Teenage Independence

Teenage Independence

By Sheila Frazier

Whether you are aware of it or not, there are many independent and homeless teenagers in this country. Norman, Oklahoma, is one such place. But unlike other places, Norman has decided to do something about it.

Bridges, former known as Independent Living Services for Youth (ILSY), is the only regional organization to assist independent teenagers in high school.

Any high school student in the Norman area (attending Norman High School or Norman North High School) that has had some kind of crisis and is forced to live on their own can benefit from the program. Bridges houses students and assists students that live on their own elsewhere.

This is no cake walk, however. The students in the program are required to pay rent and utilities, along with keeping their grades up and staying out of trouble. Bridges works to give students a second chance to succeed in education. Bridges also assists students after high school, by helping them find jobs or attend college. Career coaching and other incentives are offered as well. Bridges strives to maintain secrecy of all students in the program for the students' protection.

Bridges has just recently undergone a name change. Right now the organization is working to promote its new name to the public. An event will be hosted in April to launch the new name to the media and the public.

Yearbooks - Has the Ship Sailed?

Yearbooks – Has the Ship Sailed?
Ashlie Clay

We have all spent hours perusing through our parents’ and grandparents’ yearbooks – laughing at their style of dress, big hair and even bigger glasses. We have anxiously awaited the day when our BFFs could tag all of our inside jokes on the inside cover or the high school heart throb declare "have a great summer" next to his picture with the football team. But in a society where technology and immediate gratification reign supreme, is the yearbook in the traditional sense, still a coveted keepsake to occupy our shelves?

This is the dilemma my group is facing with our client Sooner, the OU yearbook. With the creation of Crimson Traditions, a freshman only yearbook included in Camp Crimson fees, Sooner became a “senior only” book; problem being that seniors are not buying the book that has been largely created and customized for this specific audience. Many students are not even aware that OU has a yearbook, let alone know where to purchase one or are even familiar with the content.

Seniors spend three years at OU as freshman, sophomores and juniors without even so much as a peep from Sooner. So when senior year roles around, they are bombarded with mass emails about graduation photos, Sooner Shots and this elusive “must-have” tradition. But how can you expect a senior class to care about a book that has blatantly ignored them for the majority of their college career?

Facebook and MySpace present even more challenges to an already apathetic fan base. With real-time results and customization capabilities that expand beyond just the University, these new high-tech social networks could quite possibly be the demise of college yearbooks. So the dilemma becomes the choice between acquiescing to technology and convenience or re-affirming the value in tradition and nostalgia. This inevitably forces those few collegiate yearbooks still in print to find creative means of marketing and design to re-capture their target audience and revive this time-old tradition.

Additional Sources:

Friendless Facebook like Yearbook without Signatures

Bringing Back the Yearbook

Trends Conspire Against Yearbook

Live! Laugh! Love! Memories at the University of Oklahoma

Live! Laugh! Love! Memories at the University of Oklahoma

How will you remember your college experience: the joy of being accepted into the university; the winning football game; invaluable time spent with friends or the memorable ice storm? If you are a sentimental person, you probably want to have something that will capture the essence of your time here.

Innovative PR, a student group in Public Relations campaigns, took on the task of generating the importance of nostalgia. Lori Brooks, Sooner Yearbook advisor, and her staff are concerned that the typical way of storing your memories, having a yearbook, is dissipating.

Sooner Yearbook is not alone in this fear. In fact, several prestigious yearbooks are dissolving. In fact, the University of Oklahoma’s rival, University of Texas, has continued to wrestle with external factors against its yearbook, The Cactus.

The external factors that are battling with these issues are: Facebook and MySpace. These social networks allow their audience to feel an instant connection to each other.

According to Jeff Macintyre, “They meticulously broadcast all manner of hopes, dreams, and whims. Testimonials for friends and crushworthy strangers abound.” The article goes on to say that yearbooks allow people to find out what others thought of them. These social networks just do that in a more instantaneous manner.

So if technical social networks are more popular than the traditional annual, why should students buy them? According to LeeAnne Harker and Darcher Keltner in their study of Expressions of Positive Emotion in Women's College Yearbook Pictures and Their Relationship to Personality and Life Outcomes Across Adulthood, suggest positive images of oneself can be linked to positive thoughts of yearbook photos several years later. If that is the case, it is our duty to express the importance of nostalgia among college students. Perhaps if students feel invested in their college yearbook they will be more apt to purchase it.

In our quest to promote nostalgia, we are attempting to promote a positive behavior and attitudes towards the yearbook. The research rendered that Sooner is statistically not perceived well. It is our hope that we express that individual students can collectively save the yearbook, while retaining a piece of their history. We have crafted our campaign based on primary and secondary research. The bulk of our campaign will occur on April 5 and April 7.

Norman Organization to Implement Name Change

Norman Organization to Implement Name Change
By Sally Swafford What’s the name again? What does it mean? Is it a cow? Isn’t that some sort of dairy product? These questions, along with many others are asked when the name “ILSY” comes to mind. Independent Living Services for Youth is far from being a dairy manufacturer.

