WEDNESDAY
FEDRUARY 8, 2D17
EXAMINING ELON’S SOCIAL CLIMATE: A THREF-PllRT SERIES
Elon thinks strategically toward marketing
Mackenzie Dunn
Contributor
@MDunn_official
Smiling faces of groups of people in coffee
shops greet new and prospective students on
Elon University’s website, printed brochures
and admissions materials. These are the images
the school projects to its incoming class, and
the seemingly perfect pictures attract many
students to Elon — where the campus itself
takes over the marketing campaign.
“I visited the campus in high school, and it
was just so pretty I fell in love and wanted to
applyr said freshman Heather Pastore.
Elon markets itself as a student-centered,
globally engaged, ambitious and academically
rigorous private institution. With endless
photos of immaculate brick buildings and
pristine green lawns, the school of nearly
7,000 combined undergraduate and graduate
students currently represents 49 states and 50
nations. Its 78 percent four-year graduation
rate and esteemed study abroad programs are
ranked among the best in the nation.
But once visitors get past the marketing
phase and onto campus as enrolled students,
they have to see if their expectations live up
to reality.
Elon said it is aware of the way it works to
portray itself to incoming students.
“In regard to recruiting students, we strive
to provide fair and accurate information
about Elon’s academic and student life
programs so that they can make the college
choice that best suits their educational
goals,” said Dan Anderson, vice president of
university communications.
Though the university wants to assist
students during their transition, there are some
limitations as to what it will say.
Jon Dooley, assistant vice president for
student life and former co-chair of the
Presidential Task Force on Social Climate
and Out-of-Class Engagement, said it would
be unrealistic to expect the university to
state all of its problems and portray itself in
a negative light.
‘“Here’s all the ways that you may find yourself
disconnected,”’ Dooley said. “Institutions just
don’t do that, right? I think that the admissions
materials and the students who are giving tours
and talking at orientation are talking about their
experience and are talking about the things that
make this place great.”
Hints to those potential feelings of
disconnection make their way into tours and
admissions materials, as Pastore found out after
she went on a tour.
“On the tour, they said Greek life was a big
part of the school,” Pastore said. “Now that I’m
here, I think that it really is because everyone
is always wearing their Greek letters or has
their letters on their laptops. It can kind of be
intimidating because you feel like you have to
join one. I mean, I want to anyways, but I think
a lot of girls feel a lot of pressure to join one
because of that.”
Jenny Fukunaga is a senior tour guide at
Elon. Guides have sometimes been criticized
for downplaying the prevalence of Greek
organizations on campus, but as an affiliated
member herself, Fukunaga wants to be honest
in sharing her experiences. She feels a realistic
portrayal of campus best serves the university
and its students.
It’s not just involvement in Greek
organizations that worry incoming
students. Sophomore Ryan Wells identifies
as a gay male and said he was anxious about
coming to a Southern school that initially
seemed homogeneous.
“Coming in over the summer, I was super
nervous with House Bill 2 being passed,”
Wells said, referring to a law passed by the
North Carolina legislature requiring people
to use the bathroom of the gender on their
birth certificate.
“I have a boyfriend, so I wasn’t sure how
North Carolinians would respond in general to
seeing two gay people together,” he said.
Wells was then comforted by an email
from Elon President Leo Lambert reaffirming
the university’s commitment to protecting
LGBTQIA rights.
“To me, coming in here, they really showed
their support for the LGBT community and all
communities in general,’* he said. *►
Wells is hoping to get more involved with
Spectrum, Elon’s queer-straight alliance, and
SPARKS, Elon’s student health organization.
Though organizations will play an important
role in his future, it is the friends he has met in
his hall that have been most influential in Wells’
transition to college.
Dooley said the biggest priority for the
university is to encourage people to be open
about their experiences and offer advice to help
those who could be struggling.
“There are ways that students struggle,”
Dooley said. “There are ways that the students
who are orientation leaders and tour guides
probably struggled in their joining the
community as well.
“Those stories are sometimes not told, and
so, one of our responsibilities then becomes
during that orientation process after you’ve
made the decision to come, to be able to
be as clear as we can about what you may
expect when you come here and what your
experience maybe.”
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In fall 2015, Elon assembled a 29-member
task force to examine the campus social climate
and out-of-class engagement. Dooley served
as the groups co-chair and helped compile a
comprehensive report.
According to the university’s website,
the task force’s goal was to “examine the
student experience and recommend ways
for all students to be fully connected to the
university’s academic, intellectual, and social
opportunities in a manner that is healthy,
engaging and meaningful,”
The task force administered a survey to poll
students, faculty and staff on their satisfaction
with different aspects of Elon’s social climate.
The survey also encouraged people to make
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Globally engaged
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recommendations about how to enhance tlie
campus environment.
“There was certainly a pretty strong theme
of some of the kinds of messages the institution
sends about what your experience is going tok
and what that will look like and some students
feeling like they had a different impression
when they arrived of what might happen than
what happened in their actual experience,’
Dooley said.
Dooley said the survey also revealed a strong
desire among current students to have access to
the types of meaningful, ongoing and inclusive
experiences the university promoted to them.
Sophomore Kenneth Brown is someone
who has chosen to take full advantage of these
experiences. As a highly involved student in tk
Odyssey Scholar program, he was aware of the
difference between himself and the majorit'
of Elon students. He came from a lovvei
socioeconomic background than the majorit]
of the student body. Knowing what to expect
when he arrived, the transition still proved tobe
a challenge.
“Starting out, it can be difficult,” Brown said
“You know, first year, sophomore year, youff
trying to find out what you like, trying to fini^
out who you are, and sometimes you can k
trapped inside of these boxes that not onlyju^
Elon, but also other students, place around yo'J j
mentally and unknowingly.”
By being a leader on campus as class
president. Brown has tried to break out ofthf
box people might have tried to place him into
as a black student at a predominantly white-
upper-middle class institution.
Wells took on the transition challenge, toft
though he was apprehensive of coming to Elon
as a gay student. He is proud to have begun
developing a strong support system here.
“It’s not all just rich white kids that go tf
this school. There are other types of people that
attend this school as well,” he said.