It’s been awfully quiet around here lately. This is what spring/summer brings to the campus, not to mention that it’s been a bit of a “slow news” cycle around here. Plus I’ve been awfully busy with my pesky day job of teaching and conference going and the like.
Anyway, I walked into my office today and I was thinking a bit about those hard to miss EMU “Education First” banners that are all over campus and town. I think they are quite nice, a great addition to a very good marketing/imaging campaign about campus.
But I have to say it is a little weird to see the pictures of the buildings on those banners next to the actual buildings. For example, I looked at the banner picture of an “ideal” and properly lit (presumably photo-shopped) of Pray-Harrold just as I was entering the gloomy cave “reality” of the building itself. There’s something Platonic there I am sure.
Odd, perhaps, but oh so helpful to people new to campus.
Oh, here is an idea for you and fellow EMU TALKers to work on . . .
I would like to create a simple podcast walking tour based on each of the buildings on campus. The idea would be that participants, once they have downloaded the series to their pods, would spin the dial to the appropriate building (now easily located by the banners) and hear a brief (five minute) and entertaining (!) overview of the building covering architecture, history, lore, and even moment of fame.
I barely know anywhere on campus outside the Porter/Halle corridor so this will be my own EMU learn-a-thon.
I will be pleased to hold the microphone over the next few months. Drop me a line if interested at mmcvey at emich dot edu – you can even send audio files to me as attachments to get the ball rolling.
If you want to move it up to a full post, SiteDad, I’m game. Let’s put our collective crowd wisdom to work.
Look at this http://www.emich.edu/walkingtour/ Also for a little fun you might want to get a copy of the video (11 min.) that the U put together for EMU’s 150th birthday.
Thank you, Alum. I wish I had known about this walking tour when I arrived on campus last summer. I think I’ll do myself a favor and take the walking tour around campus tomorrow.
I still think an audio tour might be fun – perhaps some students would create an enhanced podcast based on the excellent walking tour.
The new banners that are actually directional are, i think, quite good; many newcomers to the campus have for ages had great difficulty finding their way around, as buildings are largely unlabeled. But the banners that contain pictures of buildings that are located nowhere near the actual building can be confusing to newcomers, as I learned the other day: I was biking around the south side of town recently – on Huron, south of Michigan Ave., and was stopped for directions by a woman and her college age son. They wanted to know where the College of Arts and Sciences was — and they had stopped and parked when they saw the banner for “Arts & Sciences”! He’s a prospective student. Of course they were about 1.5. miles from the campus. I gave them good directions, but profs on bikes won’t always be hanging around that location to greet guests to campus coming off I-94 who may be confused by these banners.
So – the ones all over town are confusingly too much like directional signs. The banner campaign is nice, but our buildings still need actual signs on them.
Michael, I agree, and I think it could be a very good student project for a class I teach. Long-story short, I’m probably going to include some podcasting/videocasting opportunities in the fall 2008 term. Maybe we can talk more about this via email, but I thought I’d throw it out here in case anyone else is thinking of something similar this coming school year….