ILSY serves as one of the few organizations that houses high school students. Many have lost their homes due to different circumstances, whether it is abuse or simply turning into a legal adult and being kicked out of the house by their parents. About half of the 200 students involved in the organization have the opportunity to live in the apartments, which are owned by ILSY. The other students are given the assistance of finding homes and managing their finances. Through ILSY, many students can find a positive influence or mentor, which may be lacking in their lives.

The story of ILSY begins in the early 1990s with a few high school counselors. Noticing many students could not attend school without a parent signature, the issue of homeless high school students was brought to their attention. These counselors, and many other passionate volunteers helped get the OU School of Social Work helping with this case. Though this organization may be striving in many ways, it is certainly lacking in one major area: its name. Many people when hearing its acronym don’t immediately know what the organization does. The name isn’t catchy and is often confused with the Department of Human Services, which is government funded. ILSY, on the other hand gains its funding from the United Way of Norman and other independent donors such as churches and families.

"OU Nightly:" Promoting news consumption to children

"OU Nightly:" Promoting news consumption to children
By Annie Bowen

Situated at the end of a long hallway in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma students work diligently for hours each weekday to produce the nightly news broadcast “OU Nightly.”

“OU Nightly” covers news and events relevant to the OU campus and Norman area, as well as national news and weather. Despite the specific focus on the OU and Norman communities, however, many students and Norman residents are unaware of its existence and/or details about the program, such as when it airs.

One of the publics we are targeting in our campaign to promote “OU Nightly” is Norman parents of elementary-aged children. We plan to publicize the general details of “OU Nightly,” while also relaying the idea that “OU Nightly” is concerned with Norman children and the community.

The main messaging and strategy we developed for this public is a focus on encouraging children to begin to follow the news at an early age, and educating parents about how to speak with their children about the news.

We found a considerable amount of research about the media consumption habits of children and young people. For example, a 2007 Pew Research Center study found that close to 61% of parents (with children in kindergarten through senior year of high school) encourage their children to consume news content, such as reading the newspaper or watching the news. Despite this, however, only 6% of children currently follow news about national and international issues very closely. In fact, “the vast majority don't follow the news too closely or at all.” Other studies also indicate that fewer young people are watching the television.

Further, we found that parents are seeking guidance in regard to how to dialogue with children about the violence they witness on the news each night. As part of our campaign, we will provide sources like the PBS Web site that contain information about how to speak openly with children about events on the news.

Overall, we reasoned that, through a relationship centered around their children, we could provide Norman parents with useful information about news consumption, encourage a new generation of media consumers and also promote our client to its target publics.

Image available at http://jmc.ou.edu/Pulse/broadcast_students.html

Independent Living Services in Need for a Change

Independent Living Services in Need for a Change

Morgan Byram

Norman Oklahoma's Independent Living Services for the Youth program, (ILSY) created in the early 1900s strives to "empower high school students in family crisis to pursue education without obstacles," as acknowledged by their mission statement. ILSY is funded by rental income, grants, donations, and United Way of Norman. ILSY provides services for around 110 students per year, and houses 20 students per semester.

Team Purple has conducted research and analyzed current data on independent living services throughout the United States and looked into organizations like ILSY in the Oklahoma community. Many current independent living services throughout the U.S., focus more on disabled or juvenile delinquent youth. There is not a lot of websites or articles that directly pertain to the ILSY organization. We found from online resources, the homeless population of teens is often overlooked. One program, the CHRIS Kids organization focused on foster care and juvenile systems, but did provide supervised housing like ILSY currently does. Another program found in the area is, The University of Oklahoma National Resource Center for Youth Services works with the Oklahoma Department for Human Services, Children and Family Division providing assistance to youth, foster parents, and also child welfare workers. The program works to promote planning of youth's future, but does not have the same offerings as ILSY. From our background research we came to a consensus of the increased need for awareness of youth services. Many of the organizations are not highly recognized because of their security issues and also attitudes and behavior of the community towards independent living youth organizations.

We received a triangulation of data by performing an observation, survey and a focus group of our internal publics of the ILSY organization: alumni, students, board members, staff and volunteers. We found the need for a new name allowing ILSY to be acknowledged more in the surrounding area. From our survey we found the need for a catchy name that did not necessarily state what the organization was in the name. We also held a focus group with our internal publics, and received similar results and name suggestions for the organization. 

Team Purple wants to increase the overall awareness of the current ILSY organization and help the organization obtain a new name. We want to promote a positive image and create excitement and optimistic attitudes internally throughout the organization on the new changes being made. From our research, I feel certain that a new name will help ILSY grow into one of the top independent living services in the community. The increase in awareness at the end of our campaign will generate an increase in volunteers and donation and hep gain positive news in the media. Awareness events I feel are a key element to a successful business. 

Independent Living Services-http://www.indliving.org

CHS- Corporation for Supportive Housing - http://www.chs.org

CHRIS Kids- http://www.chriskids.org/programsilp.html

NRCYS- http://nrcys.ou.edu/programs/okil.shtml

OAYS- http://www.oays.org

Morgan Byram