Transcription from the session

Julianna Goldring [00:01:53]:
Oh, good. Cool. So just wanted to thank everyone again for being here today. We are actually at the last day of our summit. We have had sessions, starting Monday every day this week. So, hopefully, you were able to join us, for one of those earlier. And, if not, we will, be sharing out the recordings as well, so not to worry. But I just wanted to take a brief moment to introduce concept three d and share a little bit about us as a company.

Julianna Goldring [00:02:21]:
So we were founded in 02/2006. We have almost two decades of experience serving higher ed institutions. Colleges and universities are really our bread and butter. We offer immersive and accessible solutions for interactive maps, virtual tours, event calendars, which Sheena's gonna talk about today, and actually recently launched a new product for room reservations. Our approach to marketing and recruitment is really a digital first and inclusive mindset. We're super proud to share that we're currently working with over 700 campuses, from traditional four year public and privates to community colleges, medical schools, law schools, libraries, pretty much everything in between. So we love higher ed. We love supporting you guys, and just making your lives easier as you connect with students.

Julianna Goldring [00:03:09]:
And then we can pass, to the next slide here. So I just wanted to speak to kind of why we created the summit in the first place. So the idea really came from wanting to give higher ed professionals different ways to create stronger connections on campus. We know that there is a lot of movement and change and turbulence going on in higher ed right now, and so there's just always a good opportunity to build connections whether it's through, peer networking or staff retention, enhancing your digital accessibility, or fostering those vital in person opportunities to connect, which is our topic for today. And with that, I will pass it to Sheena, who is the chief communications officer at Reed. She's also an honored member of our insights panel here at Concept three d, which is a quarterly initiative that we, put together really just to stay in tune with higher ed. We wanna listen to you all and be as supportive as we can. And so that's where we first connected.

Julianna Goldring [00:04:07]:
And thank you all again for being here. And with that, I will just pass it to Sheena.

Sheena [00:04:11]:
Great. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and to talk about this exciting and fun topic. So let's get started. So first, an agenda. We're gonna talk through, digital tools. We'll talk about the events that are used to create connections. We'll talk about events that are about empowering students, and then we'll just talk about the importance of hosting events and why we do, this work, in all in addition to all the other work that we do.

Sheena [00:04:35]:
So why are events so important? Let's go ahead and get started. So digital tools. So first, I wanna start with a Mentimeter. So if you all could either scan this QR code on your phone or use under your laptops that you're watching this on, go to menti.com and enter the code 12233521. I'll bring this up for just a moment, and we'll get started on this. Can I switch my screen here so you can see the multimeter? Alright. So which digital tools help foster community the most on your campus? K. So social media, certainly, giving a lot.

Sheena [00:05:33]:
Events calendars, good. Newsletters. So for folks who are writing other, I would love it if you put in the chat, share what that other is, so that I could understand what else is on here that we didn't talk about. Okay. So word-of-mouth for managers to report faculties, and faculty in classes. Yep. Absolutely. Good.

Sheena [00:06:16]:
Thank you, Cheryl, for sharing that. You're Cheryl. Sorry if I'm terribly messing up her name. So alright. And then let's go one more question here. And what do you wish you had in your digital toolkit to better support campus community? You want a CRM? Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, what platform for students to talk like Reddit? Good.

Sheena [00:07:16]:
Ah, think you have what you need and not renews it efficiently. Sure. Better texting tools, better social media accessing tools, better design software and a CRM. Oh, campus TV daily news. When that would be lovely. I agree. More opportunities for interactive engagement. Good.

Sheena [00:07:34]:
I will say for the platform for students to in groups to talk, something that Reid has used quite a bit, is Discord, and that's been a really active place. We start students, who are prospective students, who are admitted, but haven't yet, said I'm coming. We put them in a Discord and start having conversations with them there, and that's where they start meeting each other. And then that kind of, continues to track through as they become, both, you know, admitted and saying, hey. I'm coming. That's where folks can find roommates and all those kinds of things. So there's a lot, of really good discussion on Discord, and it's a tool that, the the youth these days seem to be really familiar with. So that might be something you wanna look at.

