Eastern’s marketing committee recently introduced new banners to welcome visitors to campus and is organizing focus groups in an effort to attract more students to Eastern. The new blue welcome banners are being hung high on several lamp posts on campus to welcome the presidential candidates, Jill Nilsen, vice president for external relations, said Wednesday.

A total of 18 banners decorate the campus, including four banners in the library quad, six in front of Old Main, two in the courtyard behind Old Main and six in the commemorative courtyard, Nilsen said.

The welcome banners will be taken down soon and are only going to be used on special occasions such as student orientations or to greet special guests, Nilsen said.

Four banners in the library quad identify Eastern’s academic colleges while Nilsen said the rest simply say “welcome” behind Eastern’s logo.

The banners are part of an effort by Eastern’s marketing committee to better the physical image of the campus. The committee designed the banners to remind visitors they are welcomed to campus and to help them identify the front of the campus and “key outdoor places,” Nilsen said.

“This was a way to mark the front door of the university,” she said.

Nilsen said that while the marketing committee has no immediate plans to make other improvements to the physical look of the campus, they are in the process of developing student focus groups to help recruitment efforts.

The committee is organizing focus groups of incoming students to bring recruiting materials and methods up to date and get new ideas, Nilsen said. Committees will gather “quantitative and qualitative” information about students’ decisions to attend Eastern.

“We want to find out why they chose Eastern, what attracted them to the campus, what they think of our publications” and any other information about what prompted them to choose Eastern, she said.

The marketing committee is in the beginning stages of organizing the focus groups and does not know how students will be chosen for the groups, but Nilsen said the research will be conducted in June or July when incoming students visit and choose classes.

“As the university continues to recruit new students, we want to ensure we are making informed decisions regarding recruiting practices and materials,” she said. “Information we obtain through focus group discussions and subsequent surveys will enable us to make more informed decisions.”

The last focus group studies, which Nilsen said were a success, were conducted two to three years ago and centered on how information was presented in recruitment material and the accessibility of material.