Bulletin boards. They always just appear, but how much time and effort really go into them? I mean it’s just a bunch of paper stapled to a wall, right? Well there is much more to it than that. As a Gryphon, I have had to develop quite a few bulletin boards based on a curriculum given to me by the Office of Residence Life (ORL). Yes that’s right, your Gryphons have a curriculum for your residence halls. Each bulletin board I hang up has to fit into what the ORL wants me to do.
At the beginning of this semester, I had to create a bulletin board all about “SMART goals.” I was given a website that explained the acronym and I had to build a board based on that. Now, I could have just copied and pasted the information onto some paper and hung it up, but I took the time to understand the information I needed to share so that I could create a decent bulletin board. I had to be creative in how I wanted to convey the information, so I provided my own examples and wrote important words in green so that my residents knew they were important. By doing these things, I was able to create a somewhat interesting bulletin board for a pretty boring topic.
My newest bulletin board had to fit under the “Creative Curiosity” category. You may recognize that as one of the 5 Foundations of Success that has been drilled into your head since orientation. Being a Bethlehem native, I always want to share my town with others, so I decided to make my bulletin board all about Bethlehem. But how did I want to do this? Well, I’m always watching Netflix, so one day I had my show paused and I glanced at the “pause” screen and… that was it! The screen was the perfect blend of information and image, so I decided to make a Netflix-like board and model my information after that pause screen. I titled the board “Now Trending in Bethlehem” and chose 10 places that are worth checking out on both the North and South sides of Bethlehem.
Creating bulletin boards can be quite the process. Sometimes you are given specific instructions and other times you are given the freedom to do whatever you want. I personally love creating bulletin boards; I find it to be a good challenge for my creative mind. I have yet to use Pinterest for a bulletin board idea; I want to keep my ideas totally original. Who knows, maybe a Netflix board already exists, but maybe I’m the first one to create one like this. I have even considered posting my ideas to Pinterest to share with others, but I’m still working up to that. – Amie Januszkiewicz