Sheena [00:08:15]:
So, it's a great platform for us, for sure. So, yes, I feel so old when I'm like the youths. That's true. So, yeah, I do like Discord quite a bit. And having an Internet, that is certainly something that, I think we talk about a lot. We're kind of, at Reed, have been kind of pod podging together an Internet. But yeah. So CRM, super helpful.

Sheena [00:08:36]:
Project management software, I don't think my team could function without one. It's a I mean, we every, you know, we we're always putting together our board reports, and it's like, you know, every few months, it's like, we're we're working on a 40 projects right now. And without a really great project management software, that's really impossible for us. So, Wrike is what we use. We just switched over to that, a few months ago, and I've been really enjoying it. But there are lots of great, projects, software out there. So, yeah. So excellent.

Sheena [00:09:06]:
Alright. Thank you for that moment of interaction. I am going to move this back over to, the screen. There we go. Alright. Okay. Let me move this. There we go.

Sheena [00:09:23]:
Alright. So let's talk through some of the digital tools that, I use quite a bit, in my work up here at Reed. So localist events is a really important thing for us. That is a concept three d product. I don't need to push that. I want to do this. So, but this is where all of our events live. So students, faculty, staff, can submit what they're doing.

Sheena [00:09:45]:
I just kinda wanted to scroll here a little slowly not to make anyone seasick, but just to see I mean, this starts this this screen view is starting on, today, Friday, February 18 or February. I never know when I am. Friday, April 18, and moves, through the next few days. But you can see the number of things that we have that kind of are a whole bunch of different activities happening. And this is a pretty typical, offering for during the school year. We don't have students on campus. Largely during the summer, we don't offer classes. We do have some students doing research, but the activities really go from, kind of late August through May.

Sheena [00:10:21]:
And it's amazing how great this has been for us to just have a central hub for this. And so when we do I'll talk about newsletters and those kinds of things, but we link back to these, so that people can put in their information. Like, for example, this physics seminar. You've got the photo. You have the information about what they're gonna be talking about, and then you can kind of see, kind of event details. Right? Which department's holding it? That kind of thing. You can add it to your calendar. There's lots of really great pieces for it that way.

Sheena [00:10:49]:
So, and I think it's really excellent to kinda be able to see, what that looks like. So, and it's been really fun to kind of, see the different things that people do. Right? So we have here a community dance at Reed, so folks can get together and just dance. And it was originally scheduled for, back in February when we had a big snow snow and ice day, so they rescheduled it, to let people come in and dance and have a great time. And I appreciate that there are the different you know, who who is invited, what kind of event might it be, what the audiences look like, and then and that for folks who might be coming from off campus for those moments. So it really is a great, ability for us to share all of this out with our communities. So, and, Juliana, I hear you. It's there are so many things on this campus that as a a staff member, I don't get to do.

Sheena [00:11:41]:
And I think, man, when I was a student, did I take advantage of all these great opportunities? I don't know. But it's amazing what we have to offer. So I think having a really great, calendar is important. Getting the word out, of course, is also really important. So here at Reed, we have, weekly and monthly newsletters. So we have the campus news that goes out every week, every Thursday morning, and it goes out to students, faculty, and staff here on campus. And that's a mix of kind of interesting stories coming off of our newsroom. There's a lot of events saying, hey.

Sheena [00:12:16]:
There's things to check out. There's we'll have, different kind of spotlight corners where, like, once a month, we'll have HR corner where the HR team sends out important information about what they're needing the the community to know about. We have the sustainability corner, that lets, our students, faculty, and staff know when they can engage with different sustainability pieces, and events and activities around that. It's been really, really helpful. The monthly newsletters that we have go out to parents and to alumni, and they have similar but different content aging toward their different audiences. So for parents, we're really looking at giving them an insight into what's happening on our campus throughout the month so they know that their kiddo is doing alright and having a good time. And, we try and tell a lot of student stories on there, and talking about kind of developments happening at the school. And for our alumni, of course, this is a great way to keep them connected to the school no matter how many years out they've been, to kind of continue to translate what their experience might have been a decade or four decades ago to what's happening now at Reed.

