It can be as simple as “Where is the Parking Services office?” or as complex as finding child care or financing their higher education.
Beginning this month, ETSU students have a new way to get answers to their college-related questions. It’s the “ASK ME” program!
Faculty and staff who place ASK ME signs outside their offices and on their desks invite all ETSU students to “ask them” any questions related to being in school.
It doesn’t matter whether the faculty or staff member knows the student because ASK ME volunteers welcome every student – undergraduate, graduate and professional, according to Dr. Bill Kirkwood, vice provost for undergraduate education at the university.
“ASK ME faculty and staff won’t take the place of counselors and academic advisors,” Kirkwood explains. “Instead, they’ll help students get answers.”
And, he adds, volunteers will use a new referral manual that was created by Dr. Carla Warner and Jeff Howard, who serve in the Office of Adult, Commuter and Transfer Services, and produced by Biomedical Communications at ETSU.
The ASK ME logo, featured in blue and gold, is the visual hallmark of the new program. It was designed by Alex Cox, a graduate student in the Digital Media program at ETSU.
ASK ME volunteers are not always on call, but it’s easy to know when they are available. “When their office doors are open, students can see them without an appointment,” Kirkwood says.
Dr. Ramona Williams, vice provost for enrollment services, emphasizes the potential of the ASK ME program to help countless students. “Students often don’t know where to ask for help, to whom to address their questions, or even that help might be available,” she says.
“Sometimes students may feel that they get the run-around, when actually they may simply have been directed mistakenly to the wrong office. We hope ASK ME will make it easier for our students to get help and for our faculty and staff to give it,” she says
The ASK ME program will continue indefinitely. Currently, more than 200 faculty and staff volunteers have been trained, and Williams believes that number will grow. “Our vision is for students to soon find increasing numbers of ASK ME signs in every building on campus.”
“The ETSU faculty and staff are sending an important message to students,” Kirkwood says. “It is: Stay in school, succeed in school, and graduate. If you have a question about how to do that, please ASK ME.
For more information, contact Kirkwood at (423) 439-4305 or via kirkwood@etsu.edu.

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