Analysis Week 1: Advocacy

By Marquis Hunt

Friday/Saturday December 5th & 6th

Advocacy About the Initiative

To get the word out on the Safe Rides board, we created small flyers ( about 5X7 ) to showcase to all students that we were doing Safe Rides for Saturday, December 6th. Also, I would speak to people in the hall and talk about the benefits of the program as well while passing out the flyers. I probably had spoken to a total of 60 Van Meter students about the program.

DD Club Safe Rides Board Example for Van Meter

The program is fully manageable from the Safe Rides/ Carpool / Rideshare posterboard that we placed up in the 1st floor lobby on the dorm. It is seen by just about everyone coming in and out of Van Meter, and all information, contacts, organizer information, Safe Rides dates, and directions are listed here. It is the best exposure any program can have in the Van Meter dormitory.

After passing out the flyers, I made free cookies to put out in the lobby to get some people interested in our program. When people came for the free cookies, I talked to them about the program, and pointed out the posterboard where they can sign up and get more information.

Advocacy Grade: C-

The job of the Van Meter Test was to advertise and advocate to as many students as possible the ability to receive Safe Rides for Saturday, December 6th from 11pm-3am. We plan on doing a survey on how much information the students gathered over the week from our flyers and speaking to people during our free cookie sessions.

The reason for this low score is because we started our advocacy too late to garner up enough exposure, importance, and information for what the Safe Rides and Carpool/Rideshare boards can offer. This is also a very competitive time to showcase programs as students are also dealing with final, transporting themselves for Christmas break, finding jobs during the winter, grades, and effects from the recession ( loss of loans, parents’ loss of jobs etc.)

How Can We Do Better?

The Van Meter Test isn’t here to measure our advertising strengths, but we would like to have the initiative very well known amongst the student body.

We must be able to start with advocacy and advertising as soon as possible. Our advicacy for the Safe Rides began a day before the 1st Safe Rides service commenced, and it is on the heels of the final two weeks of school.

We need to find key people that are able to also advertise our program. Student leaders, student government, professors, businesses, residential directors and assistants: there must be a drive to have many influential people to bring forth the message to the students. From this standpoint, our program can gain recognition and trust from other respectable people around the campus.

We need to solidify an online presence. We have a Facebook group and a website, but we would have to manage both better to expand our message. Other outlets, such as WMUA, Campuslive, and the Daily Collegian, would also help us out as well.

We need to organize the advocacy better. The time we had to organize the flyers, the posterboard, and the advocacy, was very small for such a big endeavor. I feel I underestimated how much there was needed to be done to get the word out about the program so close to the end of school. Hopefully, we can see a difference in advocacy in the second and final week of the test.

The Van Meter Test Will Begin This Week

The Designated Driver’s Club will begin to test to see whether we can create dorm-sized transportation program, organized by a volunteer residence assistant or director, and manageable through a posterboard, website, and mailing list.

The transportation program would be a dorm-based activity that people are can volunteer or request rides for late-nights, carpooling, and ridesharing. This would allow Umass students ( and hopefully other schools ) to move more freely around their campus and town, would save students money that would be used for travelling, would bring students together in their dorm, and would create a sense of safety and security as all members would be from the same dorm.

People who volunteer to give late-night rides, ridesharing, or carpooling, or other services for the group, would be doing a great service for their community. They will receive “points” for their efforts. People with the greatest amount of points at the end of the semester would be rewarded with prizes and incentives.

The test is being conducted at the Van Meter dormitory at Umass Amherst to see how the program would work, and how we can set up the program to be used in every dorm on campus. We hope that we can receive feedback on the test from everyone involved, and make a proposal to have a program initiated in every dorm on the University campus.

We currently have not set up the test yet, but will keep everyone posted on this website as it comes along.

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