Carleton students concerned with campus issues hijacked the university’s new social media public awareness campaign via Twitter on Oct 15.
The campaign, called “Distinctly Carleton” highlights accomplished Carleton alumni, including CBC foreign correspondent Nahlah Ayed and Canada Research Chair Winnie Ye, to celebrate the school’s upcoming 75th anniversary in 2017.
Members of union CUPE 4600 and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) took the lead on the barrage of angry tweets that use the hashtag #DistinctlyCarleton.
The hundreds of negative tweets quickly outnumbered the original intended message of the hashtag campaign and flooded Twitter with complaints about tuition, senior administrators, and working conditions on campus.
The GSA tweeted: “Our struggles are real, and they are not #DistinctlyCarleton. Let’s work to protect student union autonomy and the right to organize #fcee14.”
“It’s #distinctlycarleton to sit on hundreds of millions of dollars while raising tuition and stealing student union money for scholarships,” Sam Heaton tweeted.
Steven Reid, Carleton’s media relations officer, said the Twitter hashtag was only one part of the campaign.
“Although it is regrettable that some have used social media to link this campaign to other issues, the university will continue to use a variety of communication channels to promote its initiatives,” he said via email.
Carleton president Roseann Runte praised the Distinctly Carleton campaign.
“Everybody has the right to express his or her opinion,” she said of the hashtag hijacking.
“I hope that the people doing that will one day be on posters,” she said.
GSA president Christina Muehlberger said she could only comment on the tweeting as a student who participated in the campaign. She said it was an opportunity to raise awareness about on-campus issues.
“The message that I wanted to send with my own tweets were around several things that I am frustrated with at this university that I think need to be more widely known about,” she said via email.
Dan Sawyer, a staff member at CUPE 4600, said it is difficult to get their complaints heard by the administration.
“The reality about working at Carleton is that it’s a very top-down structure,” he said. “A lot of the concerns that our members have go unheard.”
Sawyer said he doesn’t expect any significant changes from the university.
“I don’t think we expected any sort of immediate about-face on anything,” he said.
Sawyer said he hoped the use of the hashtag would let people know there major issues with being a worker or student at Carleton.
Muehlberger said she doesn’t know if there was a long-term goal with hijacking the campaign.
“I think the goal was that when someone went to check out the new reputation campaign that they would be educated on some of the key things that are Distinctly Carleton,” she said.
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