[caption id="attachment_1490" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Mandy giving Chromebook demos in the UB"]
[/caption]Mandy Russ ‘12, an ITAP Student Director and mathematics major, is serving as DePauw’s Google Student Ambassador this year.
After submitting her proposal last summer, Mandy was one of just 140 students selected from 109 campuses who were flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, for a 2-day summit in August.
The Google Student Ambassador Program is an opportunity for students to act as liaisons between Google and their universities. These ambassadors learn about innovative Google products and programs, plan and host fun events for students on their campus, and help Google better understand each university’s culture.
This is a great opportunity for Mandy and for DePauw. Some of our core efforts for empowering students this coming year focus on promoting awareness about how you can use Google Apps to support collaboration and mobility, so her ambassadorship could not come at a better time.
-- Carol L. Smith, CIO
In complement to her ITAP internship in FITS and the Student Technology Support office,
where a great deal of Mandy’s work focuses on workshops about collaboration tools like Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Sites, in her Google Student Ambassador role she’ll be coordinating other events to promote the use of additional programs that are part of Google Apps. Russ notes, “Over the course of the year I will be planning Google events on DePauw's campus promoting different products. They will be fun, different, and a little 'scrappy' -- a term Google uses to keep their events exciting for the public.”
When asked about her interest in Google, Mandy said “Since the switch to Google for DePauw email, I have really been interested to learn about all the features of Google Apps for Education.” Her goals include helping students use “Google products in everyday life. I would also like the majority of campus to know . . . that if they have questions or want to be involved with Google events that they know where to go and who to contact.” Mandy’s enthusiasm and drive make her a great promoter for Google on campus. While balancing her student director responsibilities and her Google ambassador duties has been challenging, Mandy says “it is helping me manage my time this semester. I also have learned it is important to delegate.”
Mandy’s events planned for this semester include a Chrome cookie giveaway, an Android App development contest, a TalkBin promotion, and a Google+ Day, among other events. Google+ Day, November 3, will enable any student, staff or faculty member on campus to request a special Google+ account through the ambassador that day or by emailing Russ at googleambassador@depauw.edu. She explains “[there will be ] tables around campus with fun activities related to the Google theme and students can win awesome Google+ shirts!”
For updated information from Mandy about her work on campus -
Visit her Google Student Ambassador site at or contact her at GoogleAmbassador@depauw.edu.
