At the start of the 2016-17 year, the Hood College Graduate School proposed a new student-run marketing program, dubbed Graduate Student Ambassadors. The ambassadors would assist the Graduate School staff by representing Hood at a variety of events, managing Graduate School social media accounts, and posting graduate highlights on a variety of platforms. Close to 20 applications were received for this new position, and the top two applicants were offered an ambassador role, namely Oluwadamilola “Dami” Okuneye and Arzu Ozcan.
Both Arzu & Dami have become invaluable members of the graduate school team. Dami is a native of Nigeria and will complete his Master of Science in Information Technology in May. Arzu, a native of Turkey, completes her MBA studies this spring as well.
Recently, Dami and Arzu represented Hood at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools Annual meeting in Annapolis. They presented a poster that graphically demonstrated the impact made by their efforts to increase the Graduate School’s social media presence.
Arzu and Dami share their thoughts on attending the conference, their work as ambassadors, and the impact of social media…
Arzu: There was a great deal of interest in our poster. Attendees took notes about our model and took pictures to share with their committees to start similar “ambassador” programs in their institutions. They were inspired by the rapid impact of the “ambassador program” on increasing the Graduate School presence on social media.
Dami: April’s (Boulton, Hood’s Dean of the Graduate School) decision to register us for the conference was really great. Several people who stopped by our poster to chat seemed to get more interested when we introduced ourselves as ‘the ambassadors’. Many participants asked for suggestions on how they could use their social media platforms more effectively seeing we are increasingly doing that well here.
Arzu: It was an honor to be selected to represent Hood College at the conference with a real success story. The conference was a great opportunity for networking, and I enjoyed having a chance to review the success stories presented by other institutions and to meet and share experiences with graduate deans. Plus, Annapolis is a nice city!
Dami: I enjoyed the data presentation experience and networking at this event. I feel fortunate that I was able to visit the historic city of Annapolis as well.
