Job Opening For Public Relations Associate

The Webb Center’s public relations team began in September of 2011. Over the past three years the young men on the crew have done an amazing job capturing photos and videos at hundreds of the 7,200 events that take place in the building each year. The position also requires the employees to promote mtvU and support their initiatives, collaborate with Webb Media Services and AxisTV initiatives, and write press releases about notable developments in The Webb Center. The Webb center stands at 183,404 sq. ft. with over 23 meeting rooms and roughly 70,000 people walking through the doors each week. Currently the Facebook page has 1,440 likes, the Twitter handle has 1,238 followers, the Tumblr account has 176 followers and the Youtube channel has 57 subscribers. The Public Relations Associates post a blog post on Blogspot every two weeks and have recently opened their doors to a Google+ page. The qualifications for this position include but are not limited to: knowledge of social media and mediated communication platforms, ability to interpret analytical data and continually improve outreach via the social media accounts, skillful writing abilities and familiarity with Associated Press style writing, and some experience with graphic design and video construction/editing. It is preferred that the applicant is a Junior pursuing a Marketing or Communication degree. If you are interested in joining the team please email a cover letter and resume to Wendell Cruz at wcruz@odu.edu.

Big Changes Are Happening In Webb Center!

Just in case you missed the big changes in the front lobby of Webb over the summer, head up there and take a look at things. The renovated space is more open and spacious. It even contains powered up furniture so you can charge your devices. The Future Monarchs have a beautiful new room to show off to prospective students. The summer was busy, busy, busy with that renovation and the one to the board room. I’m anxious to know what you think of the changes so please send me an email and let me know your thoughts. Webb Center is busier than ever this semester. During the opening week we had over 90,000 people come through the building. With all that traffic it is hard to keep things bright and shiny, but housekeeping strives to do just that. We have a special crew that comes in at 11 p.m. and works overnight so that when you come in the morning everything is clean. Our staff is proud of their work and anxious to hear any comments you might have. Also, the University’s Master Plan has been revealed. If you care about the future of the campus and Webb Center please try to attend one of the open sessions. They are advertised on the Master Plan web site: http://www.odu.edu/content/odu/about/planning/masterplan.html. This is a great way for you to be informed as well as to have input about the future of our campus.

By now, we're sure that everyone has had the opportunity to see the statue of our beloved Big Blue in the middle of Webb Center. What everyone did not get a chance to see was when Big Blue was brought in the night of September 26 for the midnight viewing so enjoy this picture of Big Blue being placed inside his new home.

Women's History Month -- Gretchen Edwards

March is National Women’s History Month and this year’s theme is “Women Inspiring Innovation through Imagination”. President Jimmy Carter designated the first Women’s History Week in 1980 because women’s contributions have often gone unnoticed or unrecorded. If you look through the history books you will find the stories to be mostly male dominated. A few women here and there have been celebrated for their accomplishments, but they are few and far between in our record books. This month reminds us to celebrate the achievements, leadership, courage, and strength of women. There are many ways celebrate Women’s History Month. Here are a few ideas: 1. Attend events hosted by the Women’s Center 3/27 – LUNAFEST Film Festival & Fundraiser 6:30 PM – Free cake reception with a Raffle for great local prizes 7:30 PM – Showtime University Theatre, 4600 Hampton Blvd. An evening of short films made by and about women. All proceeds will benefit The Breast Cancer Fund and the YWCA of South Hampton Roads. Participate in our raffle for prizes from La Herradura, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Starbucks, Village Bookstore, The Green Onion, TR Dance Studio, Massage Envy, The Space Above Yoga Studio, Norfolk Ice Cream Company and more! Raffle tickets will be sold during the reception for $1. Tickets for the event are $5 with ODU Student ID, $10 for general admission and $15 at the door. Tickets will be sold prior to the show at the Webb Center Information Desk. 3/28 – Feminist Activist Fair 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM North Mall, Webb Center Want to get involved? Stop by to learn about volunteer, internship, and employment opportunities with local organizations promoting social justice, equality and empowerment for women and girls. Co-sponsored with the Women’s Studies Department 3/28 – Women’s History Poetry Slam 7:00 PM Mills Godwin Building, Room 101 In honor of Women’s History, Black Student Alliance and the Women’s Center will be holding a Poetry Slam. Current ODU student poets are invited to write and perform an original piece on a topic relating to women’s history and women’s rights. The piece must be 3 to 5 minutes in length. A prize will be given to the best poets in first, second and third place. Entries must be submitted by March 21, 2013 via email to bsaodu@gmail.com. Please include your name and class standing. For more information, please contact, bsaodu@gmail.com 2. Check out online resources like the National Women’s History Project for information on women’s stories and accomplishments. http://www.nwhp.org/resourcecenter/index.php http://womenshistorymonth.gov/ 3. Talk to the women and girls in your lives about their achievements, encourage their hopes and dreams and thank them for the positive impact they have had on your life. 4. Volunteer with the Women’s Center! We’re always looking for students, both male and female, to get involved. For more information email womenctr@odu.edu . Happy Women’s History Month! ODU Women’s Center womenctr@odu.edu http://www.odu.edu/womenscenter Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr & Instagram @oduwomenscenter !

