Resource:How to engage students on a small campus

WHO SHOULD BE INVOLVED

When building an audience at a university, and especially when focusing on student engagement, it is important to have buy-in from three groups: administration, faculty, and students. Each of these groups have a unique set of skills, requirements, and challeges that you must face.

ADMINISTRATION

The administration of a university are very important when looking at long term goals for your UIF organization on campus. By bringing the administration on board your ideas, you can develop a lasting relationship that can provide support for far-reaching goals, like the ones needed to engage with students.

For example, Daricia Wilkinson & Ykeshia Zamore, UIF Fellows from UVI, put on a hackathon that impressed the president of their university so much that he decided to fund an innovation center. This innovation center helped to spread the message of entrepreneurship within the student body, allowing students another way to engage in the entrepreneurial vision of their school.

FACULTY

The faculty of a university are very good in the determination of short term goals for a university, and can help your UIF organization connect with students who are interested in innovation. At a small unviersity in particular, the faculty have a more personal relation with their students, which can lead to the faculty being a good way to spread the message of what it is you do.

STUDENTS

Of course, when trying to engage students on a small campus, the most important group to interact with are the students themselves. In a smaller school, there i a very real familial aspect to student life, and face-to-face meetings are a good way to get engaged with some students. You can use these preliminary face-to-face meeting to determine what students see as issues, and what misconceptions you may need to help fix.

OBSTACLES/BARRIERS

In any student body, there is inevitable push back against any organization. This can happen in particular when the words "entrepreneurship" and "innovation" are used to describe your program. This is due to the misconception that these words denote a