Student Coordinator for Orientation Programs
"Grace Under Fire"
Overview
First Year Programs (FYP) Student Coordinators serve as the bridge between professional staff and program-specific student staff. For my role as Student Coordinator for Orientation Programs, my primary duties centered around Advising and Orientation preparation and facilitation and Orientation Leader training and supervision. Among many things, I managed recruitment and participated in the hiring of the 2019 Orientation Team, presented at a regional Orientation conference, developed retreats, classes, and training weeks for OLs, partnered with professional staff to build staffing and program schedules for all A&O session, and served as the main facilitator of and point-of-contact for summer Freshmen Orientations.
Summer 2020 Student Coordinator Team during Orientation training week
L to R Back: Maria (Transfer and Parent Programs) Val (Operations and First Year Interest Groups), Joe (Design, Photography, and Media)
L to R Front: Joey (Summer Program Logistics), Me (Freshmen Programs and Special Populations), Ericka (Operations and Dawg Daze)
Personal Importance of Work
Being a Student Coordinator for Orientations was important to me because it gave me a platform where I could take action on areas of growth for A&O that I had noticed or had received feedback on during my time as an OL, and because it allowed me to apply my passion for equity to something I care deeply about - the first year student experience. Because I hope to work at UW someday, this position was also an excellent opportunity for me to further my cross-campus knowledge and networks, gain insight on Higher Education politics, and experience another niche of the education field – supervision and program development - that I had not previously known about.
Tasks Accomplished
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Recruited, hired, trained, and managed 27 Orientation staff
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Supported registration labs, set up classroom technology, and problem-solved through programmatic changes in order to keep orientation programs running
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Created detailed schedules for the staff and participants of 32 programs with 300+ attendees
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Presented relevant information to groups of over 250 students and parents on registration, campus resources, and policies
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Presented at the Association for Orientation, Retention, and Transition (NODA) 2019 regional conference on strategies to better engage A&O participants in program content
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Managed various projects including the revamping of Transfer Orientations and development of a student staff training manual, both individually and in collaboration with professional staff
Leadership Competencies Gained
Systems Thinking
The only way Orientation Programs run effectively is through intentional collaboration between campus partners involved and through careful scheduling. As I was in charge of scheduling program activities, staffing, and group rotations, I had to think carefully about how each part affected the others. For instance, if I scheduled an OL group for lunch on West Campus, but they had a 5 minute transition time to get to Mary Gates Hall for registration from there, this would affect the advisers in registration lab because they would likely lose registration time and impact OL leaders as they would either have to rush lunch or run behind. The students would also be affected because they would potentially receive less time to register, which would be an added stressor. As shown, each individual part of A&O is situated within the greater context of the entire A&O experience. Making a decision without thinking about possible impacts on other connected parts could be detrimental to program, so I developed the competency of systems thinking because I had to constantly see A&O both as individual activities and as a holistic program and make decisions with both of those perspectives in mind.
Power Dynamics
One of the first challenges I had to navigate as a StuCo was internal power dynamics. While this came in many forms, the most difficulr aspect I had to figure out early on was determining who had authority over me in which situations. My supervision experience was unique – while each StuCo had one person they reported to throughout the year, I had multiple supervisors because of the scope of my tasks and because my primary supervisor was absent for a significant period of time. When my supervisor came back in June, I wasn’t sure who to listen to because they were not on the same page as the person who had been supervising me in their absence. Consequently, I began receiving contradicting information. Eventually I asked the staff to a meeting to establish who had what authority over me. This meeting helped me to understand their individual areas of expertise and gave me insight on who to report to for what. This experience set me up for success throughout the rest of the summer and helped me develop the ability to navigate power dynamics in a professional setting in respectful and effective ways.
Responding to Ambiguity
Because of all of the moving pieces involved in running Freshmen Programs, responding to ambiguity became one of my most developed competencies. I prefer structure, but I quickly learned how to adjust and follow through with responsibilities even when everything around me kept changing. One of main scenarios I had to adapt last-minute to happened during OL Training Week, which we ended with a competition called OL-ympics. During OL-ympics, OLs would practice the skills and knowledge they had been trained on through a series of competitions facilitated by previous Orientation staff. I had everything carefully scheduled, but 30 minutes before the event started, I had four of my seven volunteers let me know they wouldn’t make it. This gave me 30 minutes to completely re-structure an event that had taken weeks to plan and to communicate these changes to all others involved. I gathered my remaining team, assessed the situation, and managed to calmly adjust and reassign tasks to the best of my ability. Everything ended up running relatively smoothly, and this event gave me confidence in my ability to act quickly and effectively in response to last-minute setbacks or unknown situations, which served me well throughout the rest of the summer.
