Are Bulletin Boards a Thing of the Past?

Each year technology resources are increasing, constantly changing our forms of communication. Facebooks and email accounts are bombarded messages leaving students no choice but to disregard them all. It is very difficult to get your message out to the students here at UT. Living in a generation where your emails are sent to you instantaneously, some wonder why keep around outdated resources, such as bulletin boards.


There currently are over 400 million active users on facebook. Over 50 percent of these users login daily to check their profiles. This easily accessibility site is where students go to gain information about everything, from school assignments to the best place to go out that night. Senior, Casey Harvey said she checks hers about 20 times a day. She prefers how Facebook information is updated every minute. Sometimes those bulletin boards have things weeks after they happened and serve no relevance.

Walking around the buildings at UT you can help your head turning and the signs posted all around campus. Everything from houses for rent to philanthropy events within the community are plastered on our walls.

The University of Tampa emails a weekly update to all the students informing them of future events going on around campus. “I personally think the kids at UT delete those emails. All students are busy and they have short attention spans,” said Kayla Shaffer, a performing arts junior. She explains how it is easier to get the message across through flyers about her dance and theater performances. “If you tell them our performance is a week in advance there is not a chance they will come.”

Not just anything is allowed to be posted up around campus. UT has a Policy where OSLE must stamp and approve all flyers before putting them up. This is to help ensure to keep postings up to date and appropriate.

“Bulletin boards are the only way I get any information on campus,” said junior, Kate Velinsky. In the education department she has found the wall postings to be extremely informative.

Bulletin boards do not only work for getting out school information. Junior, Jennifer Caputo was looking for housing in the Tampa area with her friend for the summer. After weeks searching the internet trying to find a place she said she could not find anything that fit her requirements. That was until she saw a flyer in Vaughn center. This low rent all inclusive house instantly caught her eye. One week after quick tour of the house, she signed the lease.

One set of students around campus that are not shy to bulletin boards are the RAs. They are required to change their resident hall boards’ monthly Stadium RA Kara Wall said this is pretty much a waste of time. She feels it is unnecessary to spend up to four hours working on something that ultimately is mainly used a wall decoration. The kids only look at them is when they are fun, rather than when they are informative.

“Positioning is key to generate a good response to your flyers,” said Kirk Hansen. Placing a flyer in a dormitory is guaranteed to generate a response. You can be assured those messages will be read when placed by the elevators. Students have short attention spans and are always looking to be entertained.

Although times are changing, and technological communication opportunities growing, it looks like the college bulletin board is here to stay.