Students with questions about the University of Alabama’s home football games will have the chance to get answers tonight via a teleforum hosted by the ACTion Card Office.
“Teleforum is a new format using technology to have a telephone town hall meeting,” Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Molly Lawrence said. “This will be the University’s first teleforum.”
Jeanine Brooks, director of the ACTion Card Office, said her department has been working with UA Athletics, the Student Government Association and Student Affairs to put the teleforum together.
Brooks said all enrolled students should have received a call Sept. 8, briefly explaining the concept and giving students the opportunity to decline participation. Students should also expect a call a few minutes before the 7 p.m. teleforum on tonight, she said.
Callers will be able to submit questions that will be presented to a panel, Brooks said. The panel will then choose which questions to answer based on how many times the question is asked.
“It’s like a radio call-in show but you’re doing it through your telephone,” Brooks said.
A fact sheet Lawrence submitted to The Crimson White said the ACTion Card Office will be available to comment on student tickets, ACTion cards, Bama Cash and gameday merchandise. The Athletics Department will answer questions about entrances, opening times, restricted items and seating. Student Affairs and the SGA will comment on the rules of block seating and the High Tide Club.
“We saw the product demoed and we thought it was a good fit to go with Get In The Game,” Brooks said.
Get In The Game, a gameday awareness program, is in its second year at the University. The purpose of the program is to provide students with all the information they need regarding game days.
Andrew Hutto, a senior majoring in history, said he had not heard of the teleforum but is supportive of the idea.
“As far as providing an outlet to students so that they can get their questions answered, maybe there’s a better way to do things, but it sounds at least like they’re trying,” he said.
“For me, I’ve never had any problems finding out information or anything like that,” Hutto said. “I don’t think this is a bad idea, it just kind of seems like an extra precaution.”
Lawrence said it was reasonable that few students were aware of the teleforum because the arrangements were finalized Sept. 3—less than a week before the event.
“It came up really, really quickly and we just got the contract signed the Friday before Labor Day, so we’re moving really fast,” she said. “We didn’t want to outrun our headlights and not be able to back up our offer.”
If the program runs smoothly and the University considers it a success, it will be used in the future, Lawrence said.
“This is our pilot,” she said. “We want to see how this works.”
