Minnesota State Family Orientation Podcast 2021

In this episode of the Family Orientation Podcast, Dr. David Jones discusses what you should remember for upcoming classes, resources for any more specific information, and plans for returning this fall.

In this episode, Dr. David Jones chats with the Director of the Kearney International Center regarding what international students might expect in regards to the upcoming year. They touch on events, advising, academic support, visa and transfer processes, and much more!

David Jones: Welcome and hello listeners, thanks for joining another episode of the podcast,  Minnesota state university, family orientation podcast. Appreciate everybody, uh, choosing to listen into us again here today. I probably say this every episode, I'm excited about the topic today, but that's definitely true yet again, as we talk about The more in-depth aspects of how we support students academically here during their time.

And it's obviously they're gonna learn some incredible things in the classroom. And today's guest is going to tell us a little bit more about the things they do outside the classroom to make sure that in the classroom experiences phenomenal. And so, I'm welcomed here today and I'm going to let you introduce Sarah, your whole title and everything, cause I will goof it up, I promise you. Sarah Granberg-Rademacker, here joining us for today's episode, Sarah, why don't you first welcome. Thanks for agreeing to do this.

Sara GR:  My pleasure! 

David Jones:  Share with our listeners who you are, what you do here at the university.

Sara GR:  Awesome. Yeah. Thank you, David. My name is Sara Granberg-Rademacker, my role is the director of our university advising department here on campus. And that means I have the great privilege of working with the professional advising community that helps our students as they're navigating their college experience all the way through to graduation. And it's, we have an awesome team that are here to support students along the way.

David Jones: Excellent. Excellent. So how long have you been at MSU now? 

Sara GR: Oh, goodness. I'm going to have to do some math. I think we I've been here about 16 years and have been serving in a variety of roles. Working with students who were majoring in the college of arts and humanities before then moving over to working with students who weren't sure what they wanted to major in to now serving in this role. As we continue to develop our advising resources for students. 

David Jones: Wow, you've had quite the journey and I could see why you'd be the expert on all things advising at this point here at the university. So over the 16 years, I'm sure you've had a lot of experiences worked with thousands and thousands of students.

What's your favorite part of working here at Minnesota state? 

Sara GR: Honestly, David, when I think about my favorite part, it comes down to the people and the possibilities. It's such a pleasure to work alongside people who are so committed to our students, their journeys, their success here and are looking for ways to help positively influence that.

Having worked with the undecided students, I will tell you, I think we are a great campus when you're not sure what you want to study, because we have a broad range of majors, we are not a school known for one thing or a school known for a little bit of everything. And similarly, we have brought opportunities outside of the classroom as well.

If that's things like study abroad, getting some leadership opportunities and registered student organizations, all of these things that really make. a college experience complete. The classroom piece is essential, but then those out of the classroom internship opportunities or opportunities to hear guest speakers who are experts in their own field is just, is phenomenal as well.

Like to think that, at Mankato, we're small enough that you can find your connections and find your circle of folks, but we're big enough where you can also Let yourself get a little intentionally lost in, in, in the fray and enjoy the experiences around you. 

David Jones: Wow. That's a great way to put it.

Yeah, we are that kind of special size and a lot of ways that you get to the exposure to things you may not come across day in and day out before your experience here, as well as during your time here. So that's great. Well, thanks for all  you do as well. I have the pleasure of seeing the, the success of your students, who you work with and your team works with. And so, that parts super fun, super fun to see that kind of thing. So, we're recording this. I always share the date today is June 8th, 2021. So as we reference COVID anything we share today is what we know as of today.

So, as with most things within the state of Minnesota, the governor and the Minnesota department of health may drop new news on us tomorrow, and so, something might be out of date, but what we shared today will be accurate as of today. So this whole past year, you know, Sarah has been clearly defined by the pandemic and the work that you've had to do and everything.

And I know last year we shifted a lot of it to virtual work or online orientations and things like that. As we're looking ahead to fall 2021, what is the classroom registration or course registration, and what are our new students experiencing? Getting ready for the fall? 

Sara GR: Absolutely. No, that's a great question.

We've done a lot of pivoting in the last year and we've learned a lot and the good news with that is We have evolved, and come to a process that I think is both welcoming for our new students and provides them with the support they need to come up with a good fall semester schedule so they can hit the ground running come fall.

