Communications consolidated
Victoria Zielinski | Asst. Opinion Editor | The USD Vista
At the University of San Diego, students are bombarded with emails from various parts of campus — facilities, guest speakers, campus event announcements, and more all send emails straight to inboxes for students to sort through. This fall brought a change to how campus happenings are communicated to students.
The USD University Communications office is responsible for sharing campus-wide announcements and has made an attempt to consolidate the amount of emails sent to faculty, students, and staff with a new campus-wide newsletter — Torero Weekly.
Although Torero Weekly aims to simplify the number of emails received, students question whether the strategy is actually effective in meeting its goal.
Junior Samantha Carpenter shared that even though the Torero Weekly aims to reduce the amount of emails, her inbox is still flooded and she only reads emails that are pertinent to her individually.
“Honestly, I get so many emails it isn’t really a priority for me to sit down and read the entire newsletter,” Carpenter said. “I didn’t notice a huge change with the new newsletter; I feel like I only read emails if they’re from one of my professors or from my major’s department.”
Each Monday morning, the Torero Weekly is sent out with information for the upcoming week. Departments can submit announcements individually through the University Communications website to share their announcements with the USD community.
Carpenter suggested a more individualized approach to the Torero Weekly newsletter.
“I feel like I’d be more inclined to read the updates if they tailored it to students’ majors,” Carpenter said. “For example, business majors should get a separate email from arts or science majors. I wouldn’t be interested in going to a business event because I’m a science major — some of the information just isn’t useful to me.”
Junior Megan Herz explained that she receives information about campus happenings outside of her inbox, so she did not notice a difference in the new email updates.
“I hear about upcoming events more through people in my classes or advertised on flyers around campus than through email,” Herz said. “Sometimes I don’t have time to read through the entire Torero Weekly, but I feel like it’s helpful to have information in one place to reference if I need to.”
Upon opening it, Herz was deterred by the long length of the newsletter.
“I think the most recent Torero Weekly had at least 10 campus events listed on it,” Herz said. “I feel like it can get a little overwhelming at times, but it’s organized into categories so you can read through what you’re interested in. It might be more helpful to first-year students who are finding their place on campus and aren’t sure what kind of events they are interested in yet.”
Sophomore Sonia Steen stated that she finds it easier to view events happening on campus at a glance with the new update.
“I wouldn’t say I read the Torero Weekly, but I typically skim through to see if there are any events that I’m interested in,” Steen said.
Steen also shared that since the new initiative had been enacted, she has not noticed a change in the amount of emails she receives.
“I haven’t noticed myself getting significantly fewer emails about events since they switched over to the Torero Weekly, but I like the fact that you can find everything all in one email,” Steen said. “It seems like the only way to reduce the amount of emails is for students to unsubscribe from what they don’t want to see. I think the Torero Weekly is doing a good job at simplifying things.”
Increased awareness of the Torero Weekly and its weekly content could also benefit students.
“I read more about the purpose of the Torero Weekly emails online,” Steen said. “I feel like I will pay more attention to them now to see if there is anything that I am interested in.”
Students are attracted to the convenience of the Torero Weekly, but there is still a flood of emails from other departments who are not always included in the newsletter, such as the College of Arts and Sciences Newsletter “The College” and “The Changemaker Connection.”
Junior Vada Thomas stated that she reads the Torero Weekly when she has the time to. However, she believes that the Torero Weekly could use additional consolidation.
“I think I would want to read the emails more if I didn’t already get so many emails from the school and facilities; sometimes it just gets mixed in with everything else that I receive during the day,” Thomas said.
Since the Torero Weekly has launched, it seems as though compiling campus information into a single email has been more convenient for students, but it is unclear whether this makes it a more compelling read. The Torero Weekly might just be another unread email left sitting in students’ inboxes.