When the walls in Cutler Hall began to vibrate Wednesday, Ohio University’s Vice President for Student Affairs knew exactly where he could investigate how widespread the shaking was felt — Twitter.
“Within 10 seconds, I immediately knew that it wasn’t just a Cutler thing,” Ryan Lombardi said. “I knew immediately that it was beyond Cutler.”
Some OU administrators and faculty have been using social media as a resource to inform and interact with students online.
OU Communication and Marketing provides a set of social media guidelines on their website for faculty members who use the tools to communicate with students.
The guidelines remind social media users they are always associated with OU — even on the web.
When Lombardi first started using Twitter as dean of students, he said he tweeted periodic updates about the Student Affairs office as a way to provide transparency.
“I realized pretty quickly that that was boring,” Lombardi said.
Based on colleagues’ suggestions, Lombardi changed his tweeting style to get a little more personal so students would interact with him.
“I like that students feel comfortable with that (engagement), and I think that’s important to accessibility,” Lombardi said.
OU employees can also use social media to advertise its college or department, such as Alden Library, which has a general Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account, in addition to smaller accounts for services such as OU Digital Collections, which tweets Alden’s digital resources from the account @AldenLibDigital.
Jessica Hagman, reference and instruction librarian, oversees Alden’s social media accounts, which is used not only to promote the library’s events and resources but to take feedback from student Twitter users.
“It’s another way to have a conversation with students and make sure we’re listening and communicating with them, just like we do at the desk or on the phone,” Hagman said.
When Peter Trentacoste, executive director of Residential Housing, was involved with the university’s Critical Incident Response Team in response to the Lausche Heating Plant explosion, he took to Twitter to gauge which residence halls were experiencing power outages.
“I like to see what’s going on, and it’s really my feed of what’s going on in Athens,” Trentacoste said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
