Did you notice the purple ribbons all around campus? They were in recognition of the Relay for Life that Mercyhurst held this past Saturday, April 25, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Other than the ribbons that were placed everywhere on campus, there was a lack of formal publicity for the Relay. Even though there was a lack of publicity, the campus still managed to raise a large amount of money, over $15,000. But what if every student on campus knew about the event and donated five dollars? That amount could have doubled. With all of the social media that is available today, it would be easy to gain the attention of more students.

The Relay for life is a worthy cause, because all money and proceeds from the every Relay go towards the fight against cancer. Participating in this event leaves you feeling accomplished in knowing that you are supporting and advocating for all the people that are coping with cancer. There are approximately 2,600 undergraduate students on campus, and only 261 participated in teams and clubs for the Relay. What if there was a way for the Relay to be promoted to the whole campus? The number of participants would have increased greatly.

Having a way to know about all of the events on campus, in advance would be great for all students. I believe that many more students would attend events like the Relay for Life if they would have gotten advance notice.

There is not a campus wide way to communicate events being held on campus. The way that we, as students hear of events is by word of mouth or from fliers that are placed randomly around campus and not always in places that every student walks. Most of the time the fliers are not even up to date. I do not know how many times I have walked past one of the bulletin boards and have seen events that I would be interested in, that have long since passed without me knowing they occurred.

Other universities have apps for the entire student body to download, that allows them to see events on campus, dining hall dinner options and a lot more. What if Mercyhurst University came up with a similar way to communicate this type of information with us?