November 1, 2018 Edition

Student Affairs Values – Inclusion
From the Desk of Vice Chancellor Virginia Hardy

Inclusivity creates an environment that encourages and accepts a free exchange of ideas and perspectives. By embracing diversity of thoughts, opinions, backgrounds and styles we create a diverse, talented and motivated group of student affairs educators. This in turn, increases our ability to meet the needs and expectations of preparing our students to become members of a global workforce. Inclusion and acceptance are needed today as we embrace a more global university, community, state, nation.To quote Robby Novak, aka Kid President, “You don’t have to have it all figured out. You do need to know this: You are awesome, and you always got to treat people AWESOME.””Inclusion requires that everyone’s contributions be valued, that individuals, regardless of the diversity dimension, have the opportunity to do their best work and advance.” – Rita Mitjans, ADP Chief Diversity and Corporate Responsibility Officer.Student Affairs Value – Inclusion: We value the uniqueness of people, cultures and perspectives. We encourage diversity by promoting respect and civility, providing accessible programming and services and cultivating a community that is inclusive (This includes a focus on collaboration and partnerships).

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Pirate TV: Flip Through the Channels with PeeDee to Celebrate ECU Homecoming

Members of Pirate Nation gathered to celebrate ECU Homecoming on October 15-20 throughout campus. The week included competitions and events such as a canned food drive, parade, football game and more as student organizations competed for the spirit cup.

More than 1,800 students kicked-off the spirit week by attending Cannonball on the ECU Mall where the Homecoming Court was announced.

Student organizations joined forces on the 19th for the (ECU) Homecoming Food Drive to benefit the food distribution programs of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC (CENC).  Students delivered 22,388 pounds of food products to the Food Bank of CENC’s Greenville Branch for distribution to local families experiencing food-insecurity.

Working with the ECU Homecoming Committee and the ECU Center for Leadership & Civic Engagement, Food Bank Volunteer Coordinator Brittanie Frieze stated, “We asked student organizations to focus on the collection of food products which can be easily utilized by feeding programs for youngsters.”

The Food Bank of CENC works with a network of partner agencies that provide food-insecure children food and meals during after-school, weekends, and extended school closures.

“It was great to encounter the care and enthusiasm the ECU students shared as each group delivered their food to help families needing an extra hand of support,” stated Todd Penland, Operations Supervisor at the Greenville Branch.

On Saturday, the weeks’ worth of events concluded with the Homecoming Parade in the morning and during halftime of the football game that evening, the Homecoming King and Queen were announced along with the spirit cup winner – Phi Mu and Sigma Nu.  Congratulations to 2018 Homecoming King, Rhys Collins representing Sigma Nu and 2018 Homecoming Queen, Rebecca Parada representing Alpha Omicron Pi.

See below for the full list of student organization winners and Click Here to read the full story about Homecoming 2018 provided by News Services.

Banner Competition

• 1^st Place – Alpha Gamma Delta & Delta Sigma Phi
• 2^nd Place – Chi Omega & Pi Kappa Alpha
• 3^rd Place – Pi Lambda Phi & Club Cheer

Skit Competition

• 1^st Place – ECU Ambassadors & Epsilon Sigma Alpha
• 2^nd Place – Chi Omega & Pi Kappa Alpha
• 3^rd Place – Alpha Gamma Delta & Delta Sigma Phi

Canned Food Drive

• 1^st Place – Phi Mu and Sigma Nu
• 2^nd Place – Alpha Gamma Delta & Delta Sigma Phi
• 3^rd Place – Pi Lambda Phi & Club Cheer

Float Competition

• 1^st Place – Phi Mu & Sigma Nu
• 2^nd Place – Chi Omega & Pi Kappa Alpha
• 3^rd Place – Delta Zeta and Alpha Delta Phi

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Advocacy, Celebration, and Education:
Learn about ECU’s new Women and Gender Office

Submitted by Ashley Cleland, Associate Director for the Women and Gender Office

For upwards of the past 15 years, faculty, staff, students, and other members of the ECU community asked for the creation of a Women and Gender Office. These groups of thoughtful and committed people included faculty and staff serving on the former Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women and the Gender Studies Executive Committee, students in the Student Government Association, and many others who came together, campaigned, and succeeded in earning support from the ECU administration for the development of our Women and Gender Office.

