Riverhawk Roam Hits the Hallways

by Madison Sayre

What do a selfie and a QR codes have in common? You can use your phone for both!

Among the many new changes facing campus this semester is the Riverhawk Roam, a new self-guided tour around campus. The tour utilizes QR codes that students can scan to learn more.

Samantha Suggs, Student Activities Coordinator, created and planned the tour. She designed each poster with a QR Code specific to each tour location. “We had initially thought to do a guided tour,” Suggs said. “I thought students might be a little bit more into something that they could do whenever they felt like it.”

The Riverhawk Roam was launched the first day of classes, Aug. 19. During Welcome Week, Suggs handed out a list of the tour locations, as well as a campus map that she re-designed over the summer. The new map includes the tour locations to make it easier for students to find them.

You can find the following locations on the Riverhawk Roam: Student Lounge, Courtyard, Career Services, Student Government Association (SGA), Fitness Trails, Fitness Center, Student Engagement & Activities (SEA), Veterans Resource Center (VRC), Year in the Life Display, Professional Advising Center (PAC), College Bell, Student Support Services, Seasons of Love Mural, College Radio Station, Riverhawk Food Pantry, IT Help Desk and the Lactation Lounge.

“It doesn’t necessarily recognize academic stops, such as specific departments, but it does highlight resources,” she said.

“The primary goal was just to make the resources and the engagement opportunities very obvious to students, in an interactive way,” Suggs said. “I think if you add an interactive element to an educational thing, it really helps keep students’ attention.”

Looking into the future, she said that she is hoping for the Riverhawk Roam posters to stay out year-round, but she might modify the tour. “I’m working with a group of individuals who are working on synchronizing our tour systems, even with the admissions counselors, so once that group gets together and we make some final decisions, we might tweak the tour a little bit,” Suggs said.

As for the QR codes, she doesn’t yet have anything planned in the future that will utilize QR codes. “It is on my list of things that if the occasion were to arise, we could use it,” she said.

“I’m always open to suggestions from students,” Suggs said. “If they respond well to something, I try to utilize it in the future. At this time, I don’t have a set plan to integrate [QR codes] into anything else.”