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BY ROSARIO PAZ

In print | October 11, 2007

Beginning today, the Reserved Students Digest will reflect recent changes codified by Student Council that will make its use for advertising college events more limited and its breadth more condensed. These changes will work in conjunction with the new Campus Calendar generated by ITS and the News and Information Office, which will now serve as the primary electronic source for event information.

Student Council held a forum on Tuesday night in order to explain the use of the new calendar and answer any questions about the new changes. According to Student Council, the digest will change such that only events for which there are not specific times or dates will be permitted, in order to reduce the number of events that circulate through the digest. Events with specific times or dates will now have to be advertised in the new events calendar.

At the forum, discussion circulated around how to go about using the calendar to advertise events, focusing on what should go on the calendar and what should go on the digest. Student Council Secretary Meredith Firetog ‘10 led the forum with the help of Kelly Mueller in ITS to explain the more technical aspects of announcing events in the calendar, such as how to use the different tools available on the calendar’s Web site.

In order to fill out an event you must have a space reservation, Firetog said. So you can’t just say We’re going to have an event inside SCI 101’ without going to the reserved space Web site ¦ and it gives you instructions on how to do that right [on the calendar site].

Besides giving basic instructions on how to advertise an event and reserve space for it ahead of time, the forum also explained how to receive notification for certain types of events, how to integrate one’s Google calendar with the campus calendar through syndicated feeds, how to take advantage of the Daily Gazette’s automatic feed of the calendar, how to put images in event descriptions, how to render a list of only one type of event, how to put in multiple event submissions for weekly meetings and how to display the calendar to one’s liking through the option of different views.

Nonetheless, the loss of what was arguably the main function of the Reserved Students Digest has left many feeling somewhat uneasy about the shift.

I’m going to be sorry to lose the Reserved Students Digest, Associate Dean of Student Life Myrt Westphal said. I can open it up and see in a minute all the kinds of things going on now. It provides a bird’s eye view of what’s happening on campus ¦ I worry about people not going on a calendar on a daily basis.

I applaud StuCo for addressing the difficulties [in] communicating with the student body, Westphal continued. Maybe it’ll work and it’ll be great.

According to Student Council, there have been several students complaining about the digest and its frequent cluttering of e-mail inboxes with endless lists of uncategorized college events.

However, some students believe the digest serves as a handy resource for looking up daily events and announcements made available to them as they are checking their e-mail.

I am not particularly savvy when it comes to technology, Taleah Kennedy ‘10 said. So, when I saw [the Reserved Students Digest change] I was actually a little disappointed ¦ We’re always receiving Reserved Students Digest all the time it’s always like one after the other after the other but when I do want to find out something, I actually refer to that.

[The Reserved Students Digest] was really convenient because it was coming into my e-mail box and

that was nice, Soren Larson ’11 said. I read the nice

little summaries of what was going on ¦ and if I

saw something interesting I would scroll down. [The

calendar] could become less important, probably, less available to students. I would not have know about

some of the stuff that I find out about had I not

had those e-mails, because I’m definitely not going to

go to the calendar everyday and check on what’s going on.

According to Firetog, most of these apprehensions are understandable and inherent to discussions invol-

ving change. Firetog expressed hope that students, particularly those who already look at the digest, will eventually realize the calendar’s potential and will provide feedback to News & Information and ITS that could be used to improve the structure and functionality of the calendar.

A lot of people’s objections are that people won’t have the initiative to look at the calendar ¦ I think that’s firstly a matter of change and inconvenience, Firetog said. I mean that is sort of understandable.

Westphal said that she is less worried about students specifically having to learn how to use the new calendar system than the overall issue of communication on

campus.

The knowledge of how to use [the online calendar] does not worry me, Westphal said. It’s a fundamental question of how we communicate in this community.

It’s like the old days when there was no e-mail

and only one hall phone. It really highlights the fundamental problem we have with communicating around here.

All of the technical aspects of submitting an event or concerning maneuvering in general through the new calendar Web site fall should all be addressed to News and Information or ITS by phone or through the calendar’s official email: calendar@swarthmore.edu.

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