When many people, either those associated with our fair university or just onlookers, think of St. Xavier the first thing that probably comes to mind is our brilliant nursing program.
True, St. Xavier does have a great nursing program, probably one of (if not) the best in the state of Illinois. But our school is a multifaceted university and there is one aspect in particular that does not get a fair amount of attention.
The arts at St. Xavier, while not particularly well-known, are exceptional. A quick glance at some of the art projects formerly displayed outside of the now under-construction exhibition room are exquisite. But I am sure that there are many students, faculty, staff and people outside of the St. Xavier community that would not know that.
The fact of the matter is St. Xavier does not do enough to advertise its artistic community, or when a person really considers the matter, any community to the fullest extent that they could.
Last week a chorale concert was held at our school in McGuire Hall. The music ranged from operatic to musical staples from “Oklahoma!” and “Les Miserables”. If you did not know that; you are not alone.
Though there was an ad for that event in The Xavierite, the only extent for that event and many other events in this school is hanging an 8.5×11 inch-sized poster on the walls of our hallways. These “ads” are hard to see and when they are seen, they don’t hold people’s attention as they walk from one class to another.
We live in an age where getting a message out to the masses has become so easy, yet so hard. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have made it easier for organizations to let the public know of events and opportunities.
However, these modes of communication have made it harder for messages to come across more clearly as they are now being used in greater frequency by all people. Maybe the poster approach is our St. Xavier University’s way of trying to keep the message of events from being lost on cyber space. The problem is that the university’s audience is out there in cyberspace. The solution: become more adept at social networking your message of events of all brands in order to reach as many students as possible.
It is a consensus among our editorial board that the school has this problem in general, not just with the arts. There are many events that students would like to attend. The problem is nobody knows about them.
Just last Friday, there was an event called “Late Night 9”. A surprising amount of students did not receive any sort of email recognition of the event until Friday afternoon. How does the school expect people on the fringe – or not inside the planning or recognition of the event – to attend these kinds of events when they are not aware of these things until hours before they actually occur?
Not only do events lose attendance because of this bad advertising, there must be people out there that would really like to attend these events…(sigh)…if only they knew about them. (This is not even considering, of course, the people that maybe aren’t as keen on checking their email over the weekend as they are during the rest of the school week.)
Often times when an event is held and there is meager turnout on the part of students, it is often blamed on students. “We’re a commuter school so people don’t care!”; “SXU students don’t have any school pride!” and the like are some of the statements that can be heard by club moderators at events with low attendance. These statements are not necessarily untrue. There is a great deal of apathy on the parts of many SXU students. But, they can hardly be blamed. Many of them don’t know that there are events being held.
You cannot expect attendance when you are not advertising properly.
St. Xavier has a lot to offer its students. It truly does. Anyone who says different is apathetic. But there is only so much involvement students can have when they have no idea that there are even events going on.
Putting ads on the doors of the diner or buried in emails isn’t enough anymore.
The Xavierite Staff