Taking Personal Responsibility
A by-product of responding to ambiguity was that I often had to make decisions on how to move program forward that were based on the information I had and the context I was in. However, this sometimes meant that I would make a decision that had unforeseen consequences. For example, one day I delegated the responsibility of revising program slides to another StuCo so I could go support an OL in a staffing crisis. While I made the best decision for program in the moment, I overlooked that the other StuCo wouldn’t know to update room numbers for student advising locations. Thus, when the slide to direct participants to their next room came up, students went to the wrong places and I had to redirect everyone. It all worked out, but after program I took time to go apologize to each adviser affected by the mix up, and then met with the other StuCos and showed them the documents where they could check rooms too so that we could avoid a similar mishap in the future. It was embarrassing at the time, but it was a growth moment for me in how to accept responsibility and follow through with fixing mistakes and building systems to prevent similar mishaps in the future.
Research
My co-worker and I had the opportunity to attend a regional conference for orientation programs (NODA). As part of the conference, attendees are given the chance to submit a presentation proposal that, if accepted, they present to other orientation staff in attendance. It is not guaranteed that a proposal will be accepted. My co-worker and I decided to submit a proposal on how to use strategies rooted in principles of adult learning to better engage Generation Z individuals in orientation programs. In our research, we spoke to a professor who dedicated her research focus to Adult Learner engagement and retention, and throughout the process this professor referred us to credible sources and fact-checked our own research. We also sought out recent and peer-reviewed articles to back up our assertions, sorted through UW Library databases, and conducted personal interviews with students on what they would change in orientation, which we tied into qualitative research we found. It was a process to gather and discern accurate research best suited to our context, but we were able to collaborate with experts and rely on knowledge we gained in classes to form the most accurate proposal, and then presentation, that we could.
Responding to Change
During my time at FYP, I was hired and trained by a different group of professional staff than I ended up working under. We had a complete staffing turnover, and as a result, I found that their expectations of what I knew or didn’t know were different than what I actually had been trained on, and my expectations of how they managed me and my projects was built around how the staff who had trained me preferred instead of how the new group of professional staff were expecting. I had to learn to ask questions, let go of expectations, and be ok with taking on responsibilities that I had not originally anticipated due to the changes in how professional staff led and the vision they had for program adjustments and OL hiring processes. While it was challenging at first for me to re-frame my own expectations, I was able to do so by intentionally seeking out ways to get to know them to better understand how they worked. This strategy helped me to transition into working with a new team of supervisors and productively contribute to their vision of how to uphold FYP’s mission of serving incoming students.
Looking to the Future
This position was both my most challenging and most rewarding experience thus far at UW because of the high levels of responsibility and autonomy I was given in a high impact environment. Student Coordinating me how to think on my feet and how to maintain poise and professionalism in high pressure and high stakes situations because every decision I made and every project I was assigned had real-time effects on those around me. Overall, this position helped me confirm that my career interests very much remain with work where I spend more time interacting with students, but showed me that I also have the ability to successfully navigate roles where supervision is central as well if I develop that interest in the future.
Each year, two members of the Orientation Team are voted as the "Husky Pup" recipients. These OLs are who the team recognizes as embodying leadership, FYP values, and being outstanding team mates. This year the team voted for me to receive a Husky Pup as well.
The OL team each received one of these schedules for the day. During training they learned how to read the schedule and have a key I developed to refer back to as well. Their names are along the top, and their "track" number tells them where to go, when, and what they are doing. I have to adjust these schedules each program to account for the different special population (Business, Engineering, Honors, etc) that A&O might be serving that day.
The team bonded so well that we ended up spending time outside of programs together too to do activities such as golf, brunch, or hiking
Each year, two members of the Orientation Team are voted as the "Husky Pup" recipients. These OLs are who the team recognizes as embodying leadership, FYP values, and being outstanding team mates. This year the team voted for me to receive a Husky Pup as well.
Working as a Student Coordinator brought growth, challenges, joy, and friendship. Here is a gallery of some of my favorite moments and some of the main projects I worked on throughout the summer.