Specifically we've learned to take advantage of some of our online tools through our learning management system and D2L as students get some background information, when they sign up for orientation, get to see some short videos that helpfully. Help lay-the-land in terms of the courses you need the tools that are available to you.

But at the same time, we place a premium on those connections with students. And so we're offering synchronous zoom sessions on most Mondays in, in the months of June and July and those synchronous zoom sessions involve just some basic general information from both the director of orientation and from me, but then we quickly try to get the students connected, to the areas where they plan on majoring or if they don't know what they want to major the undecided areas. And in those areas, they get more in-depth information just to give them some background and to help them feel more confident in the classes they'll be looking at during that in-depth session, they will also sign up for either individual or small group appointments.

One of the things, the pandemic. Helped move along for us was this idea that we can have individual experiences and a campus of our size, that's not always possible. And so we've had individuals, small group experiences over zoom where advisors are talking directly with the students and helping them make some good decisions about those first semester classes.

And so I'm very excited about. How the pandemic basically brought us to that, because that was something that we hadn't been able to do. Our scale across the university before. And I think it, it gives our students a strong sense of who are some of their advocates here before they actually come to campus.

And so hopefully they have a firmer sense of who those advocates are and some initial developing relationships with them during the course of their orientation, registration, and advising experience. 

David Jones: Wonderful. Wonderful. So is the students get did do some of the same activity last year. How did students respond to that kind of support?

Sara GR: Generally? You know, we've heard very positive feedback and that students knew who we were. Now, what's different this year. And what I'm really excited about is the potential that we will be able to provide that spill-over zoom when students need it. But also we'll have the, our in-person part back as well.

Advisers have been here on the front lines, as long as we've had students here. But hopefully now as restrictions are gradually easing and things we'll continue to be able to be even more available to students, because I think sometimes there's just something about having that sense of place.

And where do I find this support instead of always doing it in a virtual world. 

David Jones: Yeah, that totally makes sense. And. Well, even to the degree that we're all a little more comfortable on zoom right? Or whatever, the zooms are our tool of choice here. But I mean, whatever tool it might be, but I think, you know what, I see it, I, we have something in common.

We both have high school, high schoolers in that, you know, this past year, my kids have been both in school and distance, and we've kind of bomped around and such, but the students who are enrolling now their level of comfort with technology. you know, it has been, I've seen the growth just within my own household and such.

I don't know if you've experienced the same with your own kid, but to know that all these students is we're providing support, registration, whatever it might be, their comfort is they're pulling along the family in some locations. I know that's even mine to say I got this and whatever it might be. Is that consistent with what you're seeing as well?

Sara GR: Yeah, definitely. We're seeing students for the most part, you know, when we started doing these things over zoom, I think it was still a bit of a challenge, a bit of an unknown. And now you know, we have to start every orientation session, asking people to put their first name and last name in the chat and sending it to all panelists and that happens readily.

And it's not, we don't even before we mentioned it. Audibly it's on a screen in front of them and students are starting to fill it out. And so you do see that comfort level. A

Dr. David Jones: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Minnesota State University family orientation podcast. I'm thrilled that you're continuing to listen to these, and we have a, another exciting episode for you. We are recording this on June 7th. 2021. I shared that date just so you can reference this is what we know when we talk about reference any COVID information or pandemic related information, and that is particularly important today for today's guest.

I'm joined by Dr. Wendy Schuh she's our director of student health services. And couldn't be more thrilled for the work that she's been doing for many years, but especially during the pandemic. And we'll ask her to share a little bit more about that, but to start us off, Wendy how long have you been at MSU and what do you like about working here?

Dr. Wendy Schuh: [00:00:52] Yeah, thanks for having me. Gosh, I have been here since 2001, so I am coming up on 20 years in August that I've been here. My role has changed a little bit from a Health Educator to Associate Director to the Director. Now, for the past 10 years, I've been in this role working here and, you know, really with those transitions in the positions to.

I have changed my role a little bit as far as some of that direct student interaction. To working a little bit more at an administrative level. But so those, that balance, those two opportunities have really been fun to see both sides of it. And I would probably say that's something I've enjoyed.

