SunTrust introduced to GC&SU

By Ryan Schomber
Staff Writer

On Wednesday, April 9, students and faculty gathered on front campus for pizza and popcorn as SunTrust started its partnership with Georgia College & State University.
The event was to help Financial Aid get SunTrust’s name out to students.
From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. there was carnival on front campus.
“This event helped us get the word out about SunTrust and what kind of company it is,” said Ned Watson, Vice President of Marketing for student loans for Georgia.
With rain throughout the day, many students still showed up for the all day’s events, which included a Dunking booth, a basketball goal and popping balloons. A few of the participates were Dr. Harshbarger, Lady Bobcats Head Coach John Carrick, Head of Intramurals Scott McKoy, and Dr. Harold Jenkins.
“This was just incredible to see so many people out here even with the rain,” said Suzanne Buttram, Director of Financial Aid at GC&SU. “This was a good event to put SunTrust’s name out for the students to get to know.”
Students were enjoying the dunking and free food but some did not feel the event promoted SunTrust very well.
“I think SunTrust did a bad job of promoting themselves on campus; they were losing the focus on the fact that they deal with student loans and financial aid,” said senior January Clark.
Other students enjoyed the food. Junior Daniel Gale had this to say.
“Free food equals an automatic good time,” said Gale.
Financial aid was trying to get the word out to students that loans would now be dealt with by SunTrust.
“I think this did a good job of introducing SunTrust to everyone,” said Buttram. “This carnival-type atmosphere was a great idea for students to come and see just what SunTrust is about.”
Radio Station Z97 was also out on campus and helped SunTrust draw a good crowd.
“We were all throwing ideas out, and someone just came up with bringing a radio station here. The radio station did a really good job of bringing students to our area,” said Watson. “I was really impressed with the amount of fun students had even though it was raining.”
With Z97 on campus, a few people wonder why GC&SU’s own radio station was out there.
“I like free pizza,” said junior Elizabeth Cone. “I enjoyed it, but I thought it was weird that Z97 was helping promote the event when GC&SU has its own radio station.”
SunTrust will take over next semester (fall 2002) to give student loans and commercial lender loans. GC&SU has already sent out notices to returning students about the switch of companies. Students will have the liberty to deal with SunTrust all of next semester.
“We got the name out, and this event was something positive for both SunTrust and GC&SU,” said Watson.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 12 2002. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry