By Ezra Neumann | The Broadside (Contact: [email protected])

Events are diverse in nature and provide an opportunity to explore something of interest are almost always going on around the Central Oregon Community College campus. Even though these events are hosted by COCC, and are usually free of charge, there are often very low student turnouts.

According to Luke Liao, a first-year exchange student, he doesn’t miss these events because of lack of interest, rather, a lack of knowledge that they are happening. There have been many of cases were Liao would have attended events, but heard about them after it was too late. Liao said that he sees little to no advertisement for events, and even when he does see them, he doesn’t know where to look for the information at a later time.

Gordon Price, Student Activities coordinator, has been informed of an idea to possibly add a system similar to the Emergency Notification System , as an events reminder on campus.

Price said he feels  that adding a notification system wouldn’t have a significant impact on student attendance to events. He  said that this could be due to a number of reasons including personal time schedules with work and classes, the fact that we are not a four-year college, and why students are here in the first place.

There would be no financial setbacks, but Price said that  low student attendance is due to a lot more than just advertising. “COCC has traditionally been very wary of overloading students with messages. Especially, mass messaging.”

With the Afro-centric club, a club that Price advises, he sends emails out to bodies of students directly, and still receives a low attendance. 

Regardless of whether this new notification system is created or not, the fact of the matter is that students don’t know where to find information a large number of the time. Alicia Moore, Dean of student services, and Ron Paradis, director of College Relations will be looking more closely into the issue. The discussion of this topic is much larger than any one person, so for anyone hoping to reach out and share the thoughts and/or concerns, please contact one of the individuals below:

Ron Paradis – [email protected]
Alicia Moore – [email protected]
Gordon Price – [email protected] ■