I would imagine. , so student health services, obviously you're full service student health center. You want to share, is this a little bit? What's it? What's that include? Yeah. So student health services is comprised of a medical clinic, a pharmacy. a laboratory and health education services. And so for people to know that all of these are available within our medical clinic.

A lot of times I'll just say, you know, stop in you know, stop by and poke your head in. And they'll say, Oh my gosh this looks like a real doctor's office. And that can be a surprise to people because you know what a student health services means can vary. According to where you're looking. And as you said, we're a full service facility within our medical clinic, we have three physicians and three nurse practitioners that are on staff.

We're open every day that classes are in session. We have a nurse line that students or parents can call if they have questions about whether this warrants a visit, whether you know, this is a visit that can be seen at health services, as well as the pharmacy that you know, students can use whether or not they use our healthcare providers, they can use the pharmacy just like they would a, a corner pharmacy.

So stop in and get some. Tylenol cold tablets toothbrush things that they may need replaced things that they weren't planning on needing. We talk about prepping, preparing for students to come to college and getting those supplies. Well, Hey, if you forget something, if you need a thermometer, if you need some , fever, reducing medication, you can stop down to that pharmacy and get some of those supplies as well.

And then with the laboratory you know, if they have. Visits through our health service, or even if they need regular lab work that their home doctor is requesting. They get, we can work with them on that also. So really a variety of ways. A lot of people will say, Oh, I just assumed I would use the health service when I couldn't get home to my provider.

Completely appropriate. But what we find is about 75% of the students who use us, consider us their primary care, like yep. I see Toya when I go to college because that's my doctor, that's my healthcare provider while I'm. I'm at MSU and then the last thing is the health education services.

So we have a lot of prevention, education including substance abuse and healthy sexuality and stress and sleep and nutrition. That do programming around campus. And so that's great to get into the classrooms to get onto residence hall floors, but it's also a volunteer opportunity for students that may have been involved in something like this in high school that may be looking at going into a healthcare career that want to get that experience.

So that's kind of a cool thing for students to know about also that they can get involved in the health pros. Wow. That's a lot going on. At least that's impressive. Well then I think it's one of the great strengths of our size university that we have that kind of resource, you know, for over 14,000 students, if they can lean heavily upon it.

So with all those resources and such. And from looking back from last March, you know, clearly the pandemic started changing the work we did at the university. And how did it impact student health and how did you respond during the pandemic? Yes, it's certainly affected our work as well. We had to make some difficult decisions and more staff meetings than probably most people cared to attend, but we really got into the.

To the heart of, okay, what do we need to do? You know, what student health services needs to provide care to our students? So we stayed open last spring and continue to be onsite providing healthcare as well as made some changes. Like you said, because of COVID. Some of those changes included serving our students when they couldn't physically get into health services.

So telehealth visits were incorporated. We did have the benefit of having already had some tele-health visits. That we offered mostly for, for mental health. And so to have those policies and procedures in place allowed us to pretty seamlessly expand those appointment reasons. I know a lot of places sort of had to make that plunge and we were fortunate to be able to do that pretty seamlessly.

So all of our providers offer telehealth visits if students had either moved away from campus, if they were ill and were under quarantine or isolation, And so a lot of those appointments for that continuity of care, like you need to continue to get you know, birth control filled and you need to continue to get, you know, ongoing prescriptions figured out.

And so we were able to do that. We also made some changes with our pharmacy. So they began offering mail order options for people who were already regular customers that were getting their prescriptions filled that then needed to get that sent home. So we offered some some mail order options with the pharmacy.

We, uh, Implemented sort of a separate physical space. So we were still all student health services, but we opened a separate upper clinic is what we call that. That was really serving students who may have had. Any sort of COVID symptoms, which as we experienced, they were adding new COVID symptoms weekly for a while there.

And it went from respiratory to you know, eyes to GI issues. There were all sorts of things that we were trying to keep up on. So we could continue to see people who had symptoms that were related to COVID in this separate physical space. And so that was something that we worked with our environmental health and safety with residential life.

So we could continue to work out of the same building yet keep our well students well and see our sick students.

