Talking Stick - May/June 2008 - 39

communication tools to improve recruitment, enrollment, and retention. GoalQuest helps institutions communicate with a variety of audiences, including high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, and parents, and allows each institution to continuously monitor and manage this communication, according to the company’s Web site. Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, has been using GoalQuest for a year now, says Al Davis, dean of University College. “The GoalQuest software is intended to help us make contact with students as soon as they express an interest in coming to the university,” he says. “Once students are on campus, we use GoalQuest in the freshman seminar as a career resource and as an online supplement to the seminar textbook.” Jayne Richmond, dean of University College at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, says that they have used GoalQuest for about six years to deliver ﬁrst-year seminar course work, including information about academic skills, academic planning, and transition issues. “We use it also to communicate with parents throughout the ﬁrst year, like a newsletter,” she says. “We send the newsletter that has topics of interest and includes an ability for parents to ask questions of various departments.” In the past, many institutions focused simply on making the transition to college easier for students. Now, however, many institutions are offering parents similar help. The University of Alberta hosts a parent seminar during the move-in weekend as well as offering the “T2U: Transition to University Parent Workshop,” Krawchuk says. According to the T2U Web site, this online workshop is designed to enhance the ﬁrst-year experience for the whole family by familiarizing parents with the university culture; it also addresses a number of topics of interest to parents including university regulations, how to deal with changes in family dynamics, how to best support their student, and the services available to students. ITʼS ABOUT TIME O n some campuses, move-in day is no longer just a day. With the increase in student enrollment and the increasing demand for on-campus housing, many institutions have had to expand the time frame so that the movein day process takes place over a weekend or even a week. “The biggest change has been the expansion of the time period for move in: multiple versus single-day move in,” Robert Robinson, director of campus operations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., says. His campus’ freshman and transfer student move-in is spread out over two days beginning with half that population moving in from Friday evening at 6 p.m. through midnight. The remaining students then begin to move in at 6 a.m. on Saturday through 3 p.m. “The overall process for freshmen, transfer, and upperclass students runs approximately seven days,” Robinson says. In order to manage the ﬂow of students moving into the residence halls over numerous days, institutions such as Marquette have established scheduled arrival times for students based on ﬂoor assignments in the university’s large capacity buildings. “Students who arrived during their scheduled time would get priority for moving carts, elevators, and check-in paperwork,” Berthold says. “There are always exceptions that arise, but overall the procedure worked well and students kept to the schedule. We will continue to expand the process to include all of our buildings this year.” While some institutions work to solidify their move-in processes this year, Iowa State will only be making cosmetic changes in 2008, as they did in 2007, YEARS Congratulations ACUHO-I! University of Texas at San Antonio University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Bemidji State University Indiana Wesleyan University Coastal Carolina University University of Evansville 60 60 UNC Wilmington Texas Christian University Trey®, in its inaugural year, has been installed on over 60 college and university campuses. Visit us in booths 909, 911, 1008, and 1010 and try out Trey for yourself. University of North Texas North Dakota State University Newberry College University of Georgia University of Texas at San Antonio North Carolina Central University Limestone College 60 Academy of the New Church Florida Atlantic University Join us at the Fun Run, Walk & Roll 6:30 am on 6/23

Talking Stick - May/June 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - May/June 2008