Wayne State College Relations has been busy promoting “Student Spotlight” stories on several platforms, including the Wayne State College website, Facebook, Instagram and X.
These stories have given students a chance to share their stories of what they’ve been up to and how they’ve gotten to where they are now.
Jay Collier, College Relations Director, and Barry Dahlkoetter, public relations specialist, explained how they share these students’ stories.
The first step in their process is to find a student to interview. Many different ideas are at play as they try to find students from different schools or backgrounds. If an event is happening on campus, the team tries to find a student involved with that event.
“It’s just a variety of ways, but our thought is that you guys have a story that’s worth telling,” Collier said.
Collier and Dahlkoetter take recommendations of students from the dean and professors, and sometimes Dahlkoetter meets students when he’s out for a photoshoot. The Relations Office tries to pick a variety of students so that a wide variety of stories can be shared.
“You know, we’re not running around trying to pick the smartest or anything like that,” Collier said. “What we’re looking for is normal Wayne State students.”
During the interview process, Dahlkoetter has a list of basic questions for each student, such as where they’re from and why they chose Wayne State, but ultimately, he lets the students share their stories openly.
“I ask everybody ‘What’s something that influenced you?’” Dahlkoetter said. He finds that a lot of the students here have been influenced by family members. “It’s a lot of ‘My parents went to school here.’”
Each story is different because each student has a different story to tell.
Student Spotlight stories are posted once a week. Each week, Dahlkoetter interviews a new student, and he’s always looking for students for his next story.
“I always like to have next week’s person identified,” said Dahlkoetter.
As a Wayne State alum, Dahlkoetter sees the importance of sharing the stories of Wayne State students.
Student Spotlight stories are posted every week on the college website, Facebook, Instagram, and X. Readers can visit those platforms to learn more about the students on the Wayne State campus and what they’ve been up to.