That's a lot again it can't imagine having to stand up a whole new facility doing this and everything, but you made the reference to telehealth and tele-mental health and you are quite the leader within the state. Can you describe a little bit of what you provide support for a lot of colleges, universities beyond just Minnesota state Mankato?

What's that look like? We have been fortunate to have a psychiatric nurse practitioner, Dodie Eggland as our medical director. And really with that model within college health is highly unusual. And I think we always knew that that was a benefit to our students. But to be able to talk with some of the other schools within the Minnesota state system, that we're looking at two to three to four month wait lists to see that psychiatric provider in their community.

Or who have lost sort of that contracted relationship that they had with a psychiatric provider. We started exploring, looking at the services. Our students were already offering offered and expanding that to some of these other schools. So we started with a pilot and looked at some of our partners and were able to get some funding through Minnesota state to offer that to four.

Institutions of higher ed within that Minnesota state system this past year, we actually offered it to eight different institutions and 10 campuses. And then Jody was able to work with those schools to, to block her schedule and provide that medication management while using the student resource services that they had on campus.

Whether that's. A counselor, a case manager you know, a social worker, you have those location specific services while seeing someone with that specialty. So yeah,  we've found there's a demand and there's a need, of course we all know there's a need for mental health services in general, but looking at data specific to college students, and then.

Throwing COVID into the mix and seeing some of the concerning statistics that are out there as far as, you know, it may be six months before we, see some of these effects that COVID has had on mental health with our young people. Yeah, I think this whole pandemic was going to be a huge target for a lot of research and studies.

That's for sure. To kind of see both short and longterm impact. You're right about that. One of the things I think that, that you probably don't get enough credit for within our own work environment, is that is the pandemic started. It was your suggestion that we add in additional staff members to kind of help at an individual level, navigate our leade

David Jones: [00:00:00] Hello, thanks for joining us for another Minnesota State University, family orientation podcast! I appreciate you listening for us a little bit more today; as a reminder I'm David Jones, I'm the Vice President for student affairs and enrollment management here at Minnesota State.  Again, thrilled to be giving you updates and introducing you to some of the most interesting people here at the University, and  the many things that they do  to make us a cool special place. 

So, I'm particularly excited about today's episode because we have our newest leader here at the University , we're joined by our new student government president.  I'm going to let Rihanna do a full introduction of who she is here in a moment, but just to give everybody context, because I know we'll be talking about some COVID stuff. 

 Today is June 7th as we're recording this, every time we record one of these, we'll talk about what we know based on what the Governor and Minnesota Department of Health has released. So,  it's all in context of today's date at this point.  Enough about that, we'll talk more about that I'm sure, in due time as part of our conversation.

 So Rihanna, thank you for joining us! Why don't you with our listeners here, share a little bit about who you are, your title, and what you're studying.

Rihanna: [00:01:13] Yeah! Well, thank you for having me, Dr. Jones,  as you alluded to, my name is Rihanna Steph and I am the newly elected Student Body President.

 So,  I am actually a junior, but I'm entering my senior year, this fall, and I'm double majoring in Mass Media and Political Science.  I have been involved with student government over the past two years, and then the opportunity came up this year, of course, to run for president and implement some of the things that are important to me and my Vice President Kara's pearson.

So I think it started excited to kind of see some of those plans come to fruition and hopefully help out a lot of students in the process. 

David Jones: [00:01:51] Excellent, excellent! Now what'd you share folks, where are you from, where's home? 

Rihanna: [00:01:56] I am from Illinois, actually in a very small town in Illinois called Mulberry Grove.

 I think when people hear Illinois, they associate that with Chicago and Walmart. I do have a lot of family there and I was born there. I moved to the Southern portion of the state, I'm in the town of about 700 people so that's where I grew up.

David Jones: [00:02:16] Mankato itself , the niversity is bigger than your hometown.

Rihanna: [00:02:21] Yeah! I said in my my inauguration speech that I will be serving 14,000 students, and that my constituency is now of course, bigger than my entire town's population and the towns next to us combined. So,  Mankato is definitely a jump in size from what I'm used to. 

David Jones: [00:02:38] Right! So,  the natural question is going to be how did you find us and why did you come here?

