COMM 250

Commons Campaign

Nick Gilbert, Brandon Knoop, Meghan McGuigan-Sporkin

UNLConnect: A Proposal

            As students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, we have noticed that many of our classmates do not talk to one another before class and many people sit alone in the dining halls. In our project, tentatively titled UNLConnect, we would like to use a variety of methods to encourage interaction between students in an effort to improve the sense of community here on campus. In this project proposal, we will analyze the rhetorical situation, explain our project in terms of the rhetorical canons, and finally set up a timeline and group member roles.

The rhetorical exigence for our project is that we feel there is a lessened sense of community in UNL as we have noticed in each of our classes most people choose not interact with each other before class and instead are on their phones all the time. Additionally there are a lot of people who sit alone in the dining halls while eating, and we have noticed that there are no efforts made for others to sit with them and include them. Our rhetorical audience is the student community of UNL because our goal is for UNL to have a more united student population on campus. Some of the constraints we considered for our project is that some people will be too stuck in their ways to even attempt interacting with their peers and other people will be to shy to consider talking to a complete stranger. The opportunities for our project to succeed is that a lot of people on our campus are open-minded and social and would be up for the challenge of interacting with their peers especially if one of the outcomes is that they would make new friends. Our goal for this project is to make UNL a more unified campus and get the student body as a whole to engage with one another more rather than relying on strictly their phones and social media for their socialization.

            In terms of invention, our project requires us to find the appropriate argument to convince our audience of college students to improve the community through being more social before class and in the dining halls. We decided that the best combination of pathos, ethos, and logos for our situation entailed briefly describing how our project benefits our audience (logos and pathos) and telling them honestly why we are doing it (ethos). In terms of arrangement, when we speak to our classmates we will first describe what we are doing (and want them to do), then how it benefits them, and finally why we are doing. In terms of memory, we will have to know the details of our project, but more information will be available on our UNLConnect Facebook, Twitter, and website. Delivery and style will be integral to our success because if we are to be successful we need people to remember our project and then participate. Therefore we will want exhibit the traits associated with good speakers including clear, loud, and dynamic voice and maintaining eye contact. The online parts of our project will all reflect the rhetorical canons in the appropriate way for the medium.

            Our timeline and group roles are as follows:

·       March 2: Create UNLConnect Twitter, Facebook, and Website page

·       March 9: through April 5 Campaign: We will tell classes, clubs, halls/floors, and friends about our project and actively participate on our social media pages

·       April 13: Poll classmates on success of our campaign and prepare portofolio

·       April 20: Prepare presentation

·       April 27-May 3: Present our project to the class

·       Brandon: administer Facebook page, polling, campaign

·       Nick: administer Twitter account, prepare presentation, campaign

·       Meghan: administer website, prepare portfolio, campaign