The Argosy hosts a debate of candidates for the Students' Administrative Council at Mount Allison University

The Argosy just wrapped up hosting a debate of all the candidates for the SAC executive on Sunday and I was there live-streaming it to those who weren't there. If you missed it you can watch it here:

Argosy Hosts SAC Debate

Mount Allison University plans website redesign

As you may know, the University is undertaking a redesign of mta.ca. I'm on the Web Advisory Group which is providing input to the project. I talked to the Tony Frost, my boss and contact person for the project for more information. It's a vitally important project for the school and I'm excited to offer whatever helpful input I can.


I'll let you know more as the project progresses.


From The Argosy:

    If everything goes as planned, Mount Allison will have a brand new website this summer. The website redesign comes at the heels of the now-complete branding project and will easily incorporate the school’s new visual identity.The project, a joint effort between Marketing and Communications and Computing services, will involve contracting a web design firm to create a website created with input from students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The website has become an important communication tool for new students and it is important the site meet the expectations of a range of audiences, not least of which is perspective students.    Marc-Alexandre Chartrand, a fourth year international relations student said that when he was considering coming to Mt. A, the website was the only outlet he had to find out more about the school. He said he found it difficult to navigate and was concerned that the current graphics and layout of the website would not impress current students looking at it. Others were more concerned about navigability and ease of use. Geoff Hutchinson noted “It needs to be easy to find what you’re looking for. It needs to be streamlined. It needs to be intuitive.” Current students are not alone. According to the 2011 E-Expectations Report by Noel- Levitz, one in five students said they removed a school from consideration because of a bad experience on an institution’s website.    The administration, for its part is taking online communication seriously. In his community-wide e-mail in December, President Campbell seemed in agree in his e-mail, “As many in our community appreciate, a university’s web site is integral to the way it communicates internally and externally, to making a good first impression, to strengthening our reputation... Each year our community and audiences expect more from our web site, and we must be able to deliver on those expectations if we are to achieve our mission.” Julie Stephenson, VP Communication for the SAC thought it was a step in the right direction. “The website redesign project shows Mt. A is interested in developing their online presence and the services they can provide to students.”    Tony Frost, Director of Marketing and Communications noted that the new website is needed for a number of reasons, to make needed upgrades, to integrate the new brand elements, and the ability to publish content on the website more easily. He said...

The Argosy hosts a SAC all-candidates debate

The Argosy will be hosting a SAC all-candidates debate at 7pm tonight in the Wu Centre (Dunn Building). Tune in here if you can't make it in person:

Watch live streaming video from theargosy at livestream.com

Norovirus Hits #NASH74: A Case Study in Crisis Communication

As many of you have heard, including from the school administration a few of us from Mount Allison went to the 74th Annual Conference of the Canadian University Press. There were many great presentations from journalists and other experts, helpful round-table discussions from those at other papers from around the country, and inspiring, informative, and sometimes hilarious keynote addresses. However, all you heard was probably something like this headline: Painful norovirus infected 75 people at Victoria conference
Thankfully I left unscathed by the virus. however many others didn't. While it must have been a nightmare for organizers, by most accounts they did an excellent job communicating with delegates throughout the ordeal. I find myself in the majority but there are those who claim that the way in which they communicated (e-mail, door-to-door checks, and Twitter) was inadequate. I collected the most relevant posts from throughout the night and asked the interwebs (but primarily the others who were at #NASH74) what they thought. Below is that story.

Canadian University Press Archipelago (74th Annual National Conference)

I got in yesterday to the Canadian University Press' 74th Annual National Conference known as Archipelago (as each member paper is like an island in an archipelago). Anyway it was a long flight in but it has been a great conference so far. I'll be writing more specifically about what I've learned later this week for my report/presentation to the Argosy Editors' meeting on Wednesday but right now I'll provide some information on the presentations I've appreciated/learned the most from so far and the ones I'm most looking forward to tomorrow and Saturday.

So far:

And still to come:

and a professional critique of Argosy.ca by Josh O'Kane, a web editor for the Globe and Mail:

It has been really busy couple of days and I'll be exhausted and I'll have a lot of academic and other work to catch up on when I get back but I think it'll have been worth the time and energy coming out here to meet with hundreds of other people working for student newspapers and to learn from working professionals.

There will be more posts as I process everything over the next few days. Between now and then you can follow me @GeoffatMtA. I'll be mostly @ replying @CUPnash so I don't spam everybody not at the conference so if you want to see everything in your feed you'll have to check my profile or follow CUPnash as well.

Flying back to Canada for the last time (?)

I just finished a bit of self-reflection over the break including writing a narrative about my life. I thought about coming to the US from Canada and not really thinking about going back to live in Canada until I visited Mount Allison and I may not be back to live here for a number of years. Only time will tell.

It's been an interesting experience to have my preconceived notions about what's  best (and even what's acceptable in terms of prices, customer service, competition, the role of government, cultural protectionism, etc) which has led to many spirited debates with friends who agree to continue believing the other is completely wrong.

To give you an extent of the price-gouging I've experienced, witness the frozen pizza for $13.69. That's one of the few things which most people there agreed was over-priced.

But right now I'm not worried about food prices. Due to the joy of scheduled posts, right now I should be on a plane from Boston to Halifax going through Canadian customs one last time.

Today's flight will be the last time I'll be flying 'back' to Canada for the foreseeable future (albeit at that point I can only see to May, after which I'll be attending graduate school in Syracuse (NY), New York City, Boston or Los Angeles). At this point it is up to four separate groups of admissions professionals which of those options I'm able to choose from. That's a bit nerve-wracking but... no it's pretty much entirely anxiety provoking. There is a small sense of relief after submitting the applications.
However, even knowing it's partly a numbers game (and I've got higher than last year's class average for GPA and GRE scores) and partly qualitative analysis (who has the best references, best personal statement, who seems like they'd be a good 'fit') for the school and that there's very little I can do at this point to positively affect their decisions I and millions of others awaiting graduate school decisions won't exhale until we receive that fat envelope (or long e-mail).

Although this upcoming semester will again be incredibly busy (5 courses, 2-3 PT jobs, volunteer work, and hopefully some fraction of a social life) I'm feeling rested and prepared for it. The break has given me ten days off of most the hectic pace of everything this past semester. I was able to catch up on sleep, detox from excess stress and caffeine, and finally finish a book given to me last January.

A week from today I'll be off to represent The Argosy at the 5-day annual conference of the Canadian University Press along with two co-workers. Then I'll be putting what I learned there into practice creating roughly bi-weekly content for the paper, providing input to Mount Allison website redesign project, and (pending the final okays) starting a 3rd social media-related side-project.

For right now thought, I'm probably listening to a song like the one below trying to get some shut-eye on the short trip to Halifax:

It may be a while until I'm able to post again. For now I wish you all the best in the new year.