2018-2019 Annual Report – Student Orientation & Transitions

To be added soon.

Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)

Student learning outcomes  1C and 3D

Activity or experience being assessed

Interactive Cross Campus Training Program (Orientation Leader training program)

Assessment artifacts

Online evaluation focused on history and campus culture taught during Orientation Leader training program

Time period assessment was done

January 2019 – June 2019

Results

• 14 responses
• Average of 85/100
• Mean of 90/100
• Range of 50 – 100 points

With an average of 85 and mean of 90, this assessment shows the training of history and campus culture was mostly successful.

Continuous improvement process

Each year, Orientation Leaders are trained in the spring for summer orientation. Applications open in fall each year, therefore all education learned from this assessment will be contributed to the re-vamping of the Orientation Leader training program in Fall each year. For this particular assessment, taken in May 2019, the results will be used for the OL Cohort of 2019 – 2020.

WHEN: Fall 2019

Stakeholder involvement / Communication plan

Share with orientation committee, Sharon Downs, VCSA

Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)

Student learning outcome 1C, 3D

Activity or experience being assessed

Interactive Cross Campus Training Program, AKA Orientation Leader training program

Assessment artifacts

OL Reflection; online self assessment completed half way through Orientation Leader training program

Time period assessment was done

January 2019 – March 2019

Results

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What things have you learned about yourself during your training as an OL?

10 responses

• I’ve definitely learned that I like taking charge over tasks. Taking tests like the personality quiz helped me to see my strengths and weaknesses as an individual. I like being able to take charge, but I also still seek validation from others on my projects.
• During my training as an Orientation Leader I’ve learned about my team members, how they operate, they’re personalities and leadership style. In doing so, I’m eager to adapt as necessary to each person’s OL role in order to be an effective leader.
• Unity through diversity. During our training, I’ve learned that just by being authentic and genuine is what made me accept about who I truly am.
• The trainings also helped me practice my social skills despite the fact that I get anxious and overwhelmed in social situations and dealing with crowds. The more I got exposed to different people, the more I got comfortable about how I present myself and how others perceived me.
• I have learned how to be more open about myself to people. It used to be very hard for me to talk about myself to people, but the OL training has taught me to learn how to present myself without it making it seem like I am bragging.
• As an Orientation Leader I have learned how to utilize my communication skills to become a team player. Being around different people has shaped my character to be more outspoken when it comes to being team player or member. The focus group that I am apart of has helped me improve my ability to be more comfortable to share ideas.
• I can appear to be very strong while also very emotional at the same time, according to those personal traits quizzes.
• I’ve learned more about what other people struggle with.
• I learned to let other people give input on certain topics. In the past, I restricted others input, but by letting others join in on the conversation, our ideas are even better and more inclusive.
• I learned that it’s okay to play the background and let someone else take the lead. I don’t always have to be in control of the situation.
• I am a very positive person.

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What was your favorite way of learning about UA Little Rock? (Please list a specific activity or individual field trip you attended.)

10 responses

• I enjoyed the campus tour the most thus far. Despite the weather, I had a great time! I live off of campus, and when I am on campus I tend to just go to class or the library. So a lot of the places we went- like the art building!- I’d never been before.
• My favorite way of learning about UA Little Rock is through the campus tours by the Orientation Leader.
• Personality Tests, Team building, Sharing of strengths and weaknesses, Communication Tests, Walks around the campus, Acquainting ourselves to the different departments.
• I like learning about the different majors, outside of my own/college, because I feel that by learning more about the different majors and colleges, it would help me make more connections and friends in the future.
• learning about the campus living area
• My favorite way of learning about UA Little Rock is to tour around and learn in fact form. I absorb information better when stated in interesting facts, or “tour talks”. Our campus tour informed me of even more interesting and amazing facts about UA Little Rock.
• When we walked around the whole campus
• I loved touring the school again. It is one thing to tour as a high school student, but it is another to tour while in school. You get to focus on the specific details rather than just a broad overview. For example, I did not know about the virtuality lab in the Engineering Building.
• The tour we took really opened my eyes to more resources that are available to me on campus. The group exercises we do in training allows me to see how my fellow employees think and how they operate under pressure. It also keeps me on my toes.
• I really enjoyed the elevator pitch we did in which we explained why we like UA Little Rock.

