Things to Know: Student E-Newsletter
Overview and Best Practices
Overview
The Student E-Newsletter, “Things to Know,” is a weekly e-newsletter distributed to all students on Monday mornings. This newsletter serves as an important communication tool for current students, informing them of relevant events, key dates, and initiatives. The newsletter will provide more opportunities for students to get involved, access resources, and ultimately, be more successful during their time at Brockport.
Process
Content for the newsletter will be sourced directly from LiveWhale story items and events. In order for the content to appear in the newsletter, a LiveWhale representative from each department can suggest items in their department’s group to the Things to Know group. University Communications will curate newsletter content from the Things to Know group to run in each week’s newsletter based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to: relevance to a broad student audience, timeliness of the submission, timeliness of the event or initiative, and quality of the content (i.e. features an appropriate description that contains all relevant information). Student feedback has indicated the need to keep this newsletter brief, therefore not all suggested items will be selected for publication.
Questions about Things to Know can be directed to Darcy Porter at dporter@brockport.edu.
Content Guidelines
Content for Things to Know must adhere to the following guidelines:
Audience
News items & events must be relevant to a broad student audience. News items or events that are major-specific, program-specific, or are not open to a large population of the student body, may not run in the newsletter.
- Please keep in mind that the Things to Know e-newsletter is not replacing departmental newsletters or targeted emails to intended students. Content that is specific to your subject matter should and can continue to be sent from your office.
Quality
Submissions must be written professionally and soundly. Please check for use of proper grammar, spelling, and readability. University Communications reserves the right to edit all news items and events for use in the newsletter. Submissions should contain all relevant information.
Length
News items must be limited to 200 characters, to ensure brevity and readability for students. Expanded information may be included as a hyperlink to the full item on the website.
Content Types
PDFs and event flyers will not be included in the newsletter to ensure accessibility. Please do not submit PDFs or event flyers with your items in the Student Newsletter group. These are not accessible or sufficient for this purpose, and will be denied.
Submission Window
Items must be submitted to the Things to Know group in LiveWhale by 4pm on Thursday for the following week’s newsletter.
Submitting Events
Best Practices for Events
Make sure the title of the event is clear and concise
Given the design of the newsletter, only the event title, date & time will be shown. Event summaries will not be included in the newsletter. Thus, it is imperative that event titles are written with a student audience in mind, are concise, and free of spelling & grammatical errors.
Suggest top-level, high-profile events
“Things to Know” is a platform for the entire University to share information with students. In an effort to make the newsletter most useful for students, it will be concise. Only the events that are applicable to a broad audience and contain clear and compelling information and descriptions will be shared. Sharing your event to the Things to Know group does not guarantee it will run in the newsletter.
Submitting News Items/Things to Know
Best Practices for Things to Know
Story Headlines
Headlines should be written with a student audience in mind. When writing your headline, keep in mind that it will be framed as a “Thing to Know” in the newsletter, and should be written as a complete sentence whenever possible. Calls to action and engaging verbiage (apply, learn, enroll, register, interested in) are encouraged. Headlines can be a maximum of 75 characters.
Examples:
- “Interested in living in the Student Townhomes next semester?”
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“Enroll in a payment plan for your student account balance”
- “It’s Romance Responsibility Month”
Summaries
Summaries should be written with a student audience in mind. Provide context for what your item is about and include the most important pieces of information. Summaries can be a maximum of 100 characters.
Examples:
- “The deadline to apply for the townhomes is February 5.”
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“Do you still owe money for this semester? Did you know you can break it into two payments?”
- “Learn about how to foster healthy relationships, and the signs to identify unhealthy ones.”
Story Body
Use this section to provide the full details for your item. Think: who, what, when, where, why. This content will be available to students when they click the link for your item in the newsletter.
Additional Information
Be sure to enter in contact information, related links, and any other relevant info when creating the story entry. The more information that can be provided for students, the better!