Years in the making and standing on the shoulders of the hard work of my predecessors, I am honored and humbled to serve as the founding Associate Director for ECU’s first Women and Gender Office as we build our services and programs for the ECU community. Housed in the area of Student Involvement and Leadership, within the Department of Intercultural Affairs, the Women and Gender Office is one of three offices which provide students an opportunity to develop important skills to navigate differences in their professional and personal lives and succeed in a global, multicultural society. Ideally, the work of Intercultural Affairs provides the ECU community with windows into experiences and perspectives that are new or unfamiliar to them in order to build compassion, civility, and community. Additionally, our work provides the community with mirrors of their own experiences that remind us we are not alone, increase sense of belonging, and serve as a catalyst for identity development and growth.

As the newest addition to Intercultural Affairs, the Women and Gender Office (also known as the WGO) strives to cultivate a supportive, safe, and affirming environment for women, all genders, and gender equity allies in the ECU community. We approach this work through the guiding values of advocacy, celebration, and education. We believe that people make culture and we empower students, faculty, and staff to be agents of positive change. We celebrate the achievements and successes of women-identified members of the community and gender equity allies, build an egalitarian and supportive community, and foster a culture of lifting each other up. And finally, we provide intentional opportunities for transformative learning through events, trainings, workshops, and student group advisement on gender issues.

Starting in January 2019, the WGO will find its permanent home on the first floor in the new Main Campus Student Center. In our new space, we’ll have a common area where students, faculty, and staff can gather over a cup of coffee to discuss current events, trends, and engage in one on one mentorship. Additionally, members of the ECU community will have access to the Women and Gender Lending Library in the new WGO which features a variety of resources on gender, gender identity, women’s leadership, sexuality, and intersectionality. Programs and initiatives in development for Spring semester include mentorship initiatives such as Let’s Get Coffee or Sister 2 Sister (serving women of color on campus), awareness months such as Women’s Herstory Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and educational seminars or workshops such as the Pleasure Principle Speaking Series on Sexual Wellbeing, What Can I Do Summit geared toward male gender equity allies, and Your Worth: Salary Negotiation Workshops. In addition to these educational opportunities, the WGO will celebrate students, faculty, and staff in the annual Women of Distinction Awards and the annual Mentorship Breakfast, which will honor and thank faculty and staff who take time to mentor women.

A campus and community that is safe, kind, and empowers people regardless of their gender identity or gender expression requires all of us. We welcome your ideas, energy, and time as the WGO grows in the coming years.

 

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Student Affairs Making Headlines

Congratulations to Nichelle Shuck, in the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, who is the winner of this year’s Staff Award for Achievement in International Service. The annual Staff Award for Achievement in International Service honors an outstanding staff member who has demonstrated excellence in and commitment to public service and community engagement that is international or global in scope.

Under Nichelle’s leadership, 80 students participated in 9 service-oriented alternative break experiences (ABE) during the 2018 spring break. Spring 2018 marked the first international ABE when 20 students traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland. Students served in different youth centers in Belfast, and they learned about local community culture, religious and political conflict, and peace-making strategies for a global society.

Nichelle has also been instrumental in developing a new global service-learning program in Puerto Rico – set to launch in May 2019 – to engage students in learning about the long-term impacts of Hurricane Maria.

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Karen Smith, in the Office of Student Transitions, presented a webinar, “University Spirit: Building Affinity” through the Association of Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education (NODA) on October 9.  The session addressed how developing institutional affinity through orientation and the first year is extremely important in student satisfaction, engagement, and retention.

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Jeremy Tuchmayer (SA Assessment, Research and Planning) and colleagues from NC State and Louisiana State University recently published “Transfer Student Success: Exploring Community College, University, and Individual Predictors” in the forthcoming issue of Community College Journal of Research and Practice.  This study investigates community college transfer success by exploring the relationship between individual and institutional-level characteristics at students’ two- and four-year institutions. Using statewide administrative data from North Carolina, this study employs a cross-classified multilevel model to investigate the impact that a student’s community college and four-year transfer institution have on post-transfer success. Our findings offer important and compelling insights into the relationship between transfer students, the community college they attended, the four-year transfer institution, and educational outcomes. While individual effects were small, we find several institutional factors associated with student success. Attendance at a large community college or having a public university in the same county as their community college is positively associated with student success, whereas size of the university is negatively related to grades during the first year and persistence to the second year. While the four-year institution’s selectivity is negatively related to many of our outcomes, transferring to a Historically Black College or University is positively associated with GPA, college persistence, and degree completion.

