UBC Reports | Vol. 47 | No. 18 | November 15, 2001

Students keen on community: report

Focus groups suggest ways to bring students into loop

Letting students know how they can get involved in campus life is the key to building a stronger UBC community according to a draft report prepared for the business process re-engineering team in the Student Recruitment Office and for vice-president, Students, Brian Sullivan.

Based on input from student groups and administrators across campus, the report, Building a Campus Community: The Community UBC, puts forward several recommendations to improve the quality of university life for students.

"The original focus of the report was to help set the direction for student recruitment," says Janet Teasdale, director, Student Development.

"We wanted to address the importance of building the UBC community in order to attract potential students. And current students identified community as something they want to talk about and take leadership in building."

The findings in the report will be a tool to help people all over campus begin a dialogue about what it means to build a community and how to do that, says Teasdale.

Some of the suggestions for community building include creating a stronger visual identity for the university, establishing a buddy or mentorship program and emphasizing the importance of personal contact between students and university staff.

The report also identifies better communications between myriad groups on campus as the key to bringing students into the loop.

It calls for the establishment of a Centre for Student Involvement to act as an information clearing house, and for the vice-president, Students, and the Alma Mater Society president to send out monthly joint e-mail encouraging student involvement.

Another recommendation is to create a celebration, such as UBC Day, to bring the whole UBC community together, possibly on the anniversary of the 1922 Great Trek march to Point Grey to establish the UBC campus.

Earlier this year, 75 students, faculty and staff brainstormed on ideas to build a stronger UBC community in focus groups and through e-mail questionnaires.

The draft report will be presented to the Campus Advisory Board on Student Development later this month.

A copy of the report will be available at www.vpstudents.ubc.ca/index.htm.