ODU CMC's Prepare For the Fair Coming Soon

Old Dominion University’s Career Management Center (CMC) host its most popular job fair both fall and spring semesters every academic year for its Monarchs. With every new fair CMC works around the clock to make the upcoming fair even more successful as the last. CMC staff utilizes every bit of student feedback when incorporate new ideas to keep the event a successful one but exciting as well. Prepare for the Fair has become a new tradition and great asset to Old Dominion University’s Career Fair. Prepare for the Fair is held the week before the date of the job fair. The title explains itself, when students come they get tips on hand shakes, practice their 30 second commercial and any questions they may have will be answered by CMC’s job coach professionals. The center of Prepare for the Fair is the Practice Room. Students are given the opportunity to utilize the Practice Room before and on the day of the career fair. The idea of the practice room is to prepare students for the talking and engagement portion with employers at the career fair. The room is set up right outside of the arena swarmed with cheerleaders and graduates in front of the door welcoming in the career fair attendees. Students are able to practice their 30 second commercial while getting the layout of the employers. In the room they are encouraged by career coaches to loosen up and ask questions. The room comes with staff assigned to help with handshakes, information for those international students who may have more of a challenge in landing a job, and a sectioned table with mints and water for students who may need a breath freshener and sip before starting. As mentioned before, the Career Management Center is constantly coming up with ways to improve the practice room and increase the number of attendees. The exciting new addition is the photo booth. The photo booth’s objective is to give a boost of confidence to those job seekers while aiding at loosening them up a bit. Students are encouraged to go through the check-in process, where CMC staff will greet them and answer any questions. Checking in also ensures that students are able to provide CMC with feedback of the event. Old Dominion University’s Career Management Center takes a lot of pride in getting students prepared for the fair. Prepare for the Fair will be held on March 21st 2013 in the North Mall of Webb Center from 10am until 2pm. Students are encouraged to come the way they would for the actual Career Fair which is the following week. Posted By Douglas Gray From The Old Dominion University Career Management Center. Be sure to check out http://www.oducmc.net/cmcnews/ and http://oducmc.net/cbpa/ for news on everything related to the ODU CMC.

Involve yourself!

Did you know that getting engaged in campus life is positively linked to better student success? These areas include effective reasoning and problem solving, leadership, well-being, and continuation towards completing your degree? What more incentive do you need to get involved? How about it’s also fun and a chance to make great new friends!

The Office of Student Activities and Leadership (OSAL) encourages each and every student to get engaged in some form of campus life. This can be through student organizations, living learning communities, Intramural sports, jobs on campus, study abroad, going to campus programs, or participating in service events. And these are just a few - there is so much to choose from at ODU! So my challenge to you is to Involve Yourself! And guess what? OSAL can help you accomplish that goal. Through our Involvement Counselor Program, you can meet with student involvement counselors who will help you get connected to what interests you on campus.