Sheena [00:13:14]:
And that's been really, really helpful to have. And, of course, social media is a really good way for us to keep our campus informed and a really great way for our prospective students to find us as well. So something that we do with social media is we do have a main Reed channel, and that is where all all of our pieces are funneled. We don't really do event coverage there. We do it after the fact. So we don't let people know that something's coming, but we certainly cover things after it. So we'll have a photographer at an event, and we'll throw up those photos and say, here's this great thing that happened. And that's largely targeted toward our prospective students, to let people know that what's happening and to our parents.

Sheena [00:13:47]:
Right? So that there's kind of the the the folks who are caring about what's happening right now on campus that's been really important for students who might be thinking about coming here and for the parents whose students are already here. So we get a lot of engagement on those pieces. We just, about a year ago, we hit 10,000 followers on Instagram. And this year, we're at 11,000. So we're excited to see that continued growth. Instagram is certainly where our students are and their parents are, but we post on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Blue Sky. So we've paused our Twitter for now, and just have a link saying, find us on Blue Sky. But it's been really great to see that engagement continue to grow.

Sheena [00:14:23]:
And LinkedIn has been another place that really continues to grow in strength for about 25,000 followers there. So that's been great to see. So, and then also about making it look great. Right? So we have the Adobe Creator Suite that we use here in the office to do anything. The the role at Reed is that anything that kind of has some any kind of outward facing ability. So who's gonna go out to the wider community? We wanna make sure that's really well branded. So it has the Reed College logo lockup. It's got the Griffin.

Sheena [00:14:52]:
It's got all the things that we need to have to make sure that it's clear that this is a Reed piece. And so when we're inviting even alumni from off campus, making sure that that is all, locked up in that way for sending something out more widely. For on campus, we don't hold those same, branding standards, for a couple of different reasons. One, people who are here know they're here. And second, my team does not have the bandwidth to do the all of the events that students are holding all the time. But we do offer is Canva. And so we give, an opportunity for students to access that and make their own stuff so that it's a little bit, slicker, than maybe, you know, the handwritten signs. I don't know about your campuses, but on Reed's campus, it's amazing how, physical posturing really is the thing that gets people's attention.

Sheena [00:15:38]:
So, and flyers. So we have flyers all over the place talking about whatever events might be coming up. And so it's nice to have that look a little bit, nicer than maybe what a student can can draw with a a pen and paper. And so it's been nice. And it's really loud for their creativity. For our events team that I also run, we do, have some standard templates that we use for some of the, lectures that are in series that are coming through. So the the, my communications and marketing team doesn't have to, do every single lecture that comes through campus because that would be an overwhelming amount. We have a very active lecture situation here.

Sheena [00:16:18]:
So, I think that could be really, helpful to figure out how to spread the workload out, using these digital tools. Something I'll say about Canva too is that the way that their system is set up, you can spread out the how people pay for it. It's pretty easy to get folks to kind of chip in on that. It's pretty inexpensive, especially for higher education institutions. So something to certainly look into if you haven't already. Alright. K. So let's look at some of these events that, Reid has posted.

Sheena [00:16:48]:
I've got a few events here about creating connections and kind of what tools were used in that situation. So, before we do that, I wanna get into the centimeter again. So if you can pop back on here, it's the same one we were on just before, but you can use this QR code or, enter this code at menti.com, and we'll get back into that. So we'll talk about events a little bit. Switch my sharing screen. Okay. One here. So here's the next question is, which student events are the most popular on your campus? Sports? Food or fashion? Interesting.

Sheena [00:17:53]:
External speakers. Thoughts again? Sure. Anything with lots of free stuff or food? Absolutely. Events with food? %.

Julianna Goldring [00:18:03]:
Sheena, just so you know, we're still seeing the, slide deck.

Sheena [00:18:07]:
Am I showing thank Thank you for letting me know that I'm sharing the wrong screen. Thank you.

Julianna Goldring [00:18:10]:
Well, good. Better.

