STUDENT AFFAIRS DEAN’S UPDATE Fall Quarter 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS 02 | Message from Student Affairs Vice President Patricia Telles-Irvin 05 | Housing Master Plan 06 | NUhelp 07 | QPR 08 | NCA Career Treck
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Division of
STUDENTAFFAIRS Dean’s Update FALL QUARTER 2015
Dear Colleagues, As you will soon discover, the Division of Student Affairs continues to build, help, and advance our Northwestern community in meaningful ways. We now know what the new residence hall at 560 Lincoln will look like — and are excited to share these details and renderings with you as we work toward creating more engaging campus environments through the Housing Master Plan. I have no doubt these efforts will positively impact our on-campus living experience. NUhelp continues to assist our community when they need to report a concern, discover valuable health or safety resources, and find academic assistance within a specific school. Student Affairs has created a new NUhelp app for our community. The app, debuting this September, will bring key resources straight to your smartphone and feature an “Evanston Safe Walk” function that we will explain more fully in this update. Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin
Finally, we will review how Northwestern Career Advancement’s Career Treks program will serve our Northwestern undergraduate students this September, by providing them with valuable insight into potential future careers. As we get ready for another school year, here’s to a successful Wildcat Welcome and fall quarter. As always, I thank you for your partnership as we look to enrich our students’ experiences here at Northwestern. Warm Regards,
Patricia Telles-Irvin Vice President for Student Affairs
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Vision WE WILL BE FULL PARTNERS IN THE STUDENT LEARNING EXPERIENCE. The Division of Student Affairs partners with the academic schools/colleges and other University Divisions in allegiance with the University’s vision and mission to advance student learning and success.
Mission THE MISSION OF THE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY DIVISION OF STUDENT AFFAIRS IS TO EDUCATE STUDENTS, ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY, AND ENRICH THE NORTHWESTERN EXPERIENCE We pursue our mission through providing learning programs, services, and mentoring to maximize students’ potential, removing barriers to learning, strengthening readiness to learn, and sustaining a safe and healthy Northwestern community.
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HOUSING MASTER PLAN
Rendering of 560 Lincoln – The residence hall will be located north of Kemper Hall with more than 400 beds and suite-style housing. Via the NU Residential Services Facebook.
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New renderings of 560 Lincoln, the first of five new residence halls being constructed as part of Northwestern’s Housing Master Plan, offer a glimpse at what on-campus housing will look like in the future. While extensive renovations have occurred over the past five years, this plan will equalize and improve the student residential experience through a combination of the construction of five new halls, the first of which opens Fall 2017 at 560 Lincoln, and renovation of 11 existing residence halls. The Housing Master Plan will be completed in time for the 2025-26 school year. In addition to the construction of 560 Lincoln, the North and South Mid-Quads reopen this year after renovations that included creation of a more open community space, new laundry, pantry and entry areas, and new finishes and fixtures throughout the building. Goodrich House, Public Affairs Residential College, and Shepard Residential College buildings are also undergoing renovation beginning this school year and will reopen Fall 2017. The Housing Master Plan emphasizes more suite-style housing, integrating social and academic spaces, and preserving green spaces in response to feedback from focus groups and surveys. In anticipation of the upcoming on-campus living requirement for both freshmen and sophomores, the project also increases the number of beds on campus from 3,993 to 4,252. Residence halls are critical to enriching the Northwestern experience — they are the harmonious spaces where students unwind after a long day, study, learn, and innovate together, and meet fellow residents with whom they may form lifelong friendships. Over the next ten years, the Housing Master Plan will improve these vital campus spaces. We also look forward to developing, in conjunction with Northwestern faculty, a philosophical approach to the residential experience to contribute to a better Northwestern.
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NUHELP
Concerns reported through NUhelp increased from 23 reports in 2013–14 to 71 reports last year, and the app’s availability this year will allow even more community members to speak up or find resources if they have a concern.
New NUhelp Resources this Fall
In addition to the new app, Student Affairs has updated the Faculty and Staff Resource Guide as the go-to list for contact information and guidelines for protocol when faced with urgent or emergency situations. These folders will be distributed throughout the Northwestern community to serve as another valuable resource.
The Dean of Students Office and Student Affairs Information Technology have created a new mobile app that will give members of the Northwestern community access to resources to help students and colleagues this school year.
