<ing their first Spring 2017 meeting on Monday, April 10, CSA approved a new social media outreach program to better connect with the student body.
“In our age of social media, I think it’s an important tool that we can utilize,” said Adam Loew ’20, the chair of CSA’s ad-hoc Committee for Outreach, Media and Publicity (COMP).
The outreach program includes the creation of a CSA Instagram, @carletoncollegecsa, and Snapchat, @carletoncsa, Loew explained.
Loew envisions that student liaisons up for re-election will post brief descriptions of their positions and that other posts will serve to keep the Carleton community updated on CSA happenings.
Flyers with information about the CSA’s new accounts are currently being distributed around campus, and the CSA hopes to publicize over campus TV screens as well.
COMP came out of CSA President Walter Paul’s campaign to address outreach, and is yet to be a permanent committee. In his platform, he promised to increase the presence of CSA on campus and to improve the relationship between CSA and the rest of the student body. In his first weeks as president, Paul formed COMP to fulfill this campaign promise.
“I feel like students think that we’re more of an extension of the administration, but we are an extension of students,” Paul said. “Once we get them to realize that we are the latter, CSA will appear more friendly and open to them.”
He also explained that the social media platforms are also a fun way to show unity with the student body.
Paul hopes that COMP will increase student attendance at meetings, voter turnout and the number of people who run for senate positions. By increasing student participation in CSA, he hopes that CSA will have a larger and more effective presence on campus.
CSA meetings, held Monday at 7 p.m., are public, meaning all Carleton community members are welcome to participate. However, CSA receives few visitors, according to Paul.
Paul wants to ensure that students start engaging with CSA to make their voices heard. “I think that students who do want policy changes on campus see themselves and they see the administration, but they do not see CSA in the middle,” Paul said. “But that’s the role that CSA serves: We are the mediator.”
Similarly, he said, “I like to think of it as the students speak one language, the administration speaks the other and CSA is the translator.”
He went on to clarify that CSA only works as a mediator and translator if students participate in CSA by attending meetings and by using it as a forum to learn about the college and to express themselves. He said he hopes that COMP will make participation easier for students.
As Loew put it, “Every student at Carleton is a part of CSA, and our goal is to make sure people understand that.”