Sheena [00:18:11]:
Can you now see the Yep. Now we can see the responses. Thank you. Sorry about that. Okay. So Affinity Meet that's good. Club speaker vents of food and themes office speaker vents. I think the good meant food maybe.

Sheena [00:18:26]:
Yep. Food. There to go. So excellent. So absolutely. Right? It's amazing how folks will flock for free food. And it's students, but also faculty and staff, I find. So I once made the mistake of holding a faculty event, and I didn't have any food, and I will never do that again.

Sheena [00:18:44]:
So I will always make that investment. Not good. Alright. So, sports, of course, is a big draw. I was previously at the University of Utah, which did have a lot of very active sports. Now here at Reed, there are no sports. So we have some club teams, that are not school sponsored, but certainly a draw for folks, and, excellent. Alright.

Sheena [00:19:05]:
So, and then what makes your most popular student event successful, okay, besides maybe the food piece? But are there other pieces besides food? And are there, other other draws, do you feel like? And this is a word cloud, so we'll see. So there's a tree that there's good advertising. New swag, engagement, interaction, social, pets. Absolutely. Trendy social events. K. K. Interaction.

Sheena [00:20:01]:
The time of semester, %. Right. Oh, frame of prestige. K. And how these word clouds work is the more that a word is given, the bigger it gets. So free and swag, certainly getting a lot of love. Good. Good communication.

Sheena [00:20:23]:
Excellent. Great. Alright. Thank you for sharing that. Alright. So let me jump into some of these, events that I've got highlighted here, and we'll see if those follow what we just talked about making these, successful events. So alright. Looks like I am back to sharing my screen.

Sheena [00:20:48]:
There. In my this so first, I wanna talk about the great Reedy Bake Off. So this is an event that was a really popular event here on Reed's campus, and was paused during the pandemic, and just came back this year. And it was such a fun thing to do. We, had, 32 teams to start, and these are teams it was open to faculty, staff, and students, and so there was a lot of different arrangements of teams. So we had some that were all staff or all faculty, but mostly and or all student, but mostly we had a good mix of folks on the same teams, and that was really excellent. So we certainly used localist. You will see that in every one of these events, because that is our central hub.

Sheena [00:21:29]:
We used Adobe Illustrator, to get the, you know, to do the design work, to get the the word out about this. Axios HQ is the, software that we use for our newsletters. And so there is the campus news that we talked about that's weekly, and then also the student engagement newsletter. So our student engagement office also sends out a weekly newsletter that lets students know what's going on through the week. And then Canva was used pretty extensively at the event. I was trying to show some of these little signs in here that you can kind of see, that folks were using Canva quite a bit to show their display of their food. And then we covered it on social media after the fact and certainly celebrated the winners. And it was really, really fun, to see just the community come together.

Sheena [00:22:10]:
It was really great to see all of these, different folks from across campus come together and enjoy, food, which, of course, we talked about being important, and also, just getting to show off their baking skills, and, and their display skills. It was really fun to see how people interpreted different themes and then and were able to truly share that in full ways. So, really enjoyed that quite a bit. So, excellent. And then, Zen garden making was another event that we hosted this this year. And I wanted to highlight this one because I think that it's so important on campuses as we all know, to really pay attention to the whole student and to address things like mental health. This was certainly a time to just kind of relax and and just center yourself and focus a little bit on something that wasn't, the academic grind, and still build community with each other. And so, again, the same kinds of, events here.

Sheena [00:23:08]:
Because this was hosted, as an internal event, Canva was used, exclusively to advertise this, and they got good turnout. They were really happy about it. Again, I kind of showed some of the, signage that they were using, during the event and to get people there. So that was kind of really lovely. People enjoyed doing that work together. And then we had a big garden party, in the fall where sustainability is one of the, big drivers here at Reed College. It's in our, strategic plan to make sure that we are continuing to become increasingly green on campus. And so we invited folks to come to the there's a large garden on campus, that students were able to come in and harvest all of the, kind of remaining veg at the end, you know, end of summer, beginning of fall.

