Community Conversations: Influencing the Community College Student Experience

Hi everyone.

Welcome to the community. This community call community conversations webinar. We're going to give a few minutes for everybody to join.

Hope everyone is doing well. It's Tuesday going into next week's holiday week.

If you want to give us a shout out in the chat on the left hand side of your screen, let us know where you're from.

Say hi.

I'm here in New Haven, CT, where the story of today is our office overlooks the New Haven Green and they bring in a tree. Kind of like Rockefeller Center, and they actually buried the tree trunk down pretty far Christmas tree into the ground and they light it up and they have a lighting ceremony. Usually the first week in December every year, and we had a windstorm here on Sunday night and the tree actually.

From what I understand, blue over for the first time so they actually like completely like is destroyed and they're out there right now, cutting it all apart and putting it in a woodchipper so it like made the news and it's like super sad. But you know, we're all we're all waiting in dissipation to see if they find another tree in time, but we'll see I think maybe this year they should just do the Charlie Brown tree. It kind of makes sense for 2020.

Alright, we got a lot of people coming in here. We got UConn. We got Arkansas State Cincinnati.

Tucson, AZ good stuff.

Alright, so we'll get started. My name is Sarah McGinnis. I am a associate product Manager here at Techno Lucian's. Welcome to the first of several webinars in this series called Community Conversations. This webinar is about influencing the Community College student and their experience when searching for a college.

So as always, we have some housekeeping web. This webinars being recorded an will be made available for viewing. The closed captioning can be enabled by clicking the CC button at the top right corner of the share window. Full screen viewing can be enabled by clicking the expand button at the type top right corner of the share window. Should you need to re sync audio and or video, please refresh your shares window and questions can be posted in the chat. If we have time at the end or if we feel a question comes in that can be.

Kind of brought into the conversation. We will do so otherwise. You know, we might be able to reach out to you afterwards with an answer for you so.

What do we mean by what it is an what? What does it mean to influence a student and the experience they have when searching for a school? So you know, kind of what we're talking about today isn't necessarily just for you. Know, two year school or a student looking for two year school. This is also going to, you know, that translates into students looking at four year schools as well.

So we know that there are a ton of outside factors that influence students cost programs, parents. These are all big influencers, but we also know that our day-to-day work and what we do can also influence a student during their search and admissions process and beyond. So we're not just talking about the admissions from the applying, that's it, we're talking, they apply. They are maybe advised on what they should be taking if they're going to be transferring at some point and will talk about.

Students who are looking to transfer down the road. You know, these are the things that we're doing daily in our offices that are influencing their experience and whether they're going to choose your Community College or an Community College anywhere. So we find it very important an I think it's kind of a timely conversation to have, so let's meet our panel. We have Maya shore stick short back, alright?

So I guess you got.

Should.

Interim director of admissions for SUNY Broome Community College and we have Crystal **** the director of academic advising at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma City. So welcome, thank you guys for joining us. Looks like you guys are getting some shout out, so that's awesome.

So just just to open up a little bit here. If you could both tell me a little bit about yourselves.

What it is that you do in your role? Maybe your interactions with students on a daily basis, maybe a little bit about your institution itself. It's eyes kind of, maybe some of the programs you may have and that way it kind of sets the tone and folks will kind of know where you're coming from. So my if you want to start, go ahead.

Sure, hi everyone, thank you for joining us today. My name is Maya and I'm the interim director of admissions at SUNY Broome Community College. Suni broom is located in upstate New York and I saw there tear of the state and we're a midsize institution with approximately 7000 students. Some of the programs that we have, our programs in the STEM field, liberal arts. We have business programs, and we're an open enrollment school.

But we also have some programs that are more specialized and require some prerequisites there a little bit more competitive, so those programs are in the medical field. For example, nursing stuff like that. But my role here at Suni Broom is I direct admissions office like I said. But I'm also this sleep captain for the entire school, so I deal with a lot of communications with students setting up those those pathways for that when it comes to communicating with the admissions.

And that enrollment team as well as I help develop events both on campus and right now, obviously virtually so. So really, that's the just of. We're very excited. We're very knew to Slate. We just implemented in September of 2019, but I'm very proud of everything without we've done, and I'm excited to share it with you all.

Next, by a crystal.

Oh, we can hear you Crystal.

That's OK.

So we had crystal earlier. We could hear her.

Now.

No, I still can't hear you.

You didn't mute on the actual screen, did you?

Alright, let's see where else people are from.

Seattle awesome welcome. Mallory from Seattle.

University of Colorado Boulder.

I love to see that.

Drake University Lake Forest.

No, it looks like maybe crystals refreshing her screen. See if she has any luck with her sound. We did have sound we were chatting before the before the presentation opened an so I apologize for the delay, but she is an integral part of this this panel, so we'll hopefully be able to get her back shortly.

In the meantime.

Maya, I don't know if you want to just chat with me about some of the admissions aspects. Know Crystal is going to give us kind of her viewpoint advising. So if we wanted to chat real quick.

Actually, skip ahead to the next slide and this might work out really well because you can talk admissions and then we can talk advising and kind of talk how things overlap. So let's chat a little bit about what it is you do to do we know that?

Sleep can help with so much of your day today.

OK.

Hi.

However, we do also know that there are other things going on, so it may not just be slate related, so can you. Can you comment on and speak to the examples and it can be pre and post kovid 'cause I know those things are always going to come up but it doesn't have to be strictly you know covid but other things you know as far as access and how you disseminate information to a communication, how you engage with students. Some of those areas. If you don't mind speaking to that.

We have to go back.

Oh

Oh, I think.

can you hear me now?

Yes we can.

Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. Talk about you know Co bedtimes.

Work from home.

