Central Michigan Orientation Goes Online

Rebecca Campbell, Editor, E-Source for College Transitions

In response to COVID-19, Central Michigan University (CMU) transitioned all in-person sessions of its New Student Orientation (NSO) to a remote format. CMU is a public university with more than 20,000 students on its main campus in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Typically, it hosts four NSO sessions in the spring for new transfer students and 15 sessions over the summer for entering first-year students and their families. The sessions are each a single day, and most students attend NSO by July. One significant outcome of NSO is getting students registered for a full year of courses. Additional NSO goals are to:

• create a sense of belonging and connection with the university;

• promote meaningful relationships with other students, staff, and faculty;

• explore campus services, resources, and opportunities for student engagement;

• familiarize students with CMU policies, including academic and social expectations;

• review academic program options and graduation requirements while building an individualized course schedule tailored to the student’s intended area of study; and

• introduce the academic rigor and importance of faculty engagement.

A remote NSO model was developed to maintain a consistency with these program goals. Contingency planning for the remote format began in early March for the sessions scheduled in April and May to meet students’ needs and to pilot a model that would eventually be scaled up for the larger groups of students expected in June.

The first remote NSO occurred on April 14 and offered synchronous and asynchronous options. The synchronous experience consisted of a live, two-hour session hosted via Cisco WebEx with the first hour including a welcome from the CMU president, speeches from student mentors, an overview of the university’s core values, and content framed through “5 lessons for student success.” In the second hour, students entered smaller WebEx spaces led by an academic advisor and with student mentors assigned by academic interests. Students attended half-hour, virtual advising appointments scheduled through Microsoft Bookings, and optional virtual meetings with career development specialists, success coaches, and financial aid advisors were available to students on the same day. The asynchronous experience included video messages from various CMU departments and e-magazine formats of the publications students and families would have received in person.

An example of a slide used to engage online orientation attendees.

By early May, all summer NSO programs were transitioned to the virtual format. To scale the synchronous components and maintain a smaller virtual audience, four concurrent sessions of the opening program and 14 advising team meetings were held simultaneously on each orientation day in June. By July 1, more than 2,500 new students and family members had attended an online NSO, on par with point-in-time attendance in 2019.

Instead of the traditional messages about where to stay while visiting Mount Pleasant and where to park on campus, CMU staff created messages about testing devices beforehand (e.g., tablets, computers, smartphones), accessing the virtual orientation, and who to call if there were technical issues. Staff anticipated the most pressing questions, concerns, and stressors of new students and their families, and embedded relevant information in NSO content. Live sessions acknowledged the gravity of the pandemic head-on, addressing the challenges for students and families and how CMU would support them.

The COVID-19 coronavirus forced CMU staff to reconsider the role and purpose of NSO, particularly in how it facilitated the student’s transition to the university. Before the pandemic, CMU solely relied on face-to-face experiences to meet students’ onboarding and transition needs. Remote orientation was reframed as a critical starting point, and as a means to refer students and families to ongoing support and services throughout the summer. The synchronous components and virtual appointments offered a more personal experience than the asynchronous video messages. Based on assessment data, CMU staff were confident the remote NSO effectively initiated students’ transitions to CMU, but they lamented the loss of in-person interactions with students, faculty, and colleagues. The interpersonal experiences were simply not the same in a virtual environment, and students missed out on a memorable visit to the CMU campus.

Despite its drawbacks, there are plenty of reasons to build on the remote NSO model in the future. Based on initial, positive student and family feedback, a remote orientation experience is likely to be offered as an option for select student populations. Specifically, the remote sessions were more accessible for transfer students, adult learners, and out-of-state students. Additionally, CMU will continue to offer self-paced, online learning modules for new students and families. Finally, due to the successful pivot online, campus partners have been encouraged to offer online opportunities, such as virtual appointments and social media events, throughout the summer. Similar outreach efforts are expected to be offered into the future.

Note. Special thanks to Alex Kappus, former Associate Director, Office of Student Success, Central Michigan University, for his contributions to the development of this article.

CONTACT

Alex Kappus: alex.kappus@gmail.com