12 Jul

MC 101 Wrap Up: The West

Now that I’ve had an entire week off the road and in the office, I’ve had a chance to reflect on the first five Media Commons 101 sessions that I put on at my western campuses.  Looking back at the sessions, I feel confident in saying that they achieved exactly what Carla and I had hoped for, namely reaching new people in the Commonwealth.  Of the 63 people that attended my sessions, 67% were “new”, at least to me which means that I met for the first time a lot of faculty and staff that I would not have otherwise – or at least not for a very long while.  And in meeting these individuals, I discussed quite a few new ideas for projects, leaving each campus with at least one wholly new Media Commons collaboration.

I also had a chance to better experience campus culture during the MC 101 sessions.  Because the just-in-time nature of my past travel has me on campus for course times and then back on the road, there isn’t often much time to interact with clients and contacts in a more relaxed session.  This is especially true with campuses that bring me out for mostly evening classes.  As much as I enjoyed getting to learn about the community members at my campuses, they seemed to relish the opportunity to have me there long enough to really talk at some length about their courses, research, projects and plans.  In addition to follow up visits for new projects, my hope is that I can continue getting closer to these fascinating Penn State people by visiting each campus more often – and for longer periods of time, ideally on a regular schedule.

Looking at the evaluation data in full, it’s clear that the sessions were very well-received overall.  27 people (42%) responded to the survey sent at the end of each MC 101 and 21 of them felt that the Media Commons overview at the heart of the programming was Excellent (the other 5 found it Good – and one didn’t respond).  

Unsurprisingly, Refreshments scored very well across the board.  Organization was certainly the best rated logistical element of the MC 101 sessions that I coordinated with Pacing and Communications coming in a close second and third.  Venue was a mixed bag and I’m still trying to figure out what might be an ideal space.  While I prefer the round tables and gallery feel that made the Forum on Media + Gaming, it’s possible that trying to recreate this same atmosphere at all campuses is just not feasible.  Something to continue pondering as I look forward to August’s last two sessions at Beaver and Mont Alto.

Most importantly, most respondents found that MC 101 was Relevant to them professionally and even more thought that the session – and Media Commons – was Interesting.  All but one person would attend this event again or recommend it to a colleague.  (That one person simply prefers that the next session be something more in depth than MC 101 since they’ve already attended.)