Audience
Students are the target audience of a green living program (GLP). While your GLP may address graduate students or students of various ages, the students who live in campus residence halls are most likely to be in their late teens or early twenties.
Here are a few things to consider when addressing college or university students as your main audience:
- Students often have vision, optimism and creativity, all of which can be tapped and spoken to.
- Students often have a sense of community responsibility, including a concern for both their local and global communities.
- Most young adults are very familiar with and reliant upon computer technology, such as email and the Internet.
- In academia, students are trained and expected to think critically and deconstruct problems. Be prepared to have hard facts and statistics to back up your claims.
Addressing Your Audience through GLP Student Leadership
While staff are essential for funding and supporting a GLP, the program's energy and creative force come from its student participants. A GLP must be managed in a way that is unique within the college or university context. Students must be given the freedom to design their work plans and determine methods for educating and engaging their peers. At the same time, staff partners must provide enough encouragement, advice and accountability to ensure that the program is staying on track with its purpose and goals.
The Harvard Green Campus Initiative (HGCI) achieves this fine balance by employing a program coordinator who recently graduated from the same student population the GLP is seeking to engage. The HGCI GLP also employs two student captains, each for 10 hours per week. These students are the critical link between the coordinator and the rest of the program's student employees and partners.
Finding You Have a Larger Audience through Student Involvement
While students living in campus dormitories are the main target audience of a GLP, you will probably find that your awareness-raising campaigns spread to other areas of the college or university because of the nature of campus communication. Students talk with professors, administrators, off-campus community members and parents on a daily basis. Your GLP campaigns will likely have a ripple effect by which you will educate many people outside of your target audience.