March 2024 Directors Meeting, Division of Student Affairs and Academic Support
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Division of Student Affairs and Academic Support University of South Carolina
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March 2024 Directors Meeting, Division of Student Affairs and Academic Support
- 1. STUDENT AFFAIRS & ACADEMIC SUPPORT DIRECTORS MEETING March 26, 2024
- 2. STUDENT AFFAIRS & ACADEMIC SUPPORT PARTICIPATION IN ORIENTATION Improvement Project Team Presentation
- 3. PROJECT TEAM • Lauren Brown • Courtney Buzan • Sandy Greene • Delandous Haynes • Matt Hinds • Leena Holt • Erin McDonald (team leader/project coordinator) • Nora Williams • Maegan Gudridge (team leader/facilitator)
- 4. WHY DO THIS? • Our current approach leaves students and families overwhelmed and under- prepared, and it requires a tremendous amount of staff time. • Optimizing our approach will address those issues and support division and university strategic priorities (and it just makes sense).
- 5. PROJECT GOALS • Improve the development of coordinated, high quality, audience-centered orientation efforts • Reduce staff time dedicated to orientation • Improve students’ creation of appropriate expectations for the beginning of the semester • Increase students’ completion of tasks required before the first day of class
- 6. PROJECT SCOPE Only participation by Student Affairs and Academic Support We will not propose changes to the design of orientation overall
- 7. PROJECT OVERVIEW ERIN MCDONALD SESSION 1 Kickoff and Discovery • Discuss purpose and goals • Review roadmap • Review graphical schedule and available metrics • Give input FEEDBACK SESSIONS Discovery • Directors • Presenters/ Participants • Parents • Students SESSION 2 Discovery and Possibility • Subgroups report on feedback sessions • Review and discuss feedback SESSION 3 Possibility • Highlight key findings • Generate potential actions • Identify highest- impact actions SESSION 4 Planning • Review, refine and ensure consensus • Build presentation
- 8. CURRENT STATE • Yellow sessions include or are led by Student Affairs and Academic Support • 2/3 of breakout sessions are led by the division
- 10. FEEDBACK
- 11. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Participants feel overloaded and overwhelmed by information and experience • Students are often the best messengers for content • Participants feel like the schedule/space constraints cause them to miss critical information • Staff are exhausted but want to provide excellent experience • Evening activity is unpopular across audiences • Staff knowledge is limited to their functional area
- 12. BUILDING CONSENSUS ON IMPROVEMENTS
- 13. COORDINATE TOPICS AND MESSAGES AS A DIVISION LAUREN BROWN Recommendations: • Continue work as an advisory group Invite additional expertise as needed (ex: Career Center, Multicultural Student Affairs, etc.) • Identify essential content and map across sessions • Combine related information for the audience (not the org chart) • Develop a "basics" presentation for all participants (full audience) Notes: • Refer students/parents to central resources (like Ask USC, sc.edu/students) to eliminate the run- around, improve student experience • Some topics and audiences are so distinct, they require stand-alone presentations • Share general information, point to resources for specifics, Q&A • Review content for inclusivity • Take advantage of shared communications and marketing support for presentation design
- 14. WHAT HOW WHO WHEN Required tasks: - immunization - health insurance buy/waive - community edu. modules - housing process - “Basics” presentation - Health and well-being breakout - Housing breakout - SAAS staff - May-Aug. Recommended tasks: - register for U101 - “Basics” presentation - Academic expectations - SAAS staff - At Orientation session Population-specific tasks: - register for FSL recruitment - register w/SDRC - Breakout - Basics - ASAP - By xx/24 [deadline?] Where to find info & help - Basics - Ongoing Health and well-being - Breakout - Ongoing What to expect/look forward to - Breakout - Students - May-Aug. Academic expectations/prep - Breakout - May-Aug. College to career pathways - May-Aug.