Sheena [00:23:55]:
And all of that food gets donated to food pantries locally, which is wonderful to see. And, again, these same kinds of tools being used, Again, with Localist, you have Canva out there letting spreading the word. You've got, the the news, letters that we send out. And then also, the sustainability office has their own social media as well that they share, and their main read channel will, share out though and, you know, cohost some of those events, and share it on our social media channels to get it out to the wider audience. And so something I think that a lot of campuses really always have to struggle with, or at least I have always on the campuses I've worked on, is kind of that idea of who gets to have their own social media channel, and who is just using the main read channel or the main school's channel. And so I think it's really important to think about if you are cannibalizing an audience or if you are simply finding a niche of that audience. And what I would recommend if you don't have good social media, protocols in place or understanding of what can and can't go off on social media to really think through that and make sure that people are aware of that. And also to let peep make people let you know, if they have their own social media for an office or a space on campus, that they're, informing you of that and that there are ways that you can then partner to, share out that media social media in important ways.

Sheena [00:25:17]:
So, what you think through if you haven't already. So lots of ways that people are coming together to do good work. Right? And we'll talk about the why of that a little bit later. So a couple of events for kind of empowering students, is our student engagement fair. We host this at the beginning of each semester, and it's all the student clubs come together. And what I wanted to point out, which I thought was really interesting, is looking at the signage that they use. Right? It's this big butcher block papers and markers. And so the students, well, they'll have stuff on their tables that are, made by Canva or made on Illustrator.

Sheena [00:25:53]:
Sometimes it's just fun to pull out the the old school stuff, right, and kind of do that, for what the the students are kind of advertising. So our rugby team is one of the club teams that we do have here on campus that is sports oriented. But it was fun to get people here. And so, again, localist in Canva were certainly used in getting folks to attend this, student engagement fair, as were the newsletter spaces and our social media. Again, a separate channel there. Many of these groups have their own social media as student clubs and then also, making sure that we're, lifting up some of those pieces and letting people know about it, and then doing coverage after the fact. And, again, largely for our prospective students at that point because students like to be able to find themselves on campus. And then I thought this was just a really fun, event that happened for the first time this year, the, Asian Pacific Islander student symposium.

Sheena [00:26:47]:
And what I appreciate on there, they used a lot of really fun design on their Instagram page. You can kinda see these different things. But what I thought was really clever is they have these three different, videos that they posted on their Instagram page, of the different ways to physically get to the symposium. And I'm gonna show you this just this quick video of one of those because I thought it was just, fun and cute. So, you can see this little music. So I thought it was just a fun little way for them to, use their Instagram in that way, and they have you know, you took the elevator in that one. Right? There's a stair master edition of them how to get from the other entrance. This building has two entrances.

Sheena [00:27:57]:
So I thought it was just kind of a fun, come along with me and take this tour with me. It was just, really, a good time. And the the, amount of social interaction that was happening on the their Instagram page was really impressive. They had really great turnout. They really enjoyed it. So it was a very fun, there. Oh, and, Will, I'm sorry that the I messed up on the the, music. So I'm sorry.

Sheena [00:28:22]:
It was just a little little cute happy, instrumental music. So but, Will, thank you for letting me know. I tried it because I have my headphones in, and that's where it played through. So, but I think those are are just fun little light, pieces. So, yes. Good. I'm glad this tone of video still came across. Alright.

Sheena [00:28:40]:
So, importance of community. So wanted to talk through this just a little bit, and thinking about why it is that we take time to host these events to make sure that folks are coming to them, and what does that look like. Right? So I think it's impossible to talk about the importance of of these events and the community that we're bringing together without talking about doctor Strayhorn's, research on sense of belonging. And so in a 2020 article that he wrote, these are kind of the different, subheads that you had through there, and why these are interesting. So if you don't know, doctor Strahorn's work, I certainly would recommend that you look at, the importance of sense of belonging, on in university campuses, and how sense of belonging kind of underlies student success in meaningful ways. And so these are some of the highlights that he brings up is that social interaction improves our health. So, we talk a lot in, mental health world about the loneliness epidemic that has been sweeping the nation and why it's important to humans are social creatures, and that making sure that, when you look at the various studies that are out there about, folks who have social interaction and have community in their lives versus those who don't, the health outcomes are pretty startling. For those who don't have community, really negative health health outcomes, much more positive for those who have community.

