Between classes, homework and long readings, it’s nice to get involved with things outside of academics. I open Corq to see if there’s anything happening that day, then I skim the Albion Today, then move on to Instagram – that’s when confusion hits. Why are there so many places to find events on campus?
We have Corq, the Albion Today emails and the Albion College calendar of events, not to mention the variety of Albion Instagram accounts. Some websites list events that aren’t mentioned in other places, and it’s exhausting checking each site for an event I heard might happen but having no idea how to find it.
This web of platforms makes it difficult for both sides: the people working to advertise these events to students and the students themselves. With no real all-encompassing platform available, I’m left cycling through all of them eight to nine times a day and hoping that if anything fun happens, my friends will find out and text me about it.
In my case, as social media manager of the Organization for Latinx Awareness (OLA), advertising an OLA event is a mess of different outlets. The process involves printing flyers, posting reminders on Instagram and adding the event to Corq. I wish it was streamlined; it would take me far less time.
To me, Instagram as a source of information for events is a double-edged sword. The app is a problem in general for more and more people who are trying to distance themselves from social media. However, it often provides the most recent and updated information when it comes to clubs and organization events.
As for Corq, first-year students are introduced to the app during their orientation week. Corq, for me, is the app that’s most convenient for knowing what’s happening around campus. When it comes to club-led events, Corq is my go-to, since the app offers no order of importance and gives the bare bones of what will be happening.
My problem with Corq is that non-campus events aren’t displayed. This means that anyone who doesn’t have Corq or Instagram will completely depend on word of mouth or the now-rare posters sometimes seen in buildings – posters that are commonly outdated.
Finding the Albion College calendar was a complete accident for me. In fact, I found it while I was trying to locate an event I had heard about from a friend, blindly googling what little I remembered and haphazardly tagging on “Albion” to my search.
As for the Albion Today, I appreciate receiving these emails by default, but I wish the newsletter would more clearly mention the Albion College calendar so students could avoid the rabbit hole I had to go down.
For an example of an event that pops up across several apps – and does so beautifully – I think of “Muscle Up With Mya.” Displayed on Corq, Engage, Albion Today and even the Albion College calendar, it’s everywhere!
People without social media don’t miss out, nor do those who don’t have Corq, because the exercise class is also advertised through daily emails. It’s hard not to have at least one of these platforms notifying you as a student or staff member.
Not every event is like this, though, and it can cause people to miss amazing events that aren’t run by students.
Last semester, on Nov. 8, there were Indigenous jewelry, beading and copper bowl making classes that weren’t promoted at all. It wasn’t on the Albion College calendar, nor did the Office of Belonging – who helped bring the event to the Whitehouse Nature Center – advertise it on their Instagram account. It wasn’t even on Corq. The only reason I heard of it was because my professor emailed a copy of the poster to our class.
I participated in the copper bowl making class and loved every second of it. Never before had I been able to heat and hammer a sheet of copper into what is now my money bowl. With rocks, hammers and sheer will, I shaped that bowl, an experience I would have missed out on had my professor not found it in his heart to share the event.
Another example of this lack of communication would be the spring semester Brit Bash on Jan. 28, an event I didn’t hear about until the day of. Brit Bash is all about organizations and clubs – it confuses me as to why it would be advertised in two of the most obscure places possible.
Both Albion Today and the Albion College calendar completed most of the grunt work in announcing it, with Albion Today mentioning it first on Jan. 23 near the bottom of the daily email – a place few people are likely to check. The few Instagram club accounts that did post about the event did so the day of.
If participation and engagement are so difficult to maintain, wouldn’t it make sense to have consistency throughout the available platforms? When there are so many options, I understand why it would be difficult to keep up as an organizer. Each platform has its own submission system and timeline for events – like the Albion Today only approving submissions on weekdays. If it’s seemingly so difficult to keep track of so many sites, why have them?
Not only is it frustrating to learn about events that came and went without me hearing a notion about them, but it’s also discouraging to the people who bring pieces of themselves to campus. These are passionate people who would like to share their fields of expertise, hobbies and experiences who aren’t getting those opportunities due to our current advertisement systems.
Curating events is difficult, as I’ve learned through OLA. There are multiple factors that make events valuable for students. On Nov. 8 it was about culture; in other instances it may be books, research findings or choir concerts. The fewer people who show up, the less likely Albion is to have these events again.
We – the students of Albion College – have countless opportunities to experience events that would otherwise not be available to us, and most of them are free.
Please, Albion College, make it easier to understand what’s happening on campus – I want these events to have greater turnouts and be successful, too.
Leave a Reply