April 14, 2009 Campus Announcements
Events
Earth Day-planning meeting slated for this afternoon
An Earth Day-planning meeting is scheduled for today (April 14) at 3:30 p.m. in Cyril Moore 231. Students, faculty and staff are welcome and needed! For questions, contact 858-3079 or heidi.super@minotstateu.edu.
–Heidi Super, associate professor of biology
Office of Public Information
Information Notification: Important changes to Student E-mails
A campus discussion led a small group of employees to brainstorm a more effective way to notify students, using e-mail, of events. This group then presented proposed changes to the Student Government Association on March 9. The SGA unanimously supported the implementation of this new protocol for the student e-mails from the Office of Public Information.
The new protocol will directly impact the way student groups submit information to be sent to all students, as well as the way students receive e-mails from the university.
In the past, student groups would send their e-mails directly to Cathy Horvath, director of IT Central, and she would forward them as individual messages to all students. Oftentimes, this would lead to students receiving anywhere from one to 10 e-mails a day notifying them of events, meetings or other information. Students and MSU employees have expressed concerns that this is a form of spam from the university and should be handled differently.
The new process for sending e-mails will effectively combine all the messages from students into one e-mail to be sent out at the beginning of the week – in a similar fashion to the change that was done a year and half ago with faculty/staff e-mails. The result from that change has been received in a very positive manner – with faculty and staff agreeing that reading one e-mail containing a number of quick messages is more effective. I have included a sample e-mail from a typical “combined” e-mail sent out to faculty and staff.
March 31, 2009 Campus Announcements
Events
‘Biggest Clearance Sale of the Year’ gets bigger
The MSU Bookstore’s “Biggest Clearance sale of the Year” just got better. Starting today (March 31) through Thursday (April 2), you will receive an additional 50 percent off clearance clothing and giftware. Stop in now while the selection is at its best. *Not valid with any other discount. For questions, contact 858-3391.
–Karla Bredahl, MSU Bookstore
MSU nursing students help ‘e-rase your e-waste’
Minot State University public health nursing students are organizing a community-wide “e-rase your e-waste” recycling event on Wednesday and Thursday (April 1-2). The MSU Dome’s north parking lot will serve as the collection site for the event. On Wednesday (April 1), recycling will run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Thursday (April 2), recycling will run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
For questions about “e-rase your e-waste,” contact Nikki Medalen, nursing instructor, at 858-4476 or nikki.medalen@minotstateu.edu or Tiffany Johnson, nursing student, at tiffany.johnson@my.minotstateu.edu.
–Nikki Medalen, instructor of nursing
As you can see, the individual messages within the e-mail are brief, to the point and ensure the reader that they have all the important information necessary related to the event.
New protocol for student e-mails will fall within the subsequent rules:
1. Students wishing to send out an e-mail to fellow students will NEED to send it to studentinformation@minotstateu.edu by Friday at noon, the week prior to it being sent out. The combined e-mail to students will go out the morning of the following Monday (or Tuesday, if Monday is a holiday). For example, if your event takes place on Saturday, May 2, you will NEED to send the pertinent detai ls to studentinformation@minotstateu.edu by April 24 at noon. It will then be included in the Monday April 27 e-mail. Sending it any later than this time would ensure that it NOT be included in an e-mail to students.
2. Students will include all necessary information in fewer than 200 words. That means you need to say what group or organization you belong to, the date, time and location of the event you are hoping to have students attend and some way for people to contact you, a phone number or e-mail address. Keeping this information brief will increase the probability of more students reading the e-mail. No one likes to read four paragraphs of details when one would suffice.
3. We will NOT accept lengthy diatribes involving public debate or personal opinion, political statements, personal items for rent/purchase or any advertisement or announcement for outside organizations or non-university related events. In short, the information should be pertinent to a large number of Minot State University students and be part of a university-sponsored event or group.
4. If you would like to include a link to an e-mail or Web site in your message, that is fine. Please do NOT include special formatting needs, enclosures or attachments.
5. The Office of Public Information reserves the right to edit your e-mail for spelling, grammar or other unsightly errors related to style. If there is a question of clarity, accuracy or appropriateness, the PIO will make every attempt to contact you in hopes of resolving the concern.
6. The new process for sending out combined e-mails to students once a week does NOT include messages from the University President, the registrar’s office and other administrative requests as seen fit. Those will happen throughout the week, as needed. Emergency notifications, through NotiFind are also separate from the combined weekly e-mail.
The new procedure for this combined e-mail to students will start on April 20.
If you have any questions regarding the new format for e-mailing messages to students, please contact Mark Lyman, director of public information, at 858-3065 or mark.lyman@minotstateu.edu.
Reminder: Check the campus calendar on the MSU home page for additional events at http://www.minotstateu.edu/.
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Public Information Campus Announcements Archives:
http://www.minotstateu.edu/newsletter/archive.php
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