The article can be found online here or contact Jeremy Tuchmayer at 737-4702 or tuchmayerj14@ecu.edu for a copy.

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Congrats to the Inter-generational Community Center (IGCC) team for being selected by the NC Dept of Transportation to become a Construction Trade Academy Host Site in West Greenville! IGCC will receive a $70,000 grant to run this new program. The program will focus on these broad goals:

• Training and upgrading minorities, women, and disadvantaged persons to journeyman level status in the highway construction industry
• Establishing a plentiful and diverse pool of skilled workers for the highway construction industry

Providing training in support of these goals is central to IGCC’s goal of breaking the cycle of poverty in the communities we serve in Pitt County by providing in-demand skills training to allow residents to compete for sustainable, living wage jobs.

 

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5th Annual Love Wins
Submitted by Dennis McCunney, CLCE Director and Mark Rasdorf, Interim Senior Associate Director for the LGBT Resource Office

On Saturday, September 22, the LGBT Resource Office held its fifth annual LOVE WINS fundraising event. Dinners were held in host homes in the region and the evening concluded with a silent auction/dessert reception and dancing in Harvey Hall. The LOVE WINS logo lit up the night sky, as it was displayed on the scoreboard at Dowdy Ficklen stadium.

More than 125 attended the reception and more than $13,400 was raised for the LGBT Priority Fund. The money raised supports our students through:

• Scholarships
  • The Pride Scholarship (based on academic merit)
  • The Equality Scholarship (based on financial need)
  • A total of $4,000 was awarded to four students 2018/2019
• The LGBT Legacy Project
  • An ongoing endeavor to collect the written stories of our students.  Previous topics have included “Coming Out Stories” and “Faith, Identity and Belonging.”
  • Members of the LGBT Advancement Council review the submissions and prizes are awarded in the amounts of $500, $300, and $200.
  • Since its inception in Spring 2017, $3,000 in prizes have been awarded.
• The LGBT Resource Office Alternative Break Experience
  • Since 2017, the LGBT Resource Office has organized a service experience in Atlanta that allows ECU students to serve non-profit organizations with a mission of supporting/serving the LGBT community.
• Professional development through participation in regional or national conferences
  • In January 2017, the LGBT Resource Office provided five students the opportunity to attend the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference in Washington, D.C.  It is the largest annual gathering focused on equity, advocacy, and social justice for the LGBTQ community.

Dinner hosts for the 2018 LOVE WINS included:
*Kylene Dibble and Jeremy Tuchmayer
*B.J. Lawrence
*Lynn Roeder and Richard Garafolo
*Justin Waters, Emily Theys, and Georgia Childs
*Michelle Eble, Shane Ernst, and Will Banks
*Alex Dennis and Lauren Howard
*Anne Ticknor and Steve Schmidt
*Joseph Lee, Roy Ellis, Mary Lisa Poires, Kerry & Rucker Sewell

Thank you to all of our Student Affairs colleagues and beyond for your constant support!

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Fall Career Fairs
Submitted by Patrick Roberts, Career Services Associate Director

ECU Career Services saw a record number of both employers and student attendance during the 2018 fall career fairs held on October 17 at the Greenville Convention Center. All total, 1,364 students and alumni attended the events and 142 attendees secured on-campus interviews. A total of 286 employers representing 58 industries were hosted at the career fairs with 15 organizations conducting interviews the following day. In addition, 52 Innovation Early College High School students were hosted during the career fairs. These students participated in the free professional head shot booth and received advice from Career Services staff on how to stand out to employers and prepare for future career success.

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Boyd reflects on a career in Mendenhall
Published by Jules Norwood, ECU News Services

When Kay Boyd started working at East Carolina University in September 1973, Mendenhall Student Center wasn’t quite complete. Her first job was answering calls at the switchboard, where the building’s calls were routed.

“I had to answer all the calls,” she said. “Sometimes I had to page people whose phones weren’t hooked up yet.”
Boyd had a lot to learn, and fast.

“People were asking me where Wright was, or the bookstore, and I didn’t know because I’d never set foot on campus before in my life,” Boyd said.

“Sometimes I would just go out and take a tour of campus so I could learn how to tell people where things were.”

In some buildings, including Mendenhall, finding the building was only the start.

