Simplifying New Student Onboarding by Anita Moore-Bohannon

amoorebohannon1 — 2024-12-05 23:20:42 UTC

academic integration and social integration is needed.

The simplest way is to align the two together in some way.

amoorebohannon1 — 2024-12-05 23:22:09 UTC

SOAR may appear redundant to the success summit and kendall bootcamp.

Students may come to SOAR thinking they are going to get alot of tools discussed at the summit or bootcamp

amoorebohannon1 — 2024-12-05 23:23:18 UTC

Weave the social integration/belonging/community building stuff into the bootcamp or summit.

amoorebohannon1 — 2024-12-05 23:25:37 UTC

I would keep the success summit/bootcamp and NLU ready because the summit is close to term start and gets students ready for the classroom.

If forced to cut, I would want to integrate the most important SOAR elements to the bootcamp and success summit.

amoorebohannon1 — 2024-12-05 23:27:46 UTC

The beauty of SOAR is connecting with student leaders and building relationship with peers so that a student can feel like they belong at NLU. That's important when joining a new community.

2024-12-06 14:58:17 UTC

I think we need to create a streamlined message that comes from all parties involved i.e. Student Engagement, UGC, Success Coaches, Enrollment, etc. A clear outline or checklist of what goal posts/events students need to complete for a successful start

2024-12-06 14:59:58 UTC

Can we included communications and marketing in this conversation? It would seem they have tools to decipher what our messaging is missing to be clear and concise for students.

2024-12-09 15:42:20 UTC

We can create affinity based events over the summer for students to added and begin creating a sense of community of belonging.

2024-12-09 15:45:04 UTC

I would like to continue to have the SOAR Team/ Peer Mentors. We can integrate them into the SSS by having them lead the tech sessions, lunch affinity groups, and be present all day with their assigned GEN103 class.

2024-12-09 15:55:00 UTC

Currently students are able to wrap up any loose ends with Enrollment, Student Finance, and the Success Coaches during orientation. Where would this fit in if we do without the orientation?

2024-12-10 11:45:45 UTC

I think the "simplest" way has to how we message it and make sure the purpose is clear. Everyone involved should get trained on the events.

2024-12-10 11:47:05 UTC

I think a couple of things will help make the communication to students clear: Once we have the events, then we need to do the following - have a flier that includes everything on it in a clear way, have a website that includes everything in a direct way, have someone from SA or Academics train coaches/enrollment specialists directly on the information, and have one RSVP link for all events that asks for students personal emails.

Another thing to help with redundancy is to map the content of each event to make sure it aligns. This is an alignment document that we used 2 years ago that tried to map all of the important content to the experiences that we had at the time (through the 1st term) to understand them as an entire experience: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LhZYRtm9UvXmEuhsOojS2fNdU7ztOufHCywKP_VRLyA/edit?tab=t.0.

Also, sometimes, things should be repeated intentionally.

I also think we need to put metric (or something) into place around how we are determining if it is clear so the narrative does not turn into it's "unclear" what students should do. 60% of students in Fall 2023 attended both events, which means it was undoubtedly clear to them. And, we do not know when the other 40% did not attend both. 88% attended the SSS and 70% attended SOAR, and it may be that the majority of students that did not attend SOAR were international student (which we now have over 100 in Y1) and they were not here yet.

2024-12-10 11:47:36 UTC

I think a big key to this is training enrollment specialists (including the international student enrollment team) directly on the events, i.e. - the purpose, the difference, why both, etc. so they can communicate it to students.

2024-12-10 11:48:31 UTC

I think we should run 1/2 days 2 days at the end of June, July, and August, and the Week before the SSS so that students "lock in" to NLU. At that time, they can engage in the SOAR activities while also doing things that would "lock them in" like registering for classes and having an individual meeting with NLU staff, and being assigned/meet a peer mentor. Then, after the event both the NLU staff and the peer mentor can keep in contact with the student. I also think they should take a self-assessment/inventory so that we have more information about them/they can analyze the results at the Student Success Summit.

If we had to cut something in half, we should make SOAR an entirely asynchronous experience.

2024-12-10 11:49:04 UTC

SOAR peer mentors, acculturation to the campus (knowing the building, getting an ID, signing up for a UPass, meeting relevant staff, community building.

2024-12-10 15:59:23 UTC

There's a need for students to simply "get things done". Yes, we have had time carved out for this at the Summit but I think these items can be handled beforehand, possibly at what would be the new orientation. I've thought about something called "Commit Day". We can have one or two each month, leading up to the SSS. Students will have the opportunity to meet their Success Coach, get their ID picture taken, UPass, complete any outstanding enrollment/finance items, learn more about the major programs (this was a common comment stated in our GEN 103 check-in surveys), with the community building and sense of belonging activities added.