Tired of the brown huts littered with flyers?
Students live in an increasingly paperless world, where homework assignments, schedules and even books are accessible at the click of a mouse. Students searching for the latest club meeting time or party information, however, still need to scan the local bulletin board. A Duke Student Government website called "The Kiosk" hopes to change all of that.
Club members and event organizers will now be able to save time and money usually spent posting pesky flyers around campus locations, many times only to have such announcements quickly torn down or covered up. Following the recent campus trend of paper-saving techniques, DSG is coming to students' aid by offering the chance to publish their flyers or announcements online.
To publish a flyer online, students simply need to e-mail a copy of it to The Kiosk by 5 p.m. Wednesday each week. With a two-day turnaround, DSG staff will post flyers online, where the public can view The Kiosk at www.dsg.duke.edu/kiosk.
DSG Executive Vice President Cliff Davison said last year, former DSG legislator Linda Arnade initiated the project in hopes of filling the void created by the flyer policy.
"[The flyering policy] really created a damper for student organizations to advertise cheaply," Davison said.
DSG officials also noted the various logistical and environmental benefits of the program.
"I really hope this will reduce all the paper that is printed out for flyers, because it keeps everything in a central place. It also will reduce the amount of work that the housekeeping staff has to do and provide an equal opportunity for people's flyers to be seen," said Eileen Kuo, director of internal computing for DSG.
Elizabeth Dixon, vice president of student affairs, is looking forward to adding and adapting the website to better serve students' needs.
"In the future we're looking to expand on this website and provide more services for students," she said.
Student group leaders are skeptical about the visibility that The Kiosk would provide, but remained hopeful.
"We definitely spend a lot of time and energy flyering," said Community Service Center Co-Director Tori Hogan. "We'll have to be certain that students will access the site, but overall we'd be more than happy to participate."
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