- 15. OFFER SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION IN OTHER WAYS LEENA HOLT Recommendations: • Develop checklist of "must dos" • Create timeline of information to be shared Schedule monthly messages of just-in-time information • Use the Gamecock Family Hub as a primary channel Future Considerations: • Reimagining participation in Garnet Guide • Developing one-pagers of need-to-know info • Using a central platform for sharing information in various formats • Distinguishing between presentations and Q&A or designated office hours • Refining websites to highlight info for incoming students during summer
- 16. DEVELOP A TEAM OF CROSS-TRAINED EMPLOYEES TO STAFF ORIENTATION TOUCHPOINTS DELANDOUS HAYNES Recommendations: • Identify engaging presenters, deliver training and design shared schedule Align staff strengths with responsibilities (differentiate between content creators and speakers/presenters) Consider: • Recognition/incentives/thank-yous • Offer transportation to reduce time away from primary work
- 17. EXPAND THE STUDENT AMBASSADOR PROGRAM DIVISION-WIDE MATT HINDS Recommendations: • Work with Student Affairs and Academic Support Human Resources and in alignment with the student employment initiative Gauge interest in office participation (ambassadors serve office hours in addition to orientation duties) Develop recruitment and training plans • Involve ambassadors as presenters, co-presenters and resource fair staff as appropriate • Involve students in developing/reviewing materials Notes: • We've heard the feedback that staff feel overburdened. Let's have students – who are already preferred by participants – share the work.
- 18. WORK WITH ORIENTATION TO REIMAGINE EVENING ACTIVITY COURTNEY BUZAN Recommendations: • Identify a different location • Explore other activities • Provide recommendations for off-campus locations to enjoy with family members/supporters • Share responsibility for staffing the event across the division
- 19. SHARE KNOWLEDGE ACROSS THE DIVISION NORA WILLIAMS Recommendations: • Create one-pager/short document of essential information • Coordinate a division-wide orientation training/preview event • Share presentations across the division • Help staff see orientation experience through students' eyes
- 20. EXPLORE OTHER ASSESSMENT METHODS TO BETTER GAUGE EFFECTIVENESS SANDY GREENE Recommendations: • Work with New Student Orientation and division assessment experts to identify assessment methods • Plan for future implementation and analysis • Incorporate continuous improvement in work of advisory group
- 21. RESULTS • Lifting out priority info for Day 1 general session (all audiences) • Combining two breakout sessions with complementary content • Expanding student ambassador program to represent entire division and presentation to show broader student experience • Working with Orientation to redesign Day 1 evening activity
- 22. PROJECT GOALS • Improve the development of coordinated, high quality, audience-centered orientation efforts • Reduce staff time dedicated to orientation • Improve students’ creation of appropriate expectations for the beginning of the semester • Increase students’ completion of tasks required before the first day of class
- 23. PROJECT GOALS • Improve the development of coordinated, high quality, audience-centered orientation efforts • Reduce staff time dedicated to orientation • Improve students’ creation of appropriate expectations for the beginning of the semester • Increase students’ completion of tasks required before the first day of class Make better use of staff time dedicated to orientation
- 24. NEXT STEPS In progress • Coordinate as division • Basics presentation • Combine two breakout sessions • Expand student ambassador program • Revise evening activity
- 25. PARTICIPANT TESTIMONIALS • Lauren Brown • Matt Hinds • Courtney Buzan
- 26. THANK YOU Director of New Student Orientation • Alison Leach Hughes Division of Student Affairs and Academic Support Feedback Session Participants • April Barnes • Davon Beaton • Pam Bowman • Shannon Geary • Michelle Gough • Ambra Hiott • Kate Kerpchar • Brittoni Reynolds • Tammi Richardson • Sarah Scarborough • Dana Talbert • Emmie Thompson • John Tuttobene • Andrea Williams • Josh Wise Office of Organizational Excellence • Tom Terez
- 27. QUESTIONS?
- 29. ASPIRE AND ADVANCE • April 1 - Call for proposals opens • April 23 – Registration opens • Three tracks: • Personal growth and wellbeing • Professional development • Technology proficiency • Great door prizes!
