Do ALL College Ministries Effectively Reach Millennial Students?

Benson Hines from the Exploring College Ministry Blog (http://exploringcollegeministry.wordpress.com) wrote about importance of text messaging in his article titled, "Txting 4 Gen Y". I am a Christian, but I have never explored religion and text messaging. Interestingly enough, I have not functioned as a leader of a college ministry in about three years, but it was interesting for me to communicate with my millennial peers (students) about Christ. I used text messaging to stay in contact with the student leaders in the ministry, but we never thought of advertising our bible studies/college lunches via text messaging.



As I stated before, I am African American and I observed a growing number of black churches are grasping technology. However, the number of churches that are actively grasping technology are not meeting the demand of their millennial students (middle school and college). It would be interesting to see how many additional college students would begin to accept Christ if churches would use new technology to reach the students of this generation.


Read Benson Hines's article here - http://exploringcollegeministry.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/txting-4-gen-y/

-Millennial Professor

Conducting a Text Message-Based Poll in Class

Readers,

I discovered a WONDERFUL online mechanism that enables professors to conduct anonymous polls in class via text messaging (thanks Adventures in Educational Blogging - Susan).

The Website - Pollseverywhere.com

This is the BEST "free" program that I have seen thus far. I think that my millennial students will actually be excited about using their cell phones in the classroom. The website indicates that if the audience (or classroom) is 30 participants or less, the service is FREE.

I will definitely use this in the fall and I also hope to conduct a faculty workshop on this mechanism as well.

- Millennial Professor

Millennial Motivation for June (Itunes Style)

I had to get motivated to research (and work out) this summer. Therefore I made a new playlist. Millennials get motivated by MUSIC and I decided to share my playlist with you. Just the top 20 songs (*smile).

*Please remember that some of these are VERY old songs (from the 90s). 

• Butterfly - Crazy Town
• Crush - Jennifer Paige
• Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue
• World Town - M.I.A.
• Bamboo Banga - M.I.A. 
• A Milli - Lil Wayne
• Lollipop - Lil Wayne
• Be Good to Me - Ashley Tisdale
• Foolish - Shawty Lo 
• Cyclone - Baby Bash
  
• Gonna Make You Sweat - C+C Music Factory
• And Then What - Young Jeezy
• Gimme More - Britney Spears 
• Wall to Wall - Chris Brown
• Shining Star - Earth Wind and Fire
• Love Don't Cost A Thing (RJ Schoolyard Mix) - Jennifer Lopez
• Whine Up - Kat DeLuna
• Just Fine - Mary J. Blige
• Work That - Mary J. Blige 
• Don't Stop the Music - Rihanna
• Take You There - Sean Kingston

In fact, I might post a monthly itunes list.

-Millennial Professor

Cafeterias and Millennial College Students (Financial Cutbacks)

I was astonished when I discovered that our college cafeteria is strongly considering the elimination of trays in the cafeteria. Obviously this has been caused by an increase in food costs, but I am worried about the health implications that this will cause for millennial students. These students want everything all at once and they may not fill up on healthy alternatives in the cafeteria if they have to walk back and forth one plate/glass at a time.

In addition, over the break I had the chance to speak with a dietitian of a community college cafeteria. She said that a significant number of the millennial students are coming into college with diabetes and are on medication. In addition, she indicated that these students eat ranch dressing with their greased-filled pizza. Amazing!

It will be interesting to see the health implications of early life McDonald's addictions and status quo infatuations with calorie-filled items (i.e. - Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, etc.) on my generation.

What do YOU think?