People who go to college, school, department, and other higher education websites want to find the faculty, staff, physicians and residents, students, and other people at those sites. Sometimes there's a link that says "Faculty and staff." Sometimes a link for "People." Sometimes it's something else completely.
So...
Is it people?
Is it faculty and staff?
Something else?
It's a throwdown: People vs. Faculty and staff. Which side are you on and why?
Personally I've always preferred the term folks. Luckily I learned early on that my preferences and those of most other folks are not the same.
ReplyDeleteFaculty and staff excludes students. I find this to be reassuring when I'm doing a search. There are enough confusion if I'm looking up Jon Hanson or maybe it should be John Hansen. I don't want to add all the students with such name variants as well if I don't have to.
People is so generic that it ultimately means little. Does people include students? It should. Does it include donors? It could, but probably doesn't. Does it include coaches? Probably. Physicians? Probably. Staff at the Apple House? There is a lack of certainty.
Faculty on its own is a problem because of the confusions over where P&A teaching staff should be listed.
It's an interesting issue.
In CLA we usually use "people" as a top navigation link because, depending on the unit and its size, we may have lists of faculty, staff, graduate students, and maybe even department administration separate from that. We're trying to keep our nav links between 5 - 9, so there you are.
ReplyDeleteI've also used "Directory" for very functional, contact information type pages.
ReplyDeleteWe use "Our People". It includes staff and our colleagues advisory board.
ReplyDelete