2017 Presentations (Communicative Events)

OLC Accelerate 2017 Education Session: Engaging prospective students, students, alumni, and community members via interactive online events at Columbia University

Marquart, Matthea S.

Online events can engage multiple audiences, from prospective students through alumni and community members, by showcasing alumni achievements and faculty expertise. This session will share examples from Columbia University School of Social Work’s online events, including the planning process, methods for engaging participants, and challenges when running live online events. Online events can support student recruitment and retention, engage alumni and community members, and drive content marketing efforts. At Columbia University School of Social Work, our online events are highly interactive and create community amongst the hundreds of audience members. In the audience, prospective students ask questions and receive answers from alumni and admissions officers; current students around the country chat with each other and with their instructors; alumni from around the world network around specific issues. Speakers have included current students, faculty, and alumni. The range of event topics have highlighted the School’s expertise and included “Challenges Facing Psychotherapists in the New Political Climate,” “Veterans and Homelessness,” and “How Legalizing Marijuana Affects Adolescents.”
In this session, we will share the planning process driving our successful online events, share the technology and strategies used to engage participants, and share how we’ve addressed challenges that have come up during the live events. Participants will be encouraged to share successes and challenges from their own online events, so that the group can learn from each other, and there will be time to ask questions as well.
The goals for this session:
By the end of this session, participants should be able to:
– Describe the benefits of online events, from marketing and retention through alumni and community engagement
– Describe the elements of successful online events, from planning through execution
– Share their successes and challenges with online events
– Ask questions and discuss solutions to potential issues