2008 Woodie Awards
Radio, VP on Outreach
Aaron Fetterman
Issue date: 2/6/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
At her interview with WTSC, Vice President of University Outreach and Student Affairs Kathryn Johnson responded to concerns that the university does not listen to student issues. She says that students should feel free to talk to the administration about their problems, instead of complaining to their friends. General student involvement in university decisions has been growing; students are on the committees for every part of the revised Strategic Plan, and student input at open forums has been valuable in deciding what to include.
The university gathers student input through a few different methods. They use focus groups of random students, representatives from student groups, and CUSA to judge student opinion.
They also touched on the very busy second week of school. In one week, we hosted the Career Fair, the SLU game, an open house, and fraternity/sorority bids began. Most of it was beyond the school's control to plan. The career fair is planned far in advance, and has been on the same day for years. The SLU game is determined by hockey schedules, and the Greek bids always start after the second full week of school. They decided to host the open house at the same time to show prospective students the interesting things that happen on campus.
The open house was more successful than usual because Clarkson paid for busses to transport people from the Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester regions. Families who would not have been able to visit were able to get up to Potsdam. Despite that there was almost double the number of families, a good portion of the students were still seriously interested in the school. Of the students who visited for open house, seventy percent had applied to Clarkson.
Vice President Johnson also reiterated a point that Tony Collins made at a previous CUSA Senate meeting in terms of housing. Both Woodstock and the New Dorms are around forty years old and need renovation. The only real decision is which one to concentrate on first. They need to design buildings that will be lasting, not just for today's student. She also emphasized that the President's house is funded by outside funds, not tuition money, not money that would have gone towards student housing.
WTSC also talked to Vice President Johnson about Clarkson being one of the 25 most connected campuses. She said that it shows how Clarkson students are ahead in communications and much more tech-savvy than other schools.
The university gathers student input through a few different methods. They use focus groups of random students, representatives from student groups, and CUSA to judge student opinion.
They also touched on the very busy second week of school. In one week, we hosted the Career Fair, the SLU game, an open house, and fraternity/sorority bids began. Most of it was beyond the school's control to plan. The career fair is planned far in advance, and has been on the same day for years. The SLU game is determined by hockey schedules, and the Greek bids always start after the second full week of school. They decided to host the open house at the same time to show prospective students the interesting things that happen on campus.
The open house was more successful than usual because Clarkson paid for busses to transport people from the Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester regions. Families who would not have been able to visit were able to get up to Potsdam. Despite that there was almost double the number of families, a good portion of the students were still seriously interested in the school. Of the students who visited for open house, seventy percent had applied to Clarkson.
Vice President Johnson also reiterated a point that Tony Collins made at a previous CUSA Senate meeting in terms of housing. Both Woodstock and the New Dorms are around forty years old and need renovation. The only real decision is which one to concentrate on first. They need to design buildings that will be lasting, not just for today's student. She also emphasized that the President's house is funded by outside funds, not tuition money, not money that would have gone towards student housing.
WTSC also talked to Vice President Johnson about Clarkson being one of the 25 most connected campuses. She said that it shows how Clarkson students are ahead in communications and much more tech-savvy than other schools.