The Mizzou J-School “Calendar” Needs Some, You Know, Events (Updated)

The University of Missouri journalism school’s new website launched recently, and its quite an improvement over the old one. Its interface is much more user-friendly, and is just more aesthetically pleasing, since it no longer looks like a beginner’s HTML experiment.

However, one part of the website in particular that needs a lot of work is the “Calendar” section of the site, since it has no events listed. Oh wait, I’m sorry, there are three events: Spring Commencement, Winter Commencement and next year’s Spring Commencement.

Really, guys? Mizzou J-Schoolers deserve better.

I understand that there are emails upon emails sent out on a daily basis to the J-School listserv, but shouldn’t the actual website of the Missouri School of Journalism have a one-stop-shop for events and announcements in the J-School? The only “News and Events” I see are simple posts that recap what has already happened.

Since Mizzou’s J-School is not even trying to improve its Facebook page because it is concentrating all of its energy on the new website, we have to think improving this calendar is the sort of thing that will get a high priority.

With a J-School like Mizzou’s that has so many amazing things happening on a daily basis (POYi, anyone?), it should be a given that they keep their calendar up-to-date with things that are relevant and useful for Mizzou J-Schoolers.

Even RJI has a solid website, with useful information, an attractive interface and (brace yourselves) an events calendar with events that are happening in the future. Quite the concept.

We reached out to Suzette Heiman for comment, and she gave us this response:

The events calendar on the school’s website is available to faculty and staff who wish to post a school-sponsored item. Historically, though, they have used Listservs to let others know about upcoming speakers and the like because they are a quick and efficient way to reach those most likely to be interested in their events and activities. These group email lists also help ensure the same audiences receive any updates to the original information, such as a change in the time, day or place or a cancellation.

This is a fair point to make, but faculty and staff should still probably try to utilize this feature of the site. It allows students to have a single place to rely on with keeping track of all of their news and updates rather than having to sort through 20 emails a day.

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