Student engagement a challenge for MSVU

MSVU's 4,000 students rarely on campus after class

MSVU students' union president Lindy Harrington addresses students at a town hall meeting. Photo: Gwyneth Dunsford

University students are vultures for free food, so leftovers after school events are proof of poor attendance.

Yet there was still cold pepperoni pizza after a student town hall meeting at Mount Saint Vincent University in mid-October. The meeting was one of the first opportunities for the new university president to meet the students.

After nine years as principal of Huron University College in London, Ont., Ramona Lumpkin says student engagement is one the biggest challenges facing the university.

Lumpkin says student organizers should have realistic expectations of student attendance at events such as this.

"We have to be flexible in terms of the activities and outreach programs that we use to touch and keep contact with our students," she says. "It is not necessarily a failure if you have an event that is of interest to residential students and the other ones don't turn out."

The Mount's diverse student body is an obstacle to campus unity, says Lumpkin. With programs focusing on mature and long-distance students, many of the Mount's 4,000 students are rarely on campus.

As the meeting began, students' union president, Lindy Harrington, smiled as she thanked students for their attendance.

"I didn't think this many people would show and it's really exciting," she told the group of 36 students.

The town hall meeting comes at a crucial time for the Mount. In September, a provincial report recommended that the school merge with neighbouring universities. A show of hands revealed that most students were oblivious to the importance of the O'Neill report.

After the O'Neill report was released, Harrington and the students' union executive were unsure how to engage students. The meeting was intended as a brainstorming session to get students to care about the O'Neill report. Ideas ranged from putting placards on cafeteria tables to using Facebook.

"You try to engage and you try to get people to come in, but you can only do so much," Harrington says.

The school's location on the Bedford Highway makes it a textbook commuter school, says Craig Walsh, a vice-president for the students' union.

"It's extremely hard to find that niche time when everyone is free."

Once students finish class, Walsh says, they are unwilling to make the trek up the hill to the students centre for events.

"When is the ski-lift being built?" a student jokingly heckled during the meeting.

After the half-hour meeting is over, the subdued students quickly left.

One student who lagged behind was 20-year old Daniel McKenna. He laments students' apathy towards school activities, but blames it on teenagers' attitude of indifference.

"You are always going to get people who won't always show up but will voice their opinion in other ways."

For fourth-year accounting student, Jennifer Tucker-Johnston, the appeal of the meeting was obvious.

"The free pizza never hurts," she says with a grin.

Comments on this story are now closed