Student Fee Working Group, 7/28/15

Attending: Matt Gaunt, Dorothy Carner, Edward McCain, Ann Riley, Cindy Cotner, Jeannette Pierce, Freddy Martinez-Garcia, Kimberly Moeller, Bryce McDonald, Nav Khanal, Shannon Cary, Mark Ellis.

• Marketing Material – Matt Gaunt:
  • The Library hired two students to serve as Copy Editor and Art Director from the MU School of Journalism:
    • It will likely take until the last week in August for them to provide a slogan and a tagline.
  • After discussion, the Working Group strongly suggested that the Library should go with whatever end-result the students feel will make a connection with fellow-students.
• Student led promotion – Matt Gaunt:
  • Chancellor’s office will be crafting Dr. Loftin’s message about the student fee into a more general statement that speaks about the importance of Libraries:  
    • It will not specifically promote the fee.
    • He will be present for large Open Forum.
  • The campaign is entering a phase where the message about the fee must come from students.
    • Matt foresees the students who will be recruited to help with the student fee campaign to be assembled into two groups.  For now, he is referring to them as: 
      • The Street Team – students recruited to help at events and coordinate.
      • Speakers – students chosen and trained to deliver the talking points of the campaign to other students.
        • These will be champions within various student organizations.
        • They will be trained to talk about the specifics of the proposal.
  • All the members of the Street Team and the Speakers will be Library Ambassadors or members of the MSA Pride.
• Various updates – Matt Gaunt:
  • Videos will play an important part of the campaign:
    • A team within the Pride is already working on several different ideas:
      • Some humorous.
      • Others will likely use graphics-heavy imaging.
      • Still others may have student celebrity cameos.
    • The videos will be produced by Castle of Dreams – a student run video production agency.
    • The MSA Pride will spend some time focusing on “Experiential” marketing:
      • There may be some midnight pizzas sponsored by the promoters to catch students while they are downtown on Thursday nights.
      • There will be several highly visible events on campus (speaker circle or Lowry Mall).
        • Potentially with games and other activities designed to strike a chord with students who may not be very tuned in to the Library.
• Subcommittees – Matt Gaunt:
  • It was resolved previously that the Student Fee Working Group will use the existing committees finalized and assigned by LMT whenever possible. 
    • Committees such as those focusing on space and social media.
  • LMT will be announcing final committee structure and membership soon.
• Budget – Matt Gaunt:
  • The current Student Fee Campaign budget is $14,000 – it has hall been given by Library Donors.
    • The last time we met it was $10,000. 
    • The overall goal is $25,000.
    • Matt hopes to have more contributed soon.
• Calendar – Matt Gaunt:
  • Still planning to have staff forums:
    • Either the week of Aug 10-14 or 17- 21.  
      • Cindy Cotner suggests August 17-21 to avoid RAIS training.
  • Library ambassadors training will be moved back to Last week in August or first week in September to allow more time for promotion material to be developed.
  • Promotion Tables down at Missouri Student Center:
    • Matt suggests move back for promotion material.
    • Jeannette and Shannon suggest we keep the tables and promote other library services, events, such as the Centennial.
      • Cindy will look to still reserve tables.
• The Impact of the Library going to 24/5 this Fall even though it was included as a benefit of the Library Fee – Ann Riley
  • Ann Riley thinks of it as a trial.
    • Something that could go away if costs become a concern.
    • It shows the students that we were listening to what they wanted.
  • Discussion ensued – most agreed it was a good thing to do and that it will show that the Library is trying to meet the student’s needs. 
    • May open some opportunities for outreach to untapped student populations.
• Survey committee – Bryce McDonald and Edward McCain
  • The survey committee needs to meet with the other subcommittees to find out what should be on the one or few survey opportunities that will be utilized.
  • Discussion ensued about ways to survey students for input on space issues.
    • Suggestions about having a “sand box” area.
      • Where vendors can leave samples for a time.