Rihanna: [00:02:44] Yeah! So, I have a sister who lives in the Twin Cities and she had been trying to get me to come to Minnesota for years,  and I was like, well that sounds good, but I need to explore my options.  I knew I did not want to stay in Illinois, I did want to see somewhere new, I want to try a different state.

I feel like in Illinois, your options are very rural where I'm from or Chicago, and I didn't necessarily want to be in either.  Then my sister actually had my niece and that kind of sealed the deal for me,  so I started touring schools in Minnesota.  I went to a couple places St. Cloud. I went to the U and then I toured Minnesota State, which it felt like an actual college campus to me, that's kind of what separated it from the other schools.  I didn't want to feel like I was just like roaming through the inner city; I wanted to feel connected. Like I can have a campus and I can have a campus community.  I also didn't want something super small that reminded me too much of home.

 So, coming here, the campus was beautiful.  They had the program I wanted, which is political science originally, before I added on my second major.  Then I saw the arena and I saw just the opportunity to get involved with different organizations, and I was like, okay, I can definitely see myself being here!

 Luckily it ended up great as you guys can see!

David Jones: [00:03:58] Yeah, absolutely  buddy! President,  that's not too shabby to say the least, just awesome! So this past year with the pandemic has been different right? In so many different ways. So, how did you navigate this past year?

Rihanna: [00:04:12] So this past year, well I do like, I guess my own company, it has been very difficult getting used to your own company when you don't have a choice.

 At the beginning of the pandemic,  when all the departments of the school closed,  you know, student workers are sent home. Students were sent home from their dorms, and so I actually lost my job on campus because I couldn't be inside the department.  Luckily, an opportunity arose for me to become a tutor,  doing zoom tutoring.

 So I got to combine 10 of my passions for,  reading and writing and do that in a format that was safe for everyone.  Over the summer, you know,  adults still have to go to work. They still have to pay bills, and so my sister and her husband still had to do what they had to do to support their family.

So I ended up actually leaving my apartment in Mankato and staying in Minneapolis all summer  2020 to kind of help them with my niece, basically. 

 Then of course we had social justice movements, we had the death of George Floyd, and so all of this combined was kind of  very taxing on myself and a lot of other students, but it was nice having the support of the University, having the University give us constant updates on what the plans were moving forward.

 Then really just having University that took the pandemic and COVID seriously it implemented safety measures that could help students get back to normal life as we are about. 

David Jones: [00:05:30] Yeah! Yeah, I would imagine. So, obviously when you're a college student, the key  thing is taking classes. How did your classes switch and how were you able to manage that? 

Rihanna: [00:05:42] Yeah. So, of course all of my classes went completely online. And  because a lot of my classes are reading and writing focused , whereas we would do some of that work in class. Usually now you have to do all of it at home , you have to still give reports, you still have to write papers.

And, you know, instead of having the two days of the weekend, it kind of felt like an endless stream of   school basically.  So with that I really had to start making the schedule to really  start planning things out when I'm going to incorporate time to focus on school, because whenever you're at home, It feels like school2.

 So,  luckily I had some really great professors who understood this and who are  switching completely online themselves, but it was definitely a big transition going from being inside a classroom, at least probably  eight hours a week to being at home 24/7 and having to make that schedule for yourself and stay on are disciplined in routine. 

David Jones: [00:06:35] Yeah, I would think so.  I've talked to a lot of students, clearly people learn  content  for a class, but that ability to learn how to manage, you know, during this time will probably pay off for years and years and years for you to stay, whatever organizational structure you used to stay on top of stuff will be there, whether it's lists or whatever it might be.

 Did you discover any new approaches yourself? 

Rihanna: [00:06:59] Yes! So for one, I think I really discovered like the possibilities we have. I don't think anyone ever imagined having meetings virtually or class meeting virtually, unless you have signed up for online classes. So this whole format itself was I guess, kind of very educational on what possibilities we do have and how to extend access to all different types of students.

Because I know there's some traditional and non-traditional students who probably prefer this format.  But as far as other techniques I've learned,  really just trying to focus on what needs to be prioritized , when it needs to be prioritized and how often, and to what extent I need to do my work.  So,  it was just a transition and, you know, something new I learned , the structure that going in class provides; I guess you don't think about that in the moment, but once  you don't have the option, it was kind of different being like, okay, well now I have to structure everything myself and I have to figure out what works. 