Each year, Orientation Leaders are trained in the spring for summer orientation. For this assessment, taken in May 2019, the results will be used for the OL Cohort of 2019 – 2020.

Training implementations from assessment:

Timing

• Take assessment at the end of training; no need for mid training assessment to be so detailed
• Completed during Spring Break as “online assignment” with paid 2 hours; change to no assignments during Spring Break

More of: team building

• 60% reported it was their favorite part
• 50% reported having team building skills after 4 weeks of training
• Prediction = if assessment was completed at the end of training, the % would be greater

Less of: OL Projects

• In 2019 = OLs completed 3 projects; proposed 2020 1 or 2 max projects with less responsibility
• 1 or 2 large groups also contributes to Team Building implementation

Leadership & Development

• 62.5% reported leadership skills improved after 4 weeks of training
• 50% said greater project management skills after 4 weeks
• 8/9 comments reported campus tour as favorite way of learning about UA Little Rock
• Prediction = if assessment was completed at the end of training, the % would be greater

WHEN: Fall 2019

Stakeholder involvement / Communication plan

Share with orientation committee, Sharon Downs, VCSA

Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)

Student learning outcome 1C, 3D

Activity or experience being assessed

Orientation Leader training program

Assessment artifacts

Focus group led by Baylee Linker, Summer Intern for Student Orientations & Transitions

Time period assessment was done

March 2019 – June 2019

Results

Complete results here

Focus Group objective:

To obtain feedback from Orientation Leaders on training, leadership development and overall experience.

Leader: Baylee Linker, Summer Intern, Student Orientation & Transition

1. Do you think the way in which the position of OL was advertised could be improved? If so, in what way? Answer: Everything that was advertised was held accountable 
2. Did you feel the initial on-boarding was helpful? For example, HR paperwork, payroll, position description or OL Agreement. Answer: Each component of onboarding was reasonable.
3. Do you feel the field trips were helpful? During the training, getting the information about the resources on campus and getting the chance to see each of them was very helpful. Answer: Touring these places on campus before orientation days was a great idea but the issue was the fact of not knowing exactly how to incorporate the actual reality of orientation with the tours. 
   • Follow up question – Which was the most helpful & how? Answer: One on one small group during orientation were very beneficial to learn more about resources on campus. Example: Military Services. 
   • Follow up question – Which one would you decline next time? Unanswered
4. Were the personality quizzes & ice breakers helpful with learning about yourself & your peers. Why or why not? Answer: During training, getting the information about the resources on campus was helpful. However, the paperwork during orientation training should have been explained more versus completing icebreakers and games. 
5. Did you feel you were prepared to be an OL to incoming students at the end of training? Answer: OL’s felt that they were trained properly. However, the OL’s wanted more of the “real life” practice to fully be prepared to be an excellent OL. For example:  During training, the OL’s should understand that there will be several negative situations happen. Dealing with a difficult parent or student is going to happen and OL’s need to understand how to communicate and “Deflate” a situation and who to contact if the situation isn’t resolved. Some examples of negative situations are as follows: “Can we leave?” “Don’t take this professor.” These are common things that will happen. 
6. What skills have you gained from the experience & training? Answer: Understanding how to communicate with different people such as parents and students. 
7. What weakness did you overcome during training? Answer: Public Speaking has become a very beneficial skill as an Orientation Leader. Communication skills were enhanced as well. During training, making it known up front that these type of skills are very critical, but you will become better as each Orientation is completed. 
8. Think about the communication between your supervisor & yourself. Do you feel the communication & leadership you received was effective? Why or why not?
9. After completing 3 orientations, was the training helpful to the actual experience? What training would you add or take away after seeing the real event? Answer: Yes training was acceptable but things should be added. Having the option of “actors” coming into the training to set the reality of situations that will arise during orientation days. There should be more times during training to learn about each of the OL’s on a more personal level, more activities to bond with each other. Employee outings during training were a strong suggestion.
10. If you had the power to change one thing about your experience, what would it be? Answer: Adding the following to Orientation. 

