By: Starr Davis
Fall Semester is filled with on-campus events and activities to get the school year started off right; however, most commuters are not aware of this.
Students who live on campus, especially in a residence hall, have an advantage over students who live off campus in going to these events. This is because commuters do not have many resources surrounding them and constantly reminding them about events being held on campus.
If you live in the residence hall, you have an RA to come knock on your door an hour before a show starts, a bulletin board on your floor with posters and flyers, or the posters and flyers might even be found slipped underneath your door. Commuters do not have this luxury, so they are left to find a friend who is either involved on campus, or to check their UA Zipmail to find out what’s going on.
UA Zipmail is a great way to reach out to all of the students and faculty about how to get involved and know what is happening on campus; however, who checks Zipmail that frequently?
Many of us check our UA email account to see if a teacher has contacted us, to look for financial aid statements, or for other various information that is important to know regarding our academic well-being. When events are being sent through UA Zipmail, I do not believe students pay attention or care enough to read it.
Is email really the best way to reach out to commuters? This is my first year as a commuter, and I feel like we should be notified just as often as the students who live on campus are alerted about events on campus.
If I were to make a suggestion, would it be too much to mail commuter students UA Zipmail alerts on a hard copy? This would not only allow us to see what’s going on, but to have it physically would be a reminder that we were notified and communicated with by the University.
As a new commuter, I deserve the same opportunities I had as an on-campus student, and I feel this issue of reaching out to commuters needs to be addressed. Though the majority of on-campus students are freshmen and transfer students, we need to keep in mind that there are other students who still deserve their college experiences, yet who choose to live in surrounding neighborhoods or at home.
Jake • Oct 20, 2011 at 8:46 PM
Students who live in areas surrounding the campus are not commuter students. Not living in a UA approved residence hall does not automatically make one a commuter. On most campuses that status is reserved for people who absolutely must use a vehicle other than the Roo Express to get to campus. It’s your responsibility to find out what is going on in your world. If you can’t even do that on a tiny campus such as UA, then you have a problem. In my day UA commuters flooded E.J. Thomas Hall and Memorial Hall and we did not have anything close to the communication devises that you have today.
Of course back then UA presented concerts worthy of students attendance and not the junk UA provides students today. Enjoy your pizza and hot dogs and Halloween Parties at E.J., while the Akron Blue Hairs take advantage of your fees by filling the real part of E.J.