This month marks the conclusion of my third year blogging for One Dean’s View. It seems like a good time to assess the blog’s future. Where should it go from here? I would like your opinion.
The blog has had very good readership over the last three years, with people visiting from off and on campus. But my hope that One Dean’s View would become a dynamic forum for open discussion hasn’t materialized the way I’d hoped. Over the last many months, readers have stopped commenting publically, using e-mail instead. I know of one instance where the discussion took place on a social media site.
My goal for the blog was to create a space that allows a wide variety of people to express very different ideas and to encourage a campus-wide conversation that welcomes and respects difference. Being based in the administration, I hoped it would allow us to talk about topics that might not be possible in other venues and that it might help break down barriers between the administration and student life.
The world is moving quickly, and this blog needs to evolve with it. The question is, how? It could go to sleep, reappearing only when necessary, when an important issue is at hand. It could ramp up to be more interactive, for which I would need student assistance. Or it could do something else altogether.
To inform my thinking, it would be very helpful to hear from you. What do you think about the blog? Additionally, I would like to know if there are any students with blogging, multimedia, or Web experience who would be interested in working with my office next year, to assist with the blog—with content and presentation. Please send me an e-mail if you are interested.
I’d like to thank all of the faculty, staff, and students who have written guest posts, the readers, and those who have chimed in, whether here or elsewhere, with comments.
Your opinions matter a great deal to me, and I welcome your ideas about One Dean’s View, whether you have general reactions or very specific thoughts. Please tell me what you think in the comments section. Thank you.