 So, I think during the process, I became like a different type of learner and now I have options. I don't hopefully see any more pandemics in the foreseeable future, but at least we now know that  we have options going forward. 

David Jones: [00:08:10] Yeah, I think you're right. And,  you know, I was super impressed with all of you in student government and the way that you both maximize the use of technology to help you stay connected.

And at various times you try to do some in-person , with social distancing within our physical distancing, within  a room, as well as doing the zoom stuff and  it's not smooth. It's not a 100% smooth by any means  trying to navigate that. But the one thing there was no quit!

You kept trying to, oh, we'll try it like this. We'll try it like that. So, as you view this coming year; it is your year to be the student body

David Jones:  Hello and welcome to our next episode of our family podcast from Minnesota state university Mankato. I'm excited to be joined today by one of our, long-term leaders here within our division of student affairs, enrollment management. It is Nikki stock director of student engagement initiatives, and pardon me, director of student engagement.

Initiatives and assessment. It's a relatively new title here from the work that she's been doing. And I'm excited to have her spend some time with us here today and share us a little bit more about to , well, mostly about orientation, things that are going on and students and families are preparing to learn more about the university have to start in the fall.

So with that, Nikki welcome. Thanks for carving out some time to meet. 

Nikki Stock: Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. 

David Jones: So to give folks some background, how long have you been at MSU? 

Nikki Stock: I, it will be 17 years in July. 

David Jones: Whoa, Whoa. And where have you worked in that time?

Nikki Stock:  All in the new student and family programs office, which used to be called the first-year experience office, but yeah, always here.

And then actually his fun fact is I was a graduate student here also a couple of years prior to that. And I also worked in the new student family programs office at that time as well.

David Jones:  Oh, perfect. So there's no doubt. You share all that cause you're quite the expert when it comes to what, what new students and families are preparing, asking questions and such like that.

I always love referring to. This office is kind of the one that, that parents and families at any point, if they have a question and they're not sure where to start, start with this office. Cause if you guys don't know the answer, you'll likely know where to find it. And that continues to ring true year over year.

So it is the incredible resource. So again, thanks for carving out some time to meet with us here today. So what's, what's all included within your office. What are all the responsibilities right now? 

Nikki Stock: Yep. So well within the new student family programs office the biggest program probably is that orientation and included with that as family orientation.

And so, um, orientation , we, we coordinate the programs for all of our new entering first year students, as well as our transfer students. And then I'm also online learners and Excel. Than it, ed. So we've got just different student populations that we coordinate those programs for. And then, like I said family orientation too.

We, we, you know, recognize that it's a transition for our family members as well of our incoming students. And um, we want to give them the resources that they need also to help their students be successful. And as they work through the transition. Another piece of our office. We do family communications and right now we have our e-newsletters going out every two weeks, so twice a month.

And we'll have you sign up for those actually you'll automatically get signed up for them. Um, Uh, if you are signed up with admissions we just kinda take your email address and add you to our newsletter. You can opt out if you choose. But yeah, that, and then we also do, we have our testing centers part of our office.

And and so the testing center is for math and English placement testing. And, and that's very new. That's just over a year. That we started the testing center. And so we're trying to build that a little bit. We have done some act testing and so we hope to expand different areas of testing as well.

So those are kind of the big pieces of the new student and family programs office. We also coordinate family weekend stuff like that. And then we help with our welcome week planning also. So just kind of, again, those things to connect our students to the campus and then connect parents as well.

David Jones: Excellent. That is a lot of stuff and a lot of important things that really make a difference for, especially the way our students start, whether it's from the testing center to the orientation. And of course, just any general questions you may have. So that's great. Great. So let's start, you mentioned orientation, it's kind of being, that's probably top of mind for our listeners today, as they're getting ready for this summer's orientation and what it looks like in the midst of a, of a pandemic.

And I always during these podcasts, I'm trying to reference today is April 15th. So any COVID information we share today is what we know as of today. So when you listen to it, It may change because it continues to change all the time, but Nikki, can you give us a high level overview of what orientation will look like for our new students and their families?

Nikki Stock: Right. Well, um, due to the planning that goes into orientation, cause it is a large scale program. We had to make the decision a while back already to have a virtual, primarily virtual orientation program. Again, this year. And um, we invite our students. There's kind of several pieces to that for our students.