I want to also tell you about joining OrgSync and starting your co-curricular transcript. The Co-Curricular Transcript is similar to an academic transcript in that it is a historical listing of all the co-curricular activities a student participates in during college. It provides a supplement to your academic transcript that lists all your involvement, leadership, and service. This will help you remember all the activities that you did and also help you when job hunting. Your activities out of the class can help you land the job of your dreams!

So get out there and get involved. Join an organization, go to programs, participate in activities, volunteer, and be a leader. Create a co-curricular transcript. Become a success. You won't regret it! This article was written by, Nicole Kiger, the Director of Student Activities and Leadership.

Welcome Back!

Hello and Welcome Back, Monarchs!

We hope that you all have been settling and adjusting well into the frosty beginning of this semester. My name is Joseph Brundy and I am a junior and one half of the Public Relations team for Webb Center’s social media. Last semester, we made a large impact on the world of social media with our Facebook, tumblr, and BlogSpot postings, and we hope to leave an even bigger impression on the Old Dominion student body this semester. Surely by now, you all have seen us at all the events in Webb Center with a camera in-hand, ready to snap any picture and capture any video of students being students on campus. So before I go any further, I just would like to recap some of last semester’s events and changes in Webb Center.

            Last semester, Webb Center saw some major changes, most notably in House of Blue. Panda Express was opened in October and Subway brought major crowds, as well as the addition of Café Spice. There were plenty of events that occurred in Webb Center through student organizations, and we have compiled a video of all of these events in a video called “In Case You Missed It,” which will have a link provided for it at the end of this blog entry. So now that we have had all of these events, you might be wondering what’s next for us.

            This semester, we plan to capture more events and be more personable when doing so. So if you see any member of the team taking pictures, feel free to ask us to take a picture for your organization, a particular moment you want to capture, and anything else that might help us help you. One particular event that we are excited about is Colleges Against Cancer’s Relay For Life! We hope to see you all there, and at any other event that will be hosted in Webb Center this semester and all the semesters to come! If you have any requests for us to take pictures at any event your organization might be hosting in Webb Center, you can email me at Jbrun018@odu.edu and I will do my best to make sure we can cover it.

We hope everyone has a great and productive semester, and we look forward to seeing you all at any Webb Center event!

The link to the "In Case You Missed It" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7RkIdCJjR8

Joseph Brundy

Public Relations Associate

Old Dominion ‘14

Interacting With Our Community

"30% of the world's entire population is now online, and social networking is the most popular and time consuming online activity. 250 million tweets and 800 million Facebook status updates are now published every single day." (Thorhauge, 2012)

My name is Jake Maines and I am a currently a sophomore at Old Dominion University.  This semester I joined the public relations team at the Webb Center of Old Dominion University.  So far my experiences at this position have been great. When I began working at this position Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Blogspot had already been implemented.  We have begun taking steps to induce growth in the initial social media sites while still taking the time to research alternative ways to keep the ODU community informed of events going on in the Webb Center.  We have begun attending all major events in order to capture videos to upload to our new YouTube page.  Our public relations team has scripted a video tour of the Webb Center that we hope will generate interest in Webb Center’s services, events and social media.  The video is intended to inform and educate the Old Dominion community.  We hope that this video tour will also help to generate interest in Greek life and their events at our university.  As well as the video tour the YouTube channel will also be used to post videos of all events taking place in the Webb Center.

As for the future, our goal is to continue providing the Old Dominion University students, faculty and community with information regarding events being held in the living room of our campus as well as pictures and videos of all the outstanding times we have all had at Old Dominion University. We aim to continue the growth of Webb Center’s social media as much as possible by posting what the community would like to see.  Please aid our team by taking the time to interact with our social media pages, whether it is by liking our Facebook or writing a blog post for our BlogSpot, any support is appreciated.  If your organization is having an event on campus please notify our public relations team if you would like us to capture photos or videos of the event to post on our sites.  If you have already taken pictures of events in Webb Center please feel free to share them with the community on our social media pages.

Sources: Thorhauge, Stine. “How People Spend Their Time Online.” MindJumpers. Retrieved Nov. 29, 2012.http://www.mindjumpers.com/blog/2012/05/time-spend-online/