While you were away, the CBA got to work

While many College of Business Administration students spent the summer working, interning, traveling or enjoying some well-earned time away from Mount Pleasant, things were anything but quiet back on campus.

Offices moved, construction crews got to work, websites changed and new communications took shape. Behind the scenes, faculty and staff spent the summer asking a deceptively simple question: How can we make the CBA experience work better for students?

Some of the answers are easy to spot. Others may take a little exploring.

Expanding our campus footprint

Over the summer, the CBA expanded into Powers Hall and several departments moved to new locations. Business Information Systems is now in Powers Hall; Management is on the third floor of Grawn Hall; and Marketing, Hospitality and Logistics is on the first floor of Sloan Hall.

Entrepreneurship remains on the first floor of Grawn Hall, with Accounting on the third floor. Finance and Law and Economics remain on the third floor of Sloan Hall.

The moves are part of a larger effort to make better use of CBA's physical spaces, create additional flexibility for offices and classrooms, and make it easier for students to find and connect with faculty in their academic departments. Additionally, the expansion into Powers gives the CBA additional event and classroom space, including the college’s first active learning classroom. The classroom will have monitors organized by groups so students can work on a document as a team at the same time. Additional updates to improve comfort and accessibility have been made in Sloan, Grawn and Powers.

“Our spaces have evolved over many years as programs have grown and needs have changed. This gave us an opportunity to be more intentional about where departments are located and how we use the space available to us,” said Misty Bennett, associate dean. “Ultimately, we want students to be able to find their faculty, build relationships within their academic departments and have spaces that support the way they learn and connect.”

Making information easier to find

Not all of the summer's work required moving boxes. The CBA website also received a major overhaul, with hundreds of pages reviewed, rewritten, reorganized or retired.

The work was approached with current and prospective students in mind, including how they look for information and what helps them discover opportunities they may not have known to search for. That meant reconsidering not only what information appears on a page, but where students might encounter it.

Department pages, for example, now connect students with related news. A marketing student visiting the Marketing, Hospitality and Logistics pages may discover stories about students and faculty in those programs. Economics students can similarly find news connected to their department. News, events, academic programs, student resources and experiential opportunities are also connected throughout the site in more ways, giving students multiple paths to discover information.

The website redesign was led by CBA's marketing and communications team, with a focus on making college information easier for students to find and explore.

“Students shouldn't have to know exactly what something is called or where we decided to put it in order to find it,” said Alisha Draper, CBA director of marketing and communications. “We tried to look at the website from their perspective. How do students actually move through information? What might they be looking for? And, just as importantly, what could they discover along the way?”

The changes won't solve every digital navigation challenge students encounter across the university, but the goal is to make the college's website more intuitive and accessible while continuing to improve it as students' needs change.

Bringing the CBA to your inbox

Students have told the college through surveys and feedback that staying aware of everything happening within the CBA can be difficult. Between classes, jobs, internships, student organizations and life outside campus, keeping track of another stream of information isn't exactly at the top of everyone's wish list.

So this fall, the CBA is introducing a redesigned weekly student newsletter. Delivered directly to student inboxes, the newsletter will serve as a quick, one-stop look at what's happening across the college, including upcoming events, announcements, opportunities and stories about what fellow CBA students are doing.

“The challenge isn't that we don't have things happening. It's almost the opposite,” Draper said. “There are so many opportunities, events and great student stories that it can be difficult to see all of it. We want to do a better job of bringing that information together and helping students connect the dots.”

And if you're reading this story because you found it in that newsletter? Well, apparently it's working.

Seeing yourself in the CBA

Students may notice another communications experiment when walking through Grawn Hall this fall. The CBA's digital displays are being reworked to show a broader mix of information throughout the building rather than simply repeating the same content on every screen.

Depending on where students are, they'll encounter different events, opportunities, announcements and stories. The large four-screen display near the atrium and Business Student Services will also increasingly feature photography from around the CBA community, including student organization activities, competitions, events, service projects and everyday moments of college life.

The idea is to do more than promote what's coming next. It's also to help students see the people, activities and experiences that make up their college community and to see themselves as part of it.

“Community doesn't happen because we say we're a community,” Draper said. “It happens when students know what's going on, recognize the people around them, build relationships and feel like they're part of something. We want students to see the CBA not simply as the building where they take classes, but as a network of people and experiences that they belong to.”

Those relationships can last well beyond graduation. CBA alumni regularly return to campus to mentor students, speak in classes, recruit employees, judge competitions and share what they've learned throughout their careers. Today's students are already becoming part of that network long before anyone hands them a diploma.

“You're building your professional network right now,” Draper said. “The classmate sitting next to you could be someone you call 10 years from now with a question, an opportunity or an introduction. The alum who visits your class could become a mentor. And someday, you may be the alum coming back to help the students who follow you. We want the CBA to be a place where those relationships begin.”

Still a work in progress

None of the changes made this summer represents a finished product. Buildings will continue to change, digital tools will evolve, new students will arrive with different expectations, and feedback will inevitably uncover things that could work better. That's part of the plan.

“Supporting students is central to our mission in the CBA. We will continue to listen, evaluate what's working and adjust as their needs change,” Bennett said. “Some improvements happen quickly, while others take considerable planning, but the student experience has to remain at the center of those conversations.”

So, if things look a little different this fall, there's a reason. While students were away building their own experiences this summer, the CBA was doing a little rebuilding, too.

And the work isn't done.