List of ideas that are not in orientation that were recommended:

• Making financial aid have an actual appointment opportunity similar to advising.
• Student organization fair or handout
• An organization fair for student organizations was mentioned. Upon further consideration, there is already a fair similar so the idea of a flyer with student organizations was thrown out there for students to get in the resource fair during check-in so they can reflect at a later date to see what UA Little Rock has to offer.
• Possibly having some of the people over these organizations present during lunch to communicate with students.
• 7 wonders of UA Little Rock; what is there to do on campus/off campus?; Hangout areas
• Possibility of changing lunch from box lunches to actual lunch in the cafeteria after cafeteria remodeling is complete. Gives students a chance to see options UA Little Rock has to offer.
• Orientation Panel: Having a chance for OL’s to sit with freshmen or transfer as group leaders and talk with them about what they do, how they do certain things on campus and certain recommendations.
• Tour of health services and gym

11. Have we missed anything you want to address today? Unanswered

Continuous improvement process

Taking the feedback from the focus group with Orientation Leaders, I will implement the following ideas from the students:

• Real life situations during orientation
• Negative situations & how to handle them
• Deescalating anger & communication to parents

Each year, Orientation Leaders are trained in the spring for summer orientation. Applications open in fall each year, therefore all education learned from this assessment will be contributed to the revamping of the Orientation Leader training program in Fall each year. For this particular assessment, taken in May 2019, the results will be used for the OL Cohort of 2019 – 2020.

WHEN: Fall 2019

Stakeholder involvement / Communication plan

Share with orientation committee, Sharon Downs, VCSA

Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)

Operational

Activity or experience being assessed

Experience as an orientation attendee; includes all new students, guests and parents; collected at the end of each orientation

Assessment artifacts

Survey

Time period assessment was done

May 31, 2019 – June 22, 2019

Results

Complete results here.

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Kindly add any other comments about Orientation at UA Little Rock.

53 responses

• Great!
• I had fun! Thanks for all the help!
• I am vegan and I was unable to eat any of the food. The vegetarian option was not vegan friendly.
• My niece didn’t have any vegan options for lunch.
• Parents should have the choice to attend advising!
• Too much time
• What was the $25.00 for?
• During advising. the break can be used for patents to complete the survey. Also, the final session began prior to all students returning from advising, thus vital info was possibly missed. The presenter offered one on one after. Overall great experience. Go Trojans!
• Thank you for shoe me for everything
• Everyone was extremely helpful and nice.
• Thank you so much for the welcome
• It was good
• y’all were awesome
• Evelyn jones
• I didn’t attend advising, but my son loved it.
• I would like to have longer advising
• none
• There needs to be more resources and aid for people of diverse backgrounds and low income especially DACA students
• Y’all talked my ear off.
• I love this campus more
• Great Job!!
• It was amazing!!
• It was a lot of fun!
• it was a great expierence (sic)
• Trojan Technology seemed very redundant and I would rather have discussed different helpful pieces of technology around campus such as the blue lights as we already have to know how to use Boss before we get to school.
• It was fun
• I had a good time
• Parent’s should be allowed to attend the advising with the student to may sure he/she is getting the best classes.
• very great
• I’m excited to start.
• EPIC
• It was a good time
• They are helpful and home warming.
• It was helpful just wanted more vegan options that are beyond salad at lunch the advisors and faculty was great
• it was great
• Nah
• Very Fun
• technology portion was not very helpful. There was an individual who clearly knew more about the technology portion but the student who was doing the talk was not very knowledgeable.
• It was really good
• it was very fun
• Everything was great!
• you guys are awesome!!!
• It made me feel more at home. The orientation makes me more excited to start school.
• i love it here!!!
• :)
• n/a
• Fun experience I feel like this is my true home
• It was very well organized!
• I love this school and I can’t wait to attend!
• The people are really nice.
• Everything was GREAT!
• Really informative
• My tour guides were very friendly and helpful towards kick starting my college experience.

Continuous improvement process

Since this assessment is completed after each orientation event, comments and other data are used to make continuous improvements. At the end of the summer/after the last orientation event – all data will be combined & reviewed to improve orientation at UA Little Rock.

WHEN: Ongoing

Stakeholder involvement / Communication plan

Share with orientation committee, Sharon Downs, VCSA

With the transition of Student Affairs and repositioning of offices, more follow up will be made in Fall 2019 about the future & priorities of Student Orientation & Transition.