Creating campus media

Calling all media coordinators! Carolyn Molloy and Josh Cochran want to connect with you. They’re media coordinators for their InterVarsity chapters who recently got together to talk about their leadership roles. Join their conversation… .

Josh and Carolyn were summer interns for 2100 Productions, InterVarsity’s multimedia department. As media interns, they created a musical recruiting video for intern applicants. Take their frolicking studio tour of 2100 Productions!

Carolyn is a fine arts major studying acting at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). Josh is a media and communications student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

We asked Carolyn and Josh to talk about their opportunities and challenges as a media point person in their campus group.

Here’s what they had to say:

What’s a chapter media coordinator to do? from StudentSoul on Vimeo.

StudentSoul.org: Why is your leadership role as a media coordinator important in your chapter?

Josh: Videos and other media are really important for chapters because colleges are so media-driven. Having media in InterVarsity chapters is a really effective and powerful way to communicate.

Carolyn: Sometimes there is almost too much emphasis placed on media and drama. It’s important to take it seriously and do it excellently because of the culture we live in. We’re used to seeing excellent media. You should always do the best you can do and use your resources to the best of your ability so it can speak to the masses. But you have to remember that ultimately it’s God speaking. I think media and drama are more of a platform. That’s not what is going to change people’s hearts; God is going to change people’s hearts. But it’s our way of evangelizing through media and drama. It’s a highly effective way of evangelizing, but ultimately it’s God’s work.

Josh: I think that’s really important because it’s really easy to get lost in the technical part of the production. If the message isn’t there, then there is no point in doing it.

StudentSoul.org: How do you use print materials in your chapter?

Josh: For our highly-publicized events, such as New Student Outreach, we use some of the poster templates that InterVarsity has created. They look great and work well.

Carolyn: Our chapter uses printed materials for New Student Outreach and “I Am Here” follow-up cards in our large-group meetings. Other than that, we promote everything through Facebook.

StudentSoul.org: How do you involve other people in your media team?

Carolyn: It’s important to get to know the people in your chapter and know the resources around you. I learned this the hard way when I was doing a man-on-the-street interview video around our campus in Chicago, asking people, “What are you passionate about that you love to share with others?” Our chapter loved it and related to it well because we were talking about evangelism. It raised a lot of questions in their hearts, and there was good dialogue after the video.

But during the middle of it, a film major in our chapter was sitting in front of me and he turned around, looked at me and just shook his head. I felt terrible. He said, “Carolyn, I have resources that you can use. This is what I’m studying. I’m good at this. These are my gifts that God has given me to serve with, so you need to make sure you seek me out and ask for help.” I didn’t do that, so that was something I definitely learned. You can make more effective media when you let it be a collaboration and group art.

StudentSoul.org: How does your chapter use social networking?

Carolyn: My chapter uses Facebook for events and reminders about meetings. Facebook also helps us send out prayer requests, information about informal get-togethers, encouraging messages, etc. Now, it seems, events can’t get off the ground without Facebook. Our chapter uses Twitter, but we don’t find it to be as successful in getting the word out for events and meetings. I sometimes use YouTube to find videos that I think would be relevant for a large-group meeting topic. It is also a great source to see what other chapters are doing around the country because a lot of chapters upload videos onto Youtube that they make for events and announcements.

Josh: We’re both very new at being media coordinators and so we’re looking for input and ways to connect with other media coordinators around the country. So if you have any great ideas or want to talk about what things you do in your chapter, we’d love to hear from you.

—Josh Cochran and Carolyn Molloy

For more information about internship opportunities, see Josh and Carolyn’s video tour of the studios of 2100 Productions, InterVarsity multimedia department.