“A lot of people say this, and it can be true — it’s like a maze in here. You can get turned around,” she said.

Originally encompassing 80,000 square feet of assignable space, Mendenhall was built for $3.5 million. Subsequent renovations and new wings added to the difficulty of finding a particular office, suite or conference room.

In January, when the new student center opens on 10th Street, Mendenhall will still house a number of offices and departments, but it will no longer be the central hub of student life on ECU’s campus.

Boyd said much has changed in Mendenhall in the years she has worked there. Offices have been moved around and reshuffled more times than she can count, and the technology has changed, too. The switchboard is long gone.

Click Here for the complete story.

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Student Affairs Assessment, Research, and Planning FYI

HEADS UP REQUESTS for SACSCOC 5^th year Report: During the course of the next several weeks, Kathy Hill may be reaching out to a variety of departments to request final “updated” documents and website links to be included in the 5^th year report. One of the 5^th year report narratives features the work of most areas in the Division of Student Affairs. The narratives provide links to key departmental documents and websites. Given that many of the documents and websites have recently been updated, requests will be sent to assure that we have the most up-to-date versions linked to the report narrative. Please assist as quickly as possible. We would like to complete all updates no later than the end of November.

Assessment Report Review Feedback and Revisions: Reviews of the 2017-2018 departmental assessment reports were sent to departmental directors and designated staff on October 16. Now through the end of November, Kathy Hill and Jeremy Tuchmayer are meeting with departmental staff to discuss the rubric reviews along with checking in on the 2018-2019 assessment plans. Any required edits to 2017-2018 assessment reports are to be completed by Friday, December 14.

Program Review Action Plan Presentations: The following departments are completing the final stage of their program review process with presentation of action plans to the Student Affairs Executive Council:

September

• Student Media
• Campus Recreation & Wellness

October

• Intercultural Affairs
• Career Services

November

• Dining Services
• ECU Transit

These units have already begun to implement their seven-year action plans during 2018-2019. Progress reports are submitted on an annual basis along with the department’s annual outcomes assessment report.

Of Note: Institutional implications identified in these action plans will be organized into a divisional report, which Dr. Hardy will be presenting to the ECU Academic Council in early spring semester 2019.

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Just the Facts – Main Campus Student Center

Click on the image(s) to view in a larger format.

 

Just the Facts is a regular communication from the Division of Student Affairs Office of the Vice Chancellor highlighting some of the amazing things happening in our area in a quick, simple, and easy-to-read manner. What we do as SA educators and staff members demonstrates our commitment to student success, public service and regional transformation.

Has something exciting happened in your area within the past few weeks? Send the fact to VCSA@ecu.edu, subject line: Just the Facts and we will include in the next edition.

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SA New Hires / Departures

New Hires Since September 15th

• Courtney Case – Interim Assistant Director – Student Rights & Responsibilities – September 24
  
• Lasater Sanders – Administrative Support Specialist – Student Health Services – October 1

Departures Since September 15th

• Kevin Foley – Facility Maintenance – Campus Living – September 24
• Lanie Stutz – Coordinator – Campus Living – September 28
• Ainsley Worrell – Senior Assistant Director – Campus Recreation & Wellness – October 11
• Kathleen Bursky – Victim Advocate – Counseling & Student Development – October 19

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The Agency – Advertisement Exposure

Here is the advertisement schedule for the end of the Fall Semester. These publications are great opportunities to get important information out quickly and effectively! This can include, but is not limited to, Campus Events/Activities, December Graduation Information, Club Organizations, Voting, Holiday Events, and So Much More!

Please see below or click here for more information!

Publication Dates – 

– Tuesday Papers left for Fall Semester– November 6th, November 13th, November 27th, December 3rd * This is a Monday* ( LAST NEWSPAPER OF FALL SEMESTER).

– Thursday Papers left for Fall Semester – November 1st, November 8th, November 15th, November 29th.

– Special Publications including our “Welcome Back Newspaper” for Spring Semester – January 7th.

– Special Publications including our “Expression Magazine” – Deadline for materials November 1st, published on January 14th.

– Special Publications including the “Fall Housing Guide” – Deadline for materials November 5th, published on November 13th. 


– Classifieds are online and in the paper, for the date you choose. 

Contact the Agency Advertising & Marketing at smaa@ecu.edu or 252.328.9245 with any questions, concerns, and/or if you would like to place an ad!