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Intelligence
Why Colleges Blog

Intelligence

Why Colleges Blog

May 04, 2005By Michael Stoner

Beside a glam shot of an attractive college sophomore are some of her thoughts. “So, there is always a big dispute on Valentine’s Day between the people who are dateless and the people who have Valentines,” she writes. Two clicks away are thoughts from another student: “Today is going to be a busy day because I have a Microeconomics exam tomorrow and lots of reading to do for American Legal Culture.”

This may not be the kind of stuff that inspires Hollywood screenwriters but it is the kind of stuff that inspires college applicants. Real stuff. Written by students. Unedited, yet hosted by the admissions office of a large private university. 

Furman University is doing it, Loyola Marymount University is doing it, even the Wharton School’s MBA program is doing it. Hosting student blogs has become an admissions phenomenon and the subject of anxiety for those who haven’t yet participated. 

What’s a blog (short for weblog)? It’s a simple website powered by easy-to-use software. In its most common manifestation, a blog is an online journal that contains a date/time stamp for each entry and a comments link for feedback. But there are many styles and shapes. (See “Do you blog? Do you want to?”.)

In admissions, student bloggers write about their experiences. The feedback function is typically disabled; prospective students can contact the bloggers via email. Having chosen their bloggers carefully, admissions offices do not edit the entries—which is, admittedly, a risk. But well worth it: while it’s difficult to pin down the exact impact on applications, colleges and universities say that site traffic increases significantly when blogs are implemented. 

Other approaches: sometimes you’ll see admissions counselors blogging as a way to offer tips to prospective students; at American University, undergraduate admissions hosts two professors’ blogs. 

Blogging for dollars

What in admissions is a relatively simple formula becomes an array of options when institutions focus on another important audience: alumni and donors.

At University of Missouri, the Alumni Association offers online journals, three by current students and one by a recent grad. The appeal is obvious: what better way to put alumni in touch with the ongoing life of the institution than presenting the ongoing lives of its people?

At the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, the alumni site is itself a blog, which makes publishing class notes a breeze-a very fresh breeze. (The fact that posts are sometimes edited by the alumni office doesn’t seem to dampen participation-the notes are recent and plentiful.) Behind a log-in, alumni can “interact with blogs and discussion forums.” 

But perhaps the most imaginative blog in this field is Chuck’s Corner, the popular feature that graces the home page of Proctor Academy. Chuck is Chuck Will, a gifted writer and photographer who blogs nonstop about life at the academy; stories range from snowboarding (Feb. 20, 2005) to the way faculty is preparing for a new headmaster (Jan. 4, 2005). Content is often repurposed on special microsites created for major donors so the donor can read about a student who has received a scholarship she has funded, or a program that has benefited from new technology he has supported. In Proctor’s case, comments are encouraged. And donor response has been enthusiastic.

Blogging for knowledge, etc.

In seizing on the blogging phenomenon, admissions offices and alumni associations are benefiting from the freshness and honesty that the very medium of blogging suggests. There’s an immediacy to blogging, an unvarnished reality to it—even when the feedback function is disabled and the cast of bloggers has clearly been engineered. This aura may fade over time, but for now, it’s potent.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities have adopted the technology for other reasons as well. After all, a blog is a fast, easy way to communicate new content-ideas, events, even class assignments. At American University, the School of Communication’s website is a blog-which makes for up-to-date content, internship listings, and alumni news. At the University of Minnesota, the library offers blogging opportunities to students, faculty, and staff, a policy that has enabled grad instructor Charlotte Tschider to launch Second Speech, a blog for one of the university’s rhetoric courses. Far away in the Gulf of Mexico, Mount Holyoke students produced a blog as part of their January term experience this year. 

Clearly, the possibilities for this technology are enormous, especially in a university setting where constituents have the interest, motivation, and license to participate. 

Next month: what blogging could bring.

Note: This article appeared in mStoner’s email newsletter, Intelligence. For a subscription, email 
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  • Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?