University Communications and Marketing will team up with the Student Government this afternoon to gauge student reaction and field questions about AU’s branding effort.
The town hall meeting will be at 4:30 today in Mary Graydon Center’s rooms 4 and 5.
“Town halls have been an important way to gain feedback for major initiatives at AU,” Teresa Flannery, executive director of University Communications and Marketing, said in an e-mail. “We hold them after board meetings, for the budget process, and for the strategic plan, so we thought it would be another effective way to continue to share information and gather feedback about the branding strategy.”
Amy Eisman, the School of Communication’s director of the Writing Program and Interactive Journalism Program, will moderate the town hall, according to Flannery.
The town hall will consist of a short, five- to seven-minute, presentation by the Communications department, and the rest of the meeting will be a time for feedback.
“I hope it will be a constructive exchange of ideas,” Flannery said. “It is another way to gather and incorporate community input into the implementation of the brand strategy.”
SG Secretary Kent Hiebel said Flannery reached out to the SG to co-sponsor today’s meeting, and the SG agreed so that it could use the meeting as a venue to gauge student reaction to the campaign.
Co-sponsoring this meeting will fulfill the requirement laid out in an SG bill passed Sunday for the Department of Outreach and Recruitment to host a town hall about the wonk campaign.
Hiebel said he is wary that this town hall will not be effective in drawing and hearing from large numbers of students, and he said the SG plans to make other opportunities available for students to express concerns and thoughts about the campaign.
mfowler@theeagleonline.com
