Universities Hiring Student Bloggers to Describe Life on Campus

Posted on January 15, 2006

A Chicago Tribune article says some universities have college students blogging about life at the school. The colleges are using the student bloggers as a marketing tool to help bring in new students. Some of the schools using blog posts by college students as a marketing tool include Colgate University (Hamilton, NY), Wofford College (Spartanburg, SC), University of Dayton (Dayton, Ohio) and Ball State University (Muncie, Ind.) At some of the colleges the Tribune article says the college bloggers are being paid.

Some bloggers are paid for posting their observations. At Wofford, for instance, student bloggers receive $25 per week. Allison Kretz, a sophomore at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, earns $500 per semester for being an online scribe. Colgate's Burnham, on the other hand, received no compensation.
Until the university approached her, Kretz had never considered becoming a blogger. "I had applied for a tour guide position, but I didn't get the job," she said. "But they had my references from professors." The recommendations, and her desire to share her college experiences with family and friends, made her an ideal blogger. "I've really fallen in love with the university, and it's a good way to let people at home know how I'm doing," Kretz said.

Tim O'Keeffe, director of Web content at Colgate, told the Tribune that he has not had to censor any of the blogs -- although he does advise them not to blog about subjects like partying ahead of time.

Bloggers don't rely on a set of rules or a handbook to guide them on the content of their posts. Instead, the universities rely on the students' good judgment. "As for the rules, we don't have formal written guidelines," said Colgate's O'Keeffe. "But I sit down with the students and have a good discussion about the university's expectations and goals. I let the students know we're not interested in posts about parties or trips to the local taverns."

Based on some of the comments elsewhere in the article it sounds like the colleges pre-screen carefully so they already have idea of what to expect from the college bloggers they choose. The end of the article includes links to the student blogs mentioned in the article including Allison Kretz's blog and the Colgate blog mentioned above. All of you college kids hanging on MySpace.com that enjoy blogging may want to take a look at the university job board and see if there are any blogger opportunities.