Sheena [00:30:03]:
Humans have a preference for being social. Right? And so, you can look at, the think about, like, when you were a teenager and you're still trying to figure out who you were and what you were doing and if you as a young person, kind of trying on different identities, trying on different thoughts, and thinking about how do I what do I need to do to fit in. Right? And what does that look like? And so, this idea of being social includes what does that look like for me and how am I trying to find myself. Right? And what which ways will I adapt or change to fit in with the group or which ways will I hold my own identities, and how does that help me figure out who I am? And we know that that's so important in, a a person's growth as they're trying to figure out what who they are and kind of finding themselves in their own voices, and what that looks like in their world. So, creating these events where they can be social is super important. And we, of course, learn by engaging with others. So work that it's done, alone and in a silo doesn't really work out. Right? So the the old saying that, you know, no no one is an island.

Sheena [00:31:03]:
We, in fact, are not. Right? We're all connected, and so making sure that we're, interacting with one another is really important. And we make better decisions together. Right? There's so many different studies about, the importance of having a diversity of viewpoints when you come together, and making sure that you're hearing from multiple multiple perspectives before you move forward with something. And it's important for students to be able to find people that are outside of maybe their immediate circle, right, or somebody that they might, gravitate toward naturally. When you put people together that wouldn't be someone that they might automatically pick out of a group, they're gonna have them learn even more exponentially than they would with people who are like minded. So finding that, kind of viewpoint difference is really important as well. And so with student recruitment, really important too.

Sheena [00:31:52]:
Right? I was talking a lot about why we post on social media after the fact. It's for our recruitment pieces. Right? So students are really finding themselves through others. So prospective students wanna know camp what campus is gonna be like. So that's why we do that social media coverage after the fact. We keep our localist open, local localist events open to everyone so you don't have to have, like, a login to see everything. But there there is an ability to have something behind a login wall if it's something that is a private event that you don't want the wider community to know about, so there is that option. But largely, it's open to everyone.

Sheena [00:32:25]:
And it's great. We talked about pets and and animals before, so baby goats at Reed are always a winner. When we have these kind of events where we bring in the baby goats, particularly in the spring, it's amazing the how long the lines are, to go hang out with the baby goats in their pens. So, it's really, really fun. So I think it's, a a fun thing. And I I love this photo because you've got the people all taking the the photos of their friends with a goat on her shoulders. Right? So, important to think about how students are kind of finding themselves in those moments, and what they're interested in. And we know that college is all about, exposing students to new viewpoints and new ideas, and new events and new activities, right, and new people.

Sheena [00:33:05]:
So making sure that's an important part of that lived experience while on campus. And then student success, you know, from the beginning, really starting with student orientation. So this is, our orientation this year. Students, who are just coming to campus for the first time were, coming together to make musical terrariums, which was really fun. Again, kind of, again, in that kind of mental health space. But we know that bringing strangers together into a community can certainly be challenging. And, you know, over the last few years here, I've had that up up up at Reed. Certainly thinking about what being in community means.

Sheena [00:33:38]:
Right? It doesn't mean that we all agree all the time. It doesn't mean that we all have the same perspective or same viewpoints, but it means that we can work together, and we can find, commonalities even when we have difference. Right? So how do we communicate across that difference, and find ways? And I think that working on shared projects certainly helps, and having something that you're working toward, is really, really helpful. And providing the space and structure also helps. I know that, there are times that, you know, I'll have folks who've been on Reeves campus longer than I have been. I've been up here since January 23, that they'll look at me and be like, oh, Reedy students won't do that. And I'll be like, well, can we just try? And let's just see if we if we put them in a room together and give them a a couple of basic instructions. Will they engage in a different way? And I have yet to be disappointed with the way that these students will say, hey.

