University Housing tries to be clever but fails big time.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php...13042308771994 (need to be signed into facebook to view the page..sorry) Did the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's division of Residential Life/Housing mess up here or were we being overly critical of the situation? In short, my dorm's staff (RD, RAs, MA) thought it'd be a clever idea to promote a marijuana awareness program by creating a facebook event page through their designated "Scott Hall" profile page. The title of the event was simply "Special Brownies" and the description was "Got the munchies? Well, come down to enjoy some 'special' brownies this Tuesday. Not only will they be tasty, but you'll get a little something more..." Obviously we were aware that residential staff would never promote any illegal activities but the ambiguity of it all combined with the fact that fellow residents were getting dismissed from the university for violation of the student conduct code (illegal substance abuse aka bud) got us pretty heated up about the situation. Resident life staff need to lead by example and nobody thought that this stunt was clever, funny, or appropriate. As of today, the title AND description were both edited, but for 15+ hours, the creator(s) left it as is and drew tons of criticism and controversy among residents and staff. In that 15+ hours, there were absolutely ZERO indication that this event was a marijuana awareness program. Anyone seeing this event page during that 15 hour span would have thought this was a complete joke. So my question is, were those of us who were opposed to the way in which the event was promoted overly critical or were we justified in thinking that it was inappropriate, insulting, and unacceptable for representatives of the university to be conducting university sponsored events in that manner? Let's hear some thoughts.

grow up

Originally Posted by Bhowie

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grow up

+grow up.

that said, I'm sure someone got their nose out of joint over it.

Waaaay over reacted.

Lets be honest, is there any better way to get stoners to come to an event about weed than suggesting that there might be weed?

Sounds like sensible marketing to me.

seeing is it is my tax dollars at work at UofI (my ex use to live in that hall), I dont like seeing anything that draws negative news and the organizer is an idiot who should have known better. end of story.

Originally Posted by Blackhood

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Waaaay over reacted. Lets be honest, is there any better way to get stoners to come to an event about weed than suggesting that there might be weed? Sounds like sensible marketing to me.
What is your definition of "sensible marketing"? This wasn't a program for stoners, it was a program to educate the residents about the "negative benefits of marijuana." The event page, when it first went "live", had absolutely ZERO indication that this was a university sponsored event besides the fact that the creator was "Scott Hall" Some of us even thought maybe the facebook page got hacked by a stoner and was a complete hack job but no, it was a housing sponsored event yet they failed to mention that. It was very ambiguous. I don't want to assume but did you guys get a chance to read through the comments? I know for a fact if a resident created an event page with "special brownies" as the title and the suggestive description, they would face university sanctions and reprimands. So what gives the RA's the right to violate the same student code conducts that would get any other resident kicked out?

So when we ran an ad campaign for a group who re-make and repair clothes based on the:

"Come get your kit off and have some fun" slogan we were in fact advocating premarital sex?

Last semester I advertised National Take A Hike day by having a friend lay underneath my car as if I'd run him down, in the middle of campus. He spent all day yelling "If you'd been on a ******* bike I could be in my lecture!" at people.

*Disclaimer* Yes, only the douchey "Green" groups pay me to advertise for them. No one else gives a damn.

I just read the page in more detail.

Your students need to lighten the **** up.

You smoke dope, you get kicked out. You talk about smoking dope, you are safe. End of.

you're not getting the point here. This is RESIDENTIAL STAFF, representatives of the UNIVERSITY creating pages that are suggestive of illegal activity, the same activities that gets students dismissed.

We are all adults here, there is no need for tacky gimmicks and misleading promotion to get people to come. If their program itself was something the residents thought useful, the residents would take time off their studying to come check it out. Even with the bad publicity this event generated, very very few people showed up for the program. It was for the most part the RA's eating brownies and handing out flyers

Originally Posted by Blackhood

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I just read the page in more detail. Your students need to lighten the **** up. You smoke dope, you get kicked out. You talk about smoking dope, you are safe. End of.
One resident last week got dismissed for marijuana charges. He made a mistake, took responsibility and accepted his consequences which was dismissal from university. The RA's post an event page which 1) had no indication that it was an educational program (albeit edited 15 hours later, which in my mind is just admitting their mistake and stupidity), 2) was suggestive of illegal consumption of marijuana and they don't have to face any consequences? Where is the accountability? It's highly hypocritical.

RA's are all dumb. It attracts the worst of the worst.

Originally Posted by sayocean

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One resident last week got dismissed for marijuana charges. He made a mistake, took responsibility and accepted his consequences which was dismissal from university. The RA's post an event page which 1) had no indication that it was an educational program (albeit edited 15 hours later, which in my mind is just admitting their mistake and stupidity), 2) was suggestive of illegal consumption of marijuana and they don't have to face any consequences? Where is the accountability? It's highly hypocritical.
Dismissal seems a high price, and I've never smoked anything whatsoever. I can't say I'm a big fan of zero-tolerance policies in general. On the other hand, at worst your RA's were merely talking about doing drugs, not actually doing anything illegal -- that's not illegal, right? It might be against policy, but is "talking about doing drugs" a dismissable offense? If it isn't, your ire is seriously misplaced -- focus it on the zero-tolerance policy, which is what I think you are really upset. I doubt if the RAs should escape all sanction, but a good dressing down would probably suffice. ~ H

Originally Posted by ku210

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RA's are all dumb. It attracts the worst of the worst.

Originally Posted by sayocean

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you're not getting the point here. This is RESIDENTIAL STAFF, representatives of the UNIVERSITY creating pages that are suggestive of illegal activity, the same activities that gets students dismissed.

Um, I was an RA.
And it was a pretty well-known "secret" that if you needed some weed you just needed some cash and the directions to my dorm room.

Originally Posted by sayocean

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you're not getting the point here. This is RESIDENTIAL STAFF, representatives of the UNIVERSITY creating pages that are suggestive of illegal activity, the same activities that gets students dismissed.

We are all adults here, there is no need for tacky gimmicks and misleading promotion to get people to come. If their program itself was something the residents thought useful, the residents would take time off their studying to come check it out. Even with the bad publicity this event generated, very very few people showed up for the program. It was for the most part the RA's eating brownies and handing out flyers

Maybe I'm being dumb here, but I can't see the problem.

If I killed someone I would go to prison.
If my friend says "I'm gonna kill you if you eat the last of my pizza" then he wont go to prison.

Also, your university is clearly different to mine, it would take quite considerable persuasion to get people from my halls of residency to an After School Special about smoking weed. And having thought about it, brownies may well be enough persuasion.

Now I'm just pissed that I haven't got any brownies. Well done. I hope you're happy.

Damn, dude, you're seriously overreacting here. And continuing to press your point in the face of general disinterest isn't going to get people to agree with you. Let it go; it was a dumb idea for promoting a program (as most ideas for promoting Res Life programs are) and now it's over. Move on with your life.