Two years in, the Wolfpack Students group on Facebook is only at around 4,000 members, but Student Government hopes to see an increase in the upcoming academic year.
Kelly Hook, former Student Body President, started the Wolfpack Students group in 2010, hoping to give students another opportunity to communicate. Originally, the group page was limited because of Facebook settings, but in May 2011 it transitioned to a new format and gave students more freedom in posting.
Currently, the page has 4,157 members who post, comment and interact.
“Students have taken to knowing they can ask questions on there, and it’s a great way to communicate,” said Chandler Thompson, senior in economics and former Student Body President.
According to Thompson, the page is well liked, but there have been complaints about user friendliness. Specifically, the fact that important posts end up getting hidden because of the number of students posting per hour.
“We got a lot of complaints about that, so we tried changing the settings to make it where only administrators could post and everyone else could just comment,” said Thompson.
That idea, however, did not make things easier to find. In addition, it received such negative feedback that Student Government changed the settings back to where all members could post and comment.
While students were happier with the open settings, Thomspon says a crowded page hasn’t been the only issue.
“We’ve been dealing with issues of how to handle spammers and inappropriate comments,” Thompson said. “We’re limited to Facebook’s rules, but we try to monitor things to make sure members aren’t attacking other members. We want to keep the page a friendly environment for users where all opinions are welcome.”
According to new Student Body President, Andy Walsh, what the page needs is a larger staff.
“I think Chandler did a great job with the page this year; it’s been a wonderful resource for students,” Walsh said. “It is a lot to just have one person monitoring, though.”
Walsh says that his role as Student Body President requires him to be in contact with several organizations during the day, in addition to attending many meetings and events. Because of this, he says he’ll be on the page “as much as [he] can,” but thinks it would be good to get some help.
“I think we should have some Student Government staff monitoring the page, so answers to questions would come from Student Government as a whole, and it would probably be more efficient,” Walsh said.
While he feels the page is a great resource, he says that it is always easier to contact him via email with any time-sensitive or important questions. In terms of general communication, he would like to see group membership increase.
“Right now we’re a campus of over 34,000 students and our membership is just over 4,000,” Walsh said.
He’s not the only one hoping for increased participation. Will Privette , junior in communications, wants fellow students to get involved on Facebook.
“It’s a really wonderful tool, but I don’t think a lot of students know about it,” Privette said. “I actually just found it and joined in this past year.”
He added that Chandler Thompson has done a great job of being very involved and visible to students through the page.
Limited by Facebook settings, the Wolfpack Students group can’t do much to reach out to students, though Thompson says there have been a few changes.
“The design of the page is changed weekly,” Thompson said. “It’s important for Student Government to make this a priority for communication. A group should be dedicated to giving students the information they need.”
According to Thompson, a big problem at N.C . State is getting pertinent information easily. If you’re interested in making that easier, log onto Facebook and join at http:// www.facebook.com /groups/ wolfpackstudents /.
