Student website offers dialogue with administrator

Students are using the University’s student webpage in record numbers to check everything from the events calendar and dining hall menus to weather reports and national news.

Now, at the click of a mouse, they can share their thoughts with the dean of students, ask a question, or find information addressing a concern or a campus rumor.

“One of the most effective ways to communicate with students is through their website,” says Lee Williams, dean of students. And that’s exactly what she is doing.

A new link has been created on the website www.students.uconn.edu called “Ask Lee: The Dean’s Almanac.”

“It’s a place where I can discuss issues that I feel are important, and students can ask whatever questions they might have,” says Williams.

“We know they read what’s there.”

During recent meetings, students said they wanted more dialogue with the administration, but not necessarily via e-mail. In fact, they said, many e-mails from the University are ignored.

“If we sent five e-mails a week to students, they might read those five,” Williams says.

“But if we send 25, they don’t read any of them, unless something in the subject line happens to catch their eye.

Students are flooded with e-mails on a regular basis, and the website is a more efficient way of getting news out to them. We have to reach them where they are.”

The student website, created three years ago, is “powerful,” Williams says.

Many students use it as their home page, and visits exceed 45,000 daily, according to John Barry, director of university communications.

In her first Almanac, Williams mused about crosswalk behavior and discussed the intention of her column: “Many students are frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of communication from the administration,” she wrote.

“And to be honest, we’re often equally frustrated both by our inability to figure out what you want us to know and by our lack of effective strategies for telling you what you want to know.”

She said she would respond to student inquiries regarding “rumors flying around campus” and general updates, and, when she doesn’t know the answer to a question, she will ask the appropriate person to respond.

So far, “Ask Lee” has been a big hit. “I get responses as soon as the column is posted,” Williams says.

“Apparently, students are really reading this.”