In a recent push by the Office of Residence Life, Syracuse University residence halls are using Twitter to connect, engage and talk with each other.

Residence halls are encouraging students to use designated floor hashtags and share Twitter handles with one another by displaying them on bulletin boards.

The immediacy of Twitter makes the forum a great way to share information, Eric Nestor, assistant director of residence life, said in an email.

“The Office of Residence Life wants to help students build connections with each other and the SU community,” he said. “We want to share information but, more important, we want to engage our students and have conversations with them. Social media provides multiple ways of doing this.”

Connecting with students in this way keeps students aware of what is happening in their residence halls and generates conversation between them by using technology familiar to students, Nestor said.

The Office of Residence Life also uses Facebook to connect with students. Each of the residence halls and South Campus have a Facebook page, which they use to connect with students, Nestor said.

One issue the office has faced is creating a sense of community among the 1,000 individual apartments on South Campus. The Residence Life staff on South Campus uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare and a blog to connect the students living in these apartments, Nestor said.

“We know that students (are) on multiple platforms and use them for different reasons,” he said. “Our goal is to have a presence in many of them.”

There have been both positive and negative responses from the student body when it comes to Twitter usage by the residence halls.

“I think that if different residence halls use Twitter and people check their Twitter, it gives people an upper hand,” said Ethan Greenberg, a freshman broadcast and digital journalism major. “I think it can be beneficial.”

Evan Cohen, a freshman undeclared major in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and the School of Information Studies, had a recommendation for the residence halls.

“I don’t feel like the information they put out is useful,” he said. “However, if they were to utilize Twitter in the correct form, it would be very informative for the student body.”

The final goal according to Nestor is simple: “We want to connect, engage and share.”

Published on September 19, 2012 at 1:21 am

Contact David: dlauterb@syr.edu