Sheena [00:34:26]:
Yeah. This is great. So, it's about creating a space where students can feel comfortable, in their discomfort of trying to meet new people, and trying to find ways to get past that momentary social awkwardness and having some structure around that is really helpful. So important to think about how, starting students in that social space, and kind of getting to know each other. In my experience, some of my longest lived friends, our friendships are from, my time as an undergraduate. So, the person I was a a student newspaper person and, the person who's my first editor in chief of the student newspaper ended up officiating my wedding. I mean, we have been and we're still fast friends. So, and many of the the folks from those newspaper days are still my my closest friends, because college is really that time you find those lifelong friendships.

Sheena [00:35:17]:
And so important to create opportunities for those to start blossoming. And and then finally, just, you know, connections and care matter. Right? So, connecting after COVID, I know it's been five years, but the effects are certainly still being felt. Like we I talked about earlier, there's this idea of really needing to combat loneliness, and making sure that, folks are able to connect with each other, to find each other, and, find new experiences. This is a a knitting workshop that we did here at Reed, which I thought was really fun and interesting. And I love that students are just game for something new. Right? So a lot of these folks have never picked up a pair of knead knitting needles in their lives, and it was fun to see them do that. And what I like about this photo too is that you've got the students up here working with the instructor, and in the back, you've got some staff members.

Sheena [00:36:06]:
So we try and do events where we bring, students, faculty, and staff together to do these kind of, engagement moments where you kind of get to know each other. And it's been really fun, to have that kind of those self deprecating moments where you're like, oh, this thing that was supposed to be a scarf didn't really end up being anything, and that's okay. And it's fun to get to learn something new together and kind of be in that, kind of both joyous the joyous struggle of learning something new, and doing that in community is great. And engaging social skills. Right? We know that after COVID, or during COVID, people were so isolated from one another and that, young people particularly really lost in some of their biggest years of social skill development. And so that's still lacking. Right? They come to us even though they've been in school now for a couple years. Again, it still isn't quite the same.

Sheena [00:36:55]:
And so we're really gonna have, you know, an entire generation of students who didn't quite there's some gap in there. Right? There's a a year or two gap where they just didn't get to do the interactions that we'd hope they'd have. And, also, important to think about addressing the whole student. And so I think it's, really important to care for the whole student. At Reed, we're really big into academic rigor. This is, like, the thing that drives Reed, but we talk about that we're just not you know, people aren't just brains, on sticks walking around. Right? We have a whole other emotional piece to us. We have, you know, the physical body.

Sheena [00:37:31]:
So there's we just opened up our new sports center that, we're really excited about. But we also have really great mental health support on campus. And giving students a break from the river, is always important. So moments like knitting, creating a Zen garden, hanging out with baby goats, those kinds of things are a great time for them, and really great to strengthen friendships. Right? So, again, finding ways that people can kind of come together, meet with one another, and, explore new activities. So, it's always amazing to me when I talk to students from Reed or who are now alumni, and go, you know, what was it that you, you know, you are in this field that had nothing to do with your major because we are a liberal arts college, and so we have students graduating in all sorts of different arts and sciences backgrounds. I don't want to put something completely different. And often it was because they got exposed to some new thing through an activity or an event saying, oh, I had no idea that I really loved calligraphy, and now I do this thing in art that had nothing to do with my history major, but this is the world that I work in.

Sheena [00:38:34]:
So really exposing folks to new stuff can be really, really helpful. So, yeah, so I think those are really important things to think about and how different visual tools can help bring folks together, to do this really important work of the social development of our students, and they continue to progress. So, that's that's what I have for this presentation. I would love any questions that you all have, and probably to engage in any, conversation that you might have.

Julianna Goldring [00:39:04]:
Thank you so much, Gina. That was great. I actually had a question, and then I think someone had asked as well about what people are using for project management. Yeah. But one question I had is, do you have a recommendation for how schools can utilize the data that they have available to improve their events? So if if there's, like, feedback loops or website traffic or anything like that.

