home-page promotion, I know that we do the Renegades app and that has a calendar and do some promotion through there. I think sometimes it’s honestly posters outside classrooms that people can see. I’ve seen more engagement on our Facebook, but it’s trending to an older demographic so were trying to figure that out still,” she said.

Another issue Musser faces is that the marketing department at BC is substantially smaller than many colleges, making it much harder for her and her small team to reach the entire student populous. “We’re very small, a lot bigger universities have larger marketing departments. There’s me, and I have a full-time web content editor, a part time web content editor, and two graphic designers, that’s the whole team. We manage the website, we manage graphic design, we manage marketing, we manage advertising, we do all the social media. So it’s a small group trying to figure out the most efficient way because we don’t have the man power to spend time on something that’s not working,” Musser said.

Musser said she is willing to explore new methods and options of reaching students that will increase awareness.

“We want to inform students, that’s the main goal of everything were doing. I want to put my energy into what’s effective.”

Musser is working with Nicky Damania, director of student life, to come up with new ways to communicate with students. “We’ve been thinking about doing a monthly newsletter type thing saying these are the events that are happening and send that out that way we’re not constant,” Musser said.