These days it seems that everyone is communicating through technology; even President Ohle has his own Twitter account. Keeping up with this widespread, rapidly growing trend in the fall of 2007, the Gustavus Student Senate created a website called GACspot, with the intention of being able to keep students informed about what is currently going on with the Student Senate as well as the campus at large.

This website also provides links to the Gustavian Weekly, state and national news. Within the next couple of weeks, GACspot will be adding a new feature that will allow the leaders of student organizations to post information on the website in a blog format as well as create their own websites for their organizations.

“[Student Senate] wanted GACspot to be more of a resource for students and organizations. This way students just have one spot to go to get information,” Senior Computer Science Major Kevin Seitz said.  Seitz also mentioned that this project was inspired by looking at student organizations’ websites at other colleges. “Many [organizations] don’t have people managing their websites, so by using this program we can have any organization post information and pictures,” Seitz said.

“I think it’s a necessary step for GACspot to become a functional website. With a blog design it will make organizations more interactive on an easier level, and more customization really gives them the ability to advertise things and keep them current,” Co-President of Student Senate Derek Holm said.

The Senate is still working on informing the leaders of student organizations directly and giving them access to the program with which they can create the blogs.  “What’s important to know is it’s going to be more user-friendly. If you’ve written on a Facebook wall, you can use this,” Holm said.

This addition will also give organizations more control over what they advertise to the student body. Holm used the example, “If a fraternity is holding a fundraiser at Patty’s … obviously they can’t advertise that around campus because of the alcohol, but they could by using GACspot.“

Because the Student Senate is not under the College’s control, GACspot is free from restrictions that would apply to on campus advertisements. “It will be good to publicize events and to let people know what’s going on,” Co-President of the College Democrats Drew Ajer said.

GACspot is already a resource for students, and the inclusion of student organizations in blogging and promoting different events will enhance the effectiveness of the website in keeping students updated with the many events that take place on and around the Gustavus campus. To check out this website for yourself, log onto www.gacspot.com and watch for the new student organizations’ posts in the coming weeks.