The NUhelp app, available free for both Apple and Android devices, will feature a new “Evanston Safe Walk” function. This function will help individuals walking through campus and the surrounding community by allowing them to set a duration time for their walk, along with identifying a contact person. If the user doesn’t deactivate the “Evanston Safe Walk” app within a certain duration of time, the app will send a notification to the contact person. Through both the NUhelp website and more mobilefriendly app, Northwestern community members can access health and safety resources including phone numbers for NU Police, the Dean On-Call and urgent medical care, find academic assistance, and share concerns about the well-being or behavior of a Northwestern student.
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QPR Become an effective Gatekeeper with QPR Suicide Prevention Training Although suicide is one of the most preventable forms of death, it is the second leading cause of death among college students. In many cases, people struggling with suicidal thoughts communicate clues to someone personally close to them, such as a friend, family member, colleague, faculty or staff member. To help our community recognize warning signs for suicide and assist others in need, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) has chosen the QPR (Question-Persuade-Refer) Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training Program. This communityfocused, nationally-recognized, empirically-based suicide prevention program, is designed to educate our community about suicide and the resources available for those needing professional help. Any person (i.e., student, staff, or faculty) on our campus who is in a position to notice that another individual is distressed and needs help is a gatekeeper. QPR is intended to teach individuals how to recognize the warning signs of suicide, and provides guidelines on how to: --
Question a person about potential suicidal thoughts,
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Persuade them to seek help, and
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Refer them to appropriate professional services.
This training program is appropriate for anyone who wants to participate — CAPS has trained nearly 3,000 students, faculty and staff in free, 1.5-hour QPR sessions at Northwestern. Contact Dr. Monika Gutkowska to request a training session (Sessions have a 35-person maximum) and learn more about the QPR method on the CAPS website at www. northwestern.edu/counseling.
FACULTY AND STAFF RESOURCE GUIDE
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NCA CAREER TREKS Seven Career Treks, Four Cities: Students Get an Inside Look at Career Fields This Fall
Association, School of Education and Social Policy, Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, Medill Career Services, School of Communication and EPICS, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Student and Alumni Engagement, Institute for Student Business Education, and Investment Banking Club.
In September, a total of 116 Northwestern undergraduate students will spend three days touring companies and organizations in a career field they hope to pursue as part of Northwestern Career Advancement’s (NCA) Career Treks.
“The treks allow NCA and Northwestern an opportunity to provide a signature experience for students outside of Chicago,” NCA Executive Director Mark Presnell said. “NCA’s creation of the trek program was an effort to increase the breadth of jobs and internships by bringing students to locations, companies, and industries that do not typically visit college campuses in the Midwest.”
Now in their second year, NCA Career Treks bring students to various U.S. cities to educate them about career paths, facilitate networking, and connect students directly with alumni and employers in specific industries. NCA collaborates with a number of campus partners to coordinate the treks, including the Northwestern Alumni
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Keenan and former U.S. House of Representatives member Jim Kolbe (government, law and policy).
Student learning is paramount to the success of the career treks, as NCA aims to provide an experience that will allow students to gain industry-specific knowledge and improve networking skills. The 2014 career treks, for example, resulted in a significant confidence boost in networking abilities. After the trek, 76 percent of students reported that they were either “confident” or “very confident,” a dramatic improvement from before the trek, when 56 percent of students reported being either “not confident” or “not very confident.” Additionally, 90 percent of students surveyed would “definitely recommend” the career trek experience. Jen White, a Medill senior, traveled to New York City as part of last September’s media and marketing career trek, where she visited Google, Bloomberg, BBDO and more. She credits the trek with giving her a better understanding of the different career paths that fit her interests and skills. “The Marketing and Media Career Trek gave me a window into so many different types of companies and the roles I could potentially fill one day,” White said. “As a designer, I am pretty flexible - I could work at a publication, ad agency, or in-house at a larger company.”
In 2014, three treks brought a total of 52 students to New York City and Washington D.C., and 2015 participants can look forward to a full schedule with the addition of four treks, and San Francisco and Los Angeles as new destinations for site visits. A few examples include: Warner Brothers and United Talent Agency (film and television), Interbrand and Colgate-Palmolive (marketing), Viacom Media Networks and Huffington Post (media trek), Bank of America and Goldman Sachs (investment banking), and Twitter (startups and technology).
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The Career Trek exposed me to those different settings, allowed me to experience each company’s unique culture, and really helped me ground myself in the world of media - in which I will soon be applying for jobs.” - Jen White
In 2015, students will also have opportunities to meet and learn from notable Northwestern alumni, such as President Obama’s speechwriter Cody
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STUDENT AFFAIRS
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