Thursday, September 29, 2011

Visibility is what our campaign needs


Students at Muhlenberg College are working to make their campus more sustainable. The students highlighted are doing the same thing as my PR Research and Strategies class, they are trying to reach are their peers and persuade them to act. The students in the environmental communications class at Muhlenberg produced a sustainability guide. The guide educates students by listing examples of ways they can increase their sustainability. "The 20-page guide is full of tips "covering every aspect of college life" at Muhlenberg”(June).  The guide also included information on the financial benefits of implementing the sustainable practices. (June)As we prepare to campaign to residents of the campus dorms here at FAMU and persuade them to vote in favor of the Green Energy Fund bill. We have get residents to complete surveys that reveal attitudes and knowledge related to sustainability. This article did not prove as useful as I hoped it would. While it did include very eye-opening information, there was no clear tie to the task of changing attitudes. Instead of discussing tactics to motivate student involvement, the article discussed different things the students at Muhlenberg College did to educate their target population.  This article may prove more useful for campaign that has a goal of getting students to recycle and not vote for funding to increase sustainable. Although it would be nice to equip students with ways to increase their sustainability this is not a part of our campaign goal. Initially, I thought the article may have included more detail about the campus involvement in the initiative, but there were other quality highlights that sparked other ideas.  For example, during our mock focus group in class, the Green Coalition came up several times and one student felt they were ineffective in reaching the student population. If students are not being reached, the likelihood of supporting a tuition increase being pushed by an organization they are not familiar with is minimal. In June’s article the campus recycling program at Muhlenberg “saved enough electricity to power a typical home for almost 55 years” (June).  Does the Green Coalition have successes such as this? If so these things need to constantly be highlighted so the bill will not be seen as the only initiative. Visibility is what our campaign needs.
June, A. W. (2007). Muhlenberg College Students Publish Their Own Guide to Sustainable Living. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(46). Retrieved from