And so they're invited to sign up for an orientation session and that session, if there is a session date that they will zoom into and get some just basic information from our assistant director for orientation. And then also I'm the director of academic advising. And that will be kind of the.

Start of their advising and registration process then and then we do have our orientation, the kind of the content or the stuff we need our students to know to be successful here in the fall. We've got that set up in D2L Brightspace, which is our learning platform here at the university. And so students sign in with their, their star ID and.

Kind of, it's a great way to students can start learning how to navigate  because they will be using it for classes also in the fall. So it's kinda nice. And that is part of the orientation. We also kind of teach them how to navigate to do well before they get into it. So, um, we are, so again, primarily virtual, we are in the planning stages.

We hope to offer a handful of on campus visit experiences yet for our students. Again, we're really in the early planning stages of that, we haven't set dates yet. We're looking probably at July for those. And you know, we're really still working around the physical, distinct guidelines that we have in place for that.

And so trying to figure out what makes the most sense and getting students the experience You know, a great experience on campus. But we also want that. I want them to have that opportunity of actually coming to see the campus and meeting other new first year students. And, you know, that's all part of the typical orientation experience.

We do do some of that virtual as well. We will offer up connection labs. They were the highest rated part of the program last year. Last year is obviously the first year that we did the connection labs. But that truly is an experience where we have our orientation staff, our orientation leaders facilitating about a one hour session with new first year students or transfer students as well.

We've got separate ones for transfer students and yeah, they just kinda get to know each other over zoom. You know, as best as best you can, but , um, they engage the students and get them talking and connecting. So, that's the first step. And so that's kind of what it looks like this year. Yeah.

And we'll get more information out to you when we know the dates and more information about them, the on-campus expenses. 

David Jones: Perfect. Perfect. So to, to learn more about your orientation, the best resource, probably the website right now. Right. 

Nikki Stock: Yep. Yep. And and email, Oh my gosh. You have to be checking your email.

Because yeah, our admissions office is sending out the information that we need that way. But yes, our website is up to date and say, you can check that out. But yeah , that's, that's probably the best at this point. 

David Jones: Perfect. Thanks. So one of the things you were sharing with me before we started the recording was that that you have a, a pretty unique experience for families and parents that you started last year for the first time.

And that's a book club to help families understand the transition their students might be going through. Can you share a little bit more about, you know, how that went last year and what, what the plan is for this year? 

Nikki Stock: Sure. Yep. Yeah we have chosen a book it's called out to see a parent's survival guide.

I think that's what the subtitle is, but it is written by actually an author who is from Minnesota and she had her, her daughters went to college. So she's she's met with the different administrators to write the book and then she's got some parent input and that kind of thing, but it's just a real easy read.

And so, um, Yeah. So we invite our parents and family members to join us for the book club. We do have limited copies that we've been sending out for people that sign up for the book club. And um, yeah, but to promote you to get that book as soon as possible, but yeah, we'll meet three times.

You don't have to be at every meeting because actually our first meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 19th. And then we'll meet again in may and one more time in June. And so, yeah, all new parents are, are welcome. Um, it's a great opportunity, especially if this is your first student going away to college.

Cause we really talk about those transition issues. T

In this podcast, our host Dr. David Jones, has a chat with the director of university admissions, Dr. Brian Jones. In this episode they discus how to keep parents and students connected with campus and planning for the upcoming fall semester.

[School theme softly plays]

Hello and welcome to the 2021 Minnesota state university family orientation podcast. I'm your host this season, Dr. David Jones, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, here at Minnesota state university Mankato. We're excited, we did this podcast last summer and got great reviews on it. Clearly, we're continuing to be in the midst of a pandemic so feel like it makes a lot of sense to continue this effort and share with you important resources information introduce you to some of the important people here at the university that will be very influential in the success of your student as they attend our university and answer just a lot of questions you might have so this is our welcoming podcast I want to share with you a couple of different messages first as I mentioned I'm the vice president for student affairs I'm in my 10th year here at the university and couldn't be more thrilled to be sharing all the various resources and the people here and the offices at our university and the dedicated efforts that they've put forward, in all that they've done to help students be successful during their time here. So the purpose of this podcast really is to provide a lot of that information but more importantly provide accurate information based on what we know related to the pandemic our academic planning our student support and service plans for you, as you get ready for the fall of 2021 and we welcome our new class of students.

