2018 Virtual Case Study (VCS) Scenario & Judging Criteria
CASE STUDY SCENARIO
Vice President of Student Affairs Albert Longbottom was dismayed. The previous evening a forum sponsored by a campus student organization had deteriorated into unprovoked outbursts, shouting from audience members, and even shoving matches within the crowd. The campus police had done their best handling the disturbance and, to their credit, dispersed the students and community members with no injuries or arrests. “What ever happened to civil discourse?” he muttered to himself. As he looked over the snow-laden campus, serene and beautiful in the early morning hours, he pondered what steps to take not to have a repeat of the previous night’s incident.
At that moment, the long-time administrator’s administrative assistant, Minerva Lockhart, entered the room and sensed the VP’s disquietude. “What’s the problem, Albus?”
“Oh, I’m just thinking about that ruckus at the Student Union,” he responded.
“That student group,” she hissed. “I can’t believe they invited that rabble rouser. He’s nothing but trouble.”
“Don’t blame the students,” he said. “They have their rights as a recognized campus organization. We can’t arbitrarily limit who they want to bring to campus.”
“I know,” she replied with a resigned look. “It’s just we’ve never had that type of problem before.”
“Times are a-changing.”
“I think Dylan wrote ‘The Times They Are A-Changin,” she beamed. Longbottom gave her a look. “So, what are you going to do?”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” he said. At that minute he snapped his fingers and went over to his desk and picked up the phone and punched in the Dean of Students’ private number. “Ron, this is Albert,” he said into the receiver. “How are you? Yeah, I know last night was a disaster. That’s why I’m calling. Next week we have our divisional staff training and Lily Wood had to back out of her presentation due to a family emergency. Do you think you could get a committee together to look at our guidelines for speakers and events that might be problematic? No, no I’m not looking to clamp down on free speech or put up unnecessary barriers for student groups wanting to invite outsiders, but I don’t think students or, for that matter, faculty and staff appreciate everything that must be done beforehand to ensure a smooth-running event and people’s safety. Great. You decide the composition and let them know what I want. Thanks.” Feeling satisfied, Longbottom went back to the picture window in his office to, once again, admire the newly fallen snow.
After getting off the phone with the Vice President, Dean Ronald Granger sketched out thoughts about the charge for the committee and began to put the group together.
NOTES
Your team is the committee. You are charged with creating an engaging and informative PowerPoint (or PDF) presentation (but not Prezi) that proposes guidelines for outside speakers/events. They should be between 15-25 slides/pages. For PPT you can use the notes section for pithy explanations. No dissertations in the notes section.
You are to reference what is currently being done at this fictional campus (you create what is currently in place), the changes you propose, and why.
CRITERIA
- practicality of approach
- innovation of approach
- organization of presentation
- rationalization for chosen responses
- usefulness of the information presented
POINTS TO REMEMBER
- Your group should utilize relevant student affairs literature, if appropriate, for the presentation.
- Utilization of outside sources, URLs, articles, etc. are encouraged, but cannot include input from individuals outside the team.
- Submissions should be well-thought out and organized.
- Submissions must be a self-contained PowerPoint file with a maximum size of 1.5MB. No submission will be accepted over this size limit.
- Please submit only one file per entry. All material to be considered by the judges must be contained in that file. This includes graphics, videos, etc.