UNC often finds it difficult to communicate with students

It is unclear whose fault it is, but UNC administrators seem to have a hard time communicating with students sometimes.

And when there’s an important message that needs to get out, this is a problem. The University has recently taken steps to bridge the gap, but many students said they still feel out of the loop.

These issues have been highlighted recently by the transition to the new registration system, ConnectCarolina, and next week’s campus shooter drill.

College students are notoriously busy, and some don’t have the time to acquaint themselves with the University’s various news releases. Others said they would simply rather do other things with their time.

Of more than 20 students polled on campus Wednesday and Thursday, none had heard of the shooter drill set for next Wednesday, with most saying they never read official University e-mails.

“No, I don’t delete them,” said sophomore Briana Mayes. “But I just click on them and read about the first line or so.”

She also said she was wary about registering for classes with ConnectCarolina, mainly due to a lack of information.

“I played around with it a little bit because one of my friends told me about the tutorial,” she said. “I’m just worried that when it comes down to registering, I’m going to mess it up.”

For that reason, the University has made a large push to advertise ConnectCarolina and tell students how to use it with a Web site and kiosks offering students guidance.

The University has purchased several pages of advertising in The Daily Tar Heel in the past few weeks, and student government has manned the Pit to guide students through the new registration system.

Junior Jay Adamson, who worked on a video about ConnectCarolina for student government, said the efforts of administrators and student government are becoming more important because the system could be difficult for students to understand.

“It’s not something you can just jump into,” he said. “You need to have someone advising you or do the tutorial before you register.”

Most students said they were worried about the shopping cart feature, which allows students to add as many classes as they want for automatic registration, as opposed to Student Central’s system of picking classes one by one.

Others were concerned about their actual registration time and other problems.

Many of these issues have been addressed in the advertising and in campuswide e-mails.

Debra Beller, information communications specialist for ConnectCarolina, said there was no way to adjust students to the program gradually.

“I realize there’s a learning curve to get over,” she said. “But it’s a much, much better system.”

She compared the change to a revamping of Facebook’s home page, saying that much of the confusion is unfounded and that the new system would soon be embraced.

“I’ll bet you anything that six months from now, people will be saying, ‘I don’t know how we did anything with the old system,’” she said.

Effectively communicating instructions for Wednesday’s shooter drill has been more troublesome because the drill is voluntary.

The drill at the Outdoor Education Center will teach emergency responders how to react to a shooter on campus.

Chancellor Holden Thorp said he believes this is an opportunity to spark discussion on campus about emergency preparedness.

In a formal e-mail, Thorp asked that all professors and teaching assistants hold an instructional discussion on emergency preparedness in any class they teach Wednesday from 8:45 a.m. to 8:50 a.m.

During that time, the University community has been asked to remain indoors to practice an appropriate response.

But none of the students interviewed knew of the drill, even though a link with information appears prominently on UNC’s Web site.

To offset that problem, UNC spokesman Mike McFarland said UNC will continue to advertise in the days leading up to the drill through Alert Carolina.

He said the text message system, which can send texts to its approximately 38,000 subscribers in less than two minutes, would send out several messages on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But that communication platform has had its own problems. When the University received a bomb threat last February, it took Alert Carolina more than two hours to tell students.

About eight months later, students were never informed of a stabbing on Halloween at a fraternity house.

Mayes said she was signed up for the text message system but felt like she never got alerts. She added that she doubts the value of the discussion on preparedness.

“I feel like that’s kind of silly,” she said.



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.