Reaching out to the Stetson Community

After an Internal Communications Survey last year, Stetson’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life requested training to learn how to better promote its events and services to students.

In the past year, the staff put a plan into action, launching a Chaplains’ Blog with posts on news and events. And they reached out to students and the Stetson community through more announcements, digital signs and postings on the university’s internal news website, Stetson Today.

Sensei Morris Sullivan

“We also did more to increase overall exposure by using social media more effectively,” said Sensei Morris Sullivan, one of Stetson’s three chaplains. “We revamped our Facebook presence and added Instagram. This has helped us promote the blog posts, communicate news about events and programs, and present other topics we wanted to bring to the community’s attention.”

Those were some of the initiatives launched after the Internal Communications Survey of faculty and staff in Spring Semester 2018. The University Marketing Office conducted the survey and is sharing the results as it prepares to carry out a follow-up survey, which will arrive by email this month to faculty and staff in DeLand and Celebration.  

The Chaplains’ Blog: Notes on Spiritual Life from Stetson University’s Chaplains

The Marketing Office led trainings with Campus Life and Student Success and other departments last year to share the findings, as well as the results of a readership survey in December 2017 to find out how students, faculty and staff receive information on campus.

Students, for example, said the daily announcements, delivered to their email each morning, were the second most read item, after email from faculty. Email from administrators was the third most-read item, followed by Stetson social media (Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)

With that information, Campus Life and Student Success developed a plan to improve communication with the community, especially students.

Larry Correll-Hughes

“We are using Stetson Announce more often based on the feedback of how often it is viewed,” said Larry R. Correll-Hughes, PhD, assistant vice president for Campus Life and Student Success and executive director of Residential Living & Learning.

And he added, “We realize that we need a more concerted effort to support the social media channels within the division.”

In the past year: 

  • CLaSS has increased the use of Instagram across the division, instead of relying on Facebook solely for social media presence.
  • Career Services is reducing and streamlining their student communication plan.
  • Academic Advising is using more targeted and triggered communications related to advising.
  • Student Counseling Services returned to print fliers for some outreach/resources.
  • Residential Living & Learning increased the use of social media overall and for area events.
  • CLaSS increased the use of digital billboards and the Stall Street Journal in the CUB to publicize events.

Editor’s note: This is the last of three stories recapping some of the key initiatives launched since the first survey. Read our earlier stories:

For questions or comments about the internal communications surveys, please contact Stetson director of Internal Communications, Cory Lancaster, at [email protected] or 386.822.7215.