Reaching students with tweets, blogs

November 13, 2009

By Mark Ferguson

Jo-Ann Dillon tweets. Lorna Butler blogs.

Both the dean of the College of Arts and Science and the dean of the College of Nursing have entered the growing realm of online communication to connect with students who otherwise may not know their dean.

“My goal when I started this job was not to be a dean nobody knew, so I started my video blog,” said Butler from her office in the Health Sciences Building. “I wanted to connect with students and hopefully address what is on their minds.”

Butler, who recorded her very first blog shortly after arriving at the U of S in the summer of 2007, uses a web camera in her office to record her comments and ideas, but sometimes she takes the show on the road. “The last blog we did was from Mosaic Stadium in Regina following a Roughriders’ practice. The point was to use a familiar landmark for working together with the Regina campus,” she said.

Although she had difficulty with her microphone in the windy stadium, the blog was important for Butler as a way of connecting the college’s various campuses. Similar to the Taylor Field video, she has recorded blogs from Prince Albert and  other locations around the province.

There is no shortage of ideas for her blog and each one deals with a specific issue that Butler feels is important to students. Some recent postings include the influx of Filipino nurses into Saskatchewan, the job situation in the province (featuring the province’s chief nursing officer) and, of course, H1N1. The monthly blog is posted on PAWS as well as the dean’s nursing website from September to April and is seen regularly by about 300 people.

Like Butler, Dillon is trying to connect the largest college in the province using a similar idea.

Twitter is relatively new to the world of online social networking, and has gained huge popularity since the Barack Obama presidential campaign of 2008. Although Dillon’s “tweets” are only seen by about 50 people so far, the momentum is there to keep her college informed, she said in a telephone interview with On Campus News.

“I was fascinated by Twitter when it first came on the scene,” she said. “My followers are primarily students, but geez, now faculty are following as well.”

 At the onset of the dean’s twitter campaign in September, Dillon tried to tweet everyday, but now it has dropped back to a more manageable two or three posts per week.

“I think a lot of students don’t know what a dean does, or about events that are happening in the college. Twitter connects with the issues that people have.”

For both deans, their new method of communicating is exciting, innovative and enjoyable.

“I really enjoy doing it,” said Dillon. “It’s fun, and it connects so many people,” added Butler.