- 31. SPRING STUDENT ACTIVITIES & CELEBRATIONS Save the date for: Drive Down Memory Lane Graduate Parade (4/15) University Honors & Awards Day* (4/18) Flick on the Field (4/22) Midnight Breakfast (4/23) Spring Commencement* (5/3 & 5/4) * are our highest priority.
- 32. REX TOLLIVER Vice President for Student Affairs and Academic Support
Editor's Notes
- Welcome
- We're one division. Our leadership is asking us to think and act differently. This is following that path. At the same time, looking at ways we can be more efficient and effective See yourself and your work, even if you don't see your office name
- - Better experience, better alignment of resources
- - Very important to pay close attention to project scope. We only were looking at changing the things that are in our control or influence. Not telling other areas what to do
- Tight timeline from kickoff to planning so that we can get moving on implementation Still, critical that we do all we could to hear from representatives of all groups involved
- Held feedback session for three groups: directors, presenters/participants and parents Were unable to schedule session for students, so we sought their feedback in the presenters session and examined their responses from orientation session evaluations
- From here, we took the key takeaways and – individually – shared ideas for actions we could take to address them Then, in groups, we sorted ideas into themes and selected the ones we thought would have the biggest impact while still being achievable
- - And we built our consensus. Lots of great ideas and suggestions narrowed down to these seven recommended improvements
- WHY IS THIS NEEDED? we're one division, and we're working with our students and families holistically. They experience us as USC. They don't connect with individual program and department names, especially at this. They're already overwhelmed, we don't need to add to it. President Amiridis has expressed his desire for a user-friendly USC – this can help. ID essential content: students and parents need to know a lot – and we have a ton of resources to share – but they don't need to know everything all at once...in June. ID the "what" before we create the deliverable. When we're offering sometihng, make sure it aligns with best use of time for the student/parent, not just checking a box for an office
- - STARTED working on list of essential items and mapping out how and when the info would best be shared. Lots more work to come.
- WHY IS THIS NEEDED? Parents told us they are afraid of missing out, and they have specifically asked for resources that they can refer back to. We’ve seen them ask for slides at end of breakout sessions. We don’t want students and families to feel pressure to attend everything, take photos of slides or memorize everything.
- WHY IS THIS NEEDED? Better use of our limited human resources. Let’s match the right people with the right work, and share the load. All of us have a role to play in student success and in onboarding our students to the university.
- WHY IS THIS NEEDED? Everyone agrees that students are effective, trusted resources. Current program is working well (explain). This is a great opportunity for us to take it to scale.
- Turns out, Orientation was already exploring alternatives, so we joined their effort. Possible Activities: Mini organization fair, lawn games, board games, service project, food, basketball game, ice cream bar, music
- WHY IS THIS NEEDED? Better service to students/parents. They see us as USC – not as distinct departments and offices. We can give better customer service, be better ambassadors of university, deliver better experience, by working together.
- WHY IS THIS NEEDED? We get general satisfaction survey data from orientation, but we don't really know whether our presentations made a difference to student experience and transition. How do we know whether what we’re doing is working?
- How will these improvements make a difference? Results can be: Quantitative, qualitative, anecdotal Projected results and/or actual results *Connect results to user-friendly services, efficient processes, effective use of resources *Visuals are welcomed as well
- Better experience, better alignment of resources
- Better experience, better alignment of resources
- What is happening next to build momentum and ensure implementation? Project leader is overseeing subgroups at work: building the basics presentation revising the evening activity expanding the student ambassador program working to combine two breakout sessions
- PERSONAL GROWTH AND WELLBEING (topic examples: utilizing wellness benefits, resources for obtaining a degrees while working, self-defense workshop, personal finances) PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (topics examples: supervising high performing teams, conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques, customer service skill building, knowing your role in student retention, how to find recognition opportunities for our programs and people) TECHNOLOGY PROFICIENCY (topic examples: making the most of AI, hidden secrets of Microsoft teams, apps to make your life easier, excel tips and tricks, social media do's and don’ts) tips and tricks, social media do's and don't's)