So let me start with what we know right now today I'm recording this on the 26th of February 2021 and we continue to meet weekly one of the things we're super proud of is our weekly meetings with the Minnesota department of health right from the beginning of the pandemic we've struck a great relationship with the Minnesota department of health and their higher education experts in helping us adjust to the needs of our students our faculty and staff here to make sure that we're following the most recent guidance as well as we've placed people on statewide committees and task forces to help influence and write those guidance's that have been used across all of higher education in the state of Minnesota. It's that expertise that we take a lot of pride in knowing that they're available and right here on our own campus to help our students be successful so what do we know as of right now we stand just about at midterm period here in our spring semester students we find ourselves in what we call our flex sync mode. If you look at the color on our website we are in yellow, which is right above the green. Green is back to fully normal it goes yellow and then orange and then red being the most serious green being open we are at yellow we started this semester at orange as requested by the governor of the state of Minnesota and transition recently to yellow which allows us to begin to do more in-person activities here and provide more in-person services for our students that includes the opportunity for faculty to engage with their students in our classroom settings so I mentioned the term flex sync one of the things we're super proud of and we'll explore in a future episode as well but our students right now have the opportunity if they're not feeling well or they're not feeling safe with their own health to go and attend an in-person class they have the opportunity to go log in and attend that class from afar right on their laptop from their apartment or their home or the residence hall room wherever they may be. As well as flexing then allows some of the students to attend class in person. We have the entire classroom set up across the campus with the current six-foot distancing as well as requiring masks at all locations here on campus and that provides a great opportunity for students to interact with their faculty and their professors and instructors as well as maintain a safe distance from everybody in a way that allows them to maximize their learning. This approach has really allowed us to be super successful this year we poured in a lot of resources last summer to make sure we had the success that we're having right now, and we're super proud of that.
As we look at our cases here at our university and where we stand on the number of cases and everything let me share with you an update on that. 
I shared earlier that as of February 24th two days ago we are still at the yellow.

We have a total number of students with active cases of COVID right now in our campuses is 7. 
Just one of those students has had an active case with a self-reported campus contact, meaning they've (one person) been on campus at some point when they were positive.  We have 0 of our 97 available quarantine beds being used right now. We house about 3 000 students in a normal year. 

Right now we've put aside 97 rooms to address those who need to isolate or quarantine, and we have zero of those 97 spaces being used right now.  We may have students who are living in our residence halls that may quarantine or isolate in their own space. right now we have zero students who are doing that as well. So, we're super proud you can look at our website underneath our covid campus data and you can see since we began tracking this information in early August all the way through today of how we've stayed on top of covid and been super transparent about the resources that we have and where our caseload is at this particular time. In addition to that, we're super proud of our student health team that is put in place and we'll explore more about their services in a future podcast.

But really we have full medical physicians nurse practitioners nurses we have built and put in place a respiration clinic so we can do testing right here on campus as well.

And of course, our students in the city of Mankato have the opportunity to take advantage

of some of the state testing sites, we have set up as well. So that's where we stand, lastly, I want to introduce you to a couple of resources, and we'll talk more about these again in future episodes

But that's where we stand right now, we have an
an incredible resource called the office of

New Student and Family Programs, and that's an
office that's available for our new students before you get here as well. As a new student all throughout your first year, and then family it is the best place to start with any question you may have because if you're uncertain where to start it is truly the best place. I promise you if that office doesn't have the answer right away they'll likely know where to find the answer or who to speak to for answers.

So, it's an incredible resource, you can go to our office in new student family programs you'll find versions of this podcast, where you can link to Spotify, iTunes, youtube to find that posting of this resource and we want to welcome you excited you're considering to be a maverick or that you've made the commitment to be a maverick for this coming fall. We'll be sharing with you more details as we record these I expect to be doing these probably minimally monthly, but likely two times a month as we introduce you to a lot more topics and know that you have questions.

With that thank you look forward to speaking with you more and visiting you in a future episode! 

thanks!