Sheena [00:39:30]:
Absolutely. So excellent question. Yeah. So, in one of the photos I showed, there was kind of a a QR code for, hey. Give us some feedback. Right? Because we're always wanting to know what worked, what didn't work. We always ask the first question we always ask is how did you hear about this? Right? So we wanna know which channels folks are actually accessing. And it's entirely possible they've heard it three different ways or seven different ways, but the one that they answer helps us understand which one resonated the most.

Sheena [00:39:54]:
And that's really helpful. And, I will say something about my student audience, which may be true for your student audiences as well, is that they have no problem giving their opinion about something. Right? So it's really important to say, what did you enjoy? What could we have done better? You know, what what, what would you also and we always ask for ideas. What would be the next thing? Right? We have something called the gray fund here, which is a donor fund that is about bringing people together from the students, faculty, and staff to have events like that. Knitting one was one. And so we ask, what would you like to do next? And kind of getting that pushed. So, so yes. Oh, and good question here.

Sheena [00:40:33]:
Also about if I push, events out to digital screens. So for us, at, Reid, we don't actually have digital screens out. It's something that I would love to get, on our campus. So I had that in my previous institution, and we certainly pushed it out there. But I don't have that here. But do other folks in the in the audience do that? So and you're right, Cheryl. Certainly be careful. It was a it was a nightmare having to manage those screens.

Sheena [00:40:59]:
So I don't necessarily miss them, but I do wish we had that at that channel. So maybe maybe I'm just remembering the the good happy times and looking that back that through rose colored glasses, but, it is helpful to have those pieces. I don't know if anyone else in the chat has other folks who have engaged in, digital screen advertising events and be able to push that up.

Julianna Goldring [00:41:24]:
I'm gonna launch a brief poll as we, Sure. Responses. But if you're interested in learning more about concept three d and how we can help, build connections on your campus through digital tours, just respond to our poll here. And then, Tina, maybe you can talk a little bit about what project management tools you use.

Sheena [00:41:43]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So, we have gone on, certainly a journey through that. We had when I, came into this team, so my public affairs team has, kind of three different, sub areas. So I've got the editorial team, which runs our our magazine. We have our creative team, which does all of the creative work for the school. And then we have our website team. And so each of those folks were kind of using different project management pieces.

Sheena [00:42:09]:
So, we, had been using Basecamp for quite a while, and Basecamp for me, was just not my favorite tool. It felt like there was just such a huge learning curve for it that was really hard, and it was hard to bring people in from outside because, of course, we work with our campus partners really extensively. And so, our we are lucky enough to have a project manager on our team. And so we, do, what we do is we switch it over to something called Wrike, which has been really helpful for us. And so that has been, really, not a whole lot of we did, you know, basic training on it, but it didn't take a huge learning curve for it. And it's incredibly easy for us to spread out to our partners, and they don't have to have their own logins or anything like that. It's all done kinda through you do it through email, you can do it through Slack, and then everything gets still put into the main central right spaces, which is great. So, it's really, really fun.

Sheena [00:43:04]:
So I really enjoy that piece, but I can't stress enough the need for project management systems. One of our, marketing teams here doesn't hasn't really had a project management system, and I'm constantly I constantly understand and I'm frustrated by the fact that they can't ever make deadlines because they don't know what's coming next. Right? So, really important. They're starting to finally get into the world of project management. So important to have that because there's just all of us, I think, are incredibly busy people with huge demands on our times, and we have to have that ability to move forward and and project manage properly.

Julianna Goldring [00:43:39]:
Totally. Awesome. Was that if anyone has any more questions, feel free to throw them in the chat. But thanks again for for being here and joining us, and thank you so much to Sheena for her amazing presentation. I've been looking forward to this one for months. It's been a long time coming.

Sheena [00:43:58]:
No. Thanks again for the opportunity. I'm glad to be here.

Julianna Goldring [00:44:05]:
Awesome. Alright. Thanks, everyone. Oh, thanks, Cheryl.

Sheena [00:44:18]:
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for the great interaction, everyone.

Julianna Goldring [00:44:24]:
Alright. Take care. Have a great weekend, everybody.