Score One for Student Involvement with TallyCats!

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 9, 2009) -- It's not often that student leaders from all walks of campus life have the opportunity to discuss the challenges facing our campus. In fact, the first chance many have to meet is at the University Leadership Summit, an annual gathering of the top student leaders on campus. This group has launched many initiatives to make campus better for students, including the resurrection of the K Book and the redesign of the UK home page. The latest initiative hopes to help encourage student involvement on campus.

TallyCats is the campus involvement program of the University of Kentucky and brings together several partners from across campus including Student Government, Student Activities Board, the Center for Student Involvement, the Division of Student Affairs, UK Athletics, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the President.

The premise of TallyCats is pretty simple; students swipe the WildCard (student ID) at registered TallyCats events (a complete list of TallyCats events is located on the Web site and on the Campus Calendar). Then, they sign into the TallyCats Web site to see how many points they have, to see where they rank on campus and to find out about special double point events or prize opportunities. Finally, students with qualified point values will be entered for weekly, monthly, semester and yearly drawings for great prizes.

"I'm incredibly proud that Student Government could help the TallyCats program come to fruition," said Student Government President Ryan Smith. "The administration before us laid the groundwork for the program and worked with students from the University Leadership Summit and the Emerging Leader Institute to make their vision a reality."

"The support we've had from the administration and the community at large has been overwhelming," said Chrissy McAteer, co-coordinator of TallyCats. "In an hour one afternoon, I had prize donations from nearly 20 local businesses. As soon I told them about the program, people were more than willing to help us."

"It's a really simple concept that, honestly, as we've been discussing it with administration and doing benchmark research, we've thought 'how didn't we come up with something like this before?'" said Ben Duncan, SG chief of staff. "TallyCats appears to be the most comprehensive of its kind in the country. When we called our benchmarks, we identified a few that have similar programs in place, but most focus solely on athletics. Actually, many asked us to follow up with them about TallyCats' success."

"The provost has declared war on attrition," said Smith. "We know students who are involved on campus, feel more connected to the campus community, are happier and are more successful – and these students stay from year to year. Our hope is that TallyCats will help students see there are numerous opportunities and organizations for them to be involved in on campus."

Incentives for TallyCats run the gamut from coupons for free food to televisions and laptops.

"We've tried to not only gather incentives that students want, we've aimed to get them things they need," McAteer said. "Students can win everything from free T-shirts to tickets to sporting events and exclusive invitations for things like dinner with President and First Lady Todd. I'm only sad that I'm not eligible for some of the prizes because they are so awesome!"

The TallyCats Web site launches today, and the first event after the launch is SAB's concert series kickoff of "Backyard Beats" featuring Wildman and Randy Lanham, which is tomorrow, Sept. 10, at 8 p.m. at the Memorial Hall amphitheater.