Perfect.

Perfect.

I know, I know. You're just saying, yeah, I was just saying, you know, we're going to have Maya speak to this next slide is as far as an admission standpoint, so I'm still actually going to do that. And then we can go back, go, you know, come back around and talk about what you do in the advising and advising role. But we also talked about talking pre and post kovid and how some of these things have maybe changed since we've gone into those covid time. So go ahead Maya that be great.

Alright, so for providing access. So obviously as an open enrollment school we host a lot of events that will entice students to come in and interact with US, and Slate helps us a lot with the currently, but what we do in admissions, we have a very small but very mighty group of admissions counselors who do provide daily outreach.

What's late it has been a little bit easier for us because I always say that the enrollment process for us really takes care of itself right now. As we've been able to create trigger communications for our inquiry. So, for example, if somebody provides an inquiry on our website or through suni, or really anywhere else, we've automated that, and we created some really neat materials for students to receive automatically.

On that we follow up with everybody right after. However, that's made our processes so much easier because students are directly connected with somebody there directly connected to our website. If they're, you know, interested in, for example, coming on campus or scheduling an appointment with an admissions counselor, we have all of that implemented into those triggered communications. So for disseminating information like I said, it was really difficult for us prior to sleep because I remember running those Excel spreadsheet.

And kind of putting together communications. We are different formats. It was definitely a lot of work on the back end to communicate with students, but with what I've loved and I, I truly say that the communication part is key for me. So when students you know fill out an application, they receive that immediate response which keeps them connected to string room, keeps them engaged. Whether it's you know, asking students to send in their transcripts, that's a communication and itself.

So that we can disseminate that immediately upon accepting them, you know, and requesting those transcripts when students get accepted, they get a beautiful email that not only includes you know a welcome to Suni broom, but it includes videos. It includes links to once again, 101 admissions appointment, and once we do get into the advising and registration season, we we very much rely on slate to get that communication, spread it out to all of our students.

One really nice example that I have is we did have a hybrid event here for final registration days that happened at the end of summer. Usually we host these events on campus, but obviously because of kovid couldn't and what we were able to do is provide the same exact service both on campus and off campus. Students could come in, sign into our remote space environment.

Yeah.

And essentially complete the entire enrollment process, just in that one day. So beginning with an application, processing of transcripts, 101 appointments with admissions counselors you know getting accepted right there on the spot, going to speak with financial aid or advising or student accounts, whatever. And maybe we were able to provide that for them and sleep helped us with the registration of keeping track of who's coming. Who's going especially on campus as we were. We obviously had those state regulations so.

That engagement piece is so big for me as everybody knows here. You know, getting a student on the phone is one thing. Getting them to engage and connect with you as another thing. So so a lot of times you just have that one shot.

But yeah, it's.

Crystal.

Can I hear you now?

I hope so.

Yeah.

It's getting reminded me so there's you've probably all seen this by now but you seen the mugs with the shirts that say you're on mute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Because it's like how many times in a in a virtual meeting these days do you go to like talk and everyone's like you're on mute like it's something now. So now it's like T shirts and like actual mugs and stuff. So thank you for that. It reminded me about and made me giggle a little bit, but we can hear you clearly now. And so if you wouldn't mind, we can back up a little bit and you can tell us a little bit about yourself and your school and what your role is and everything would be awesome.

Wonderful well sorry bout that hiccup everybody. My name is Crystal **** and I'm the director of Academic Advisements at Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City. We are an open admission technical institution so we're not, uh, a satellite campus of our main big sister and still water. But we do offer associates degrees in programs such as management, information technology, up into some more of our selective admission programs like.

Nursing cardiovascular sonography. We also offer police science and firefighter so a lot of programs that are geared to help students get to work. We serve approximately 5000 students in the Oklahoma City Metro area.

Yeah.

Wow, that's great. So I'm hearing is you have a lot of both of you have a ton of different.

Uh huh.

Types of students apply.

So like I said, we're going to go into that like traditional versus nontraditional and maybe non matriculate EED students and how you communicate with them. But mine just talked about as far as what your office is doing and how they're using slate for advising process, and maybe that linkage between advising and admissions, and basically know how it helps the student, how it provides access to them, gets them the information they need, allows you to have two way communication, and then keeps them engaged. So from your perspective.

And it might be similar to what Maya spoke about, but you know how do you see what you're doing? Daily influences students like that.

Right?

Sure, so well prior to covid we were kind of a walk-in service for students, so they would just walk in and get everything they needed taken care of. They might have to sit and wait 45 minutes or an hour for an advising appointment during that kind of peak enrollment time, but we actually have a super fantastic program that we implemented just several months before covid hit, so I'd like to say that I.

All the crystal ball and Ann knew that something was, you know something was changing but we actually wanted to provide a virtual platform for our students because we serve students that are not in the Oklahoma City Metro area. We may have students out of state. Or, you know, Mom with three kids and she doesn't have time to come in and sit for an hour to to wait for their advisor. So we really wanted to bring our service to where the students were. So we looked for ways to.

To do that, and we recently had implemented sleep in our admissions and recruitment area, and I just checked in with them and said what all conflate, do, and and is there a feature that we could make work for virtual advising and we did that through scheduler and the interview platform to provide students a way to schedule an appointment and then basically have a video virtual advising session so we have been.

Pilot well, we piloted it in November of last year, so we're pretty much a year in and it's fantastic game changer as far as engaging with students and helping them get the service they need when they need it.

Yes.

Yeah, sure sure that's great it is. It is very interesting that you started implementing your virtual wave coming things, although you know in in these times. I mean this is this is the kind of I want to say service, but you know, that's what students are looking for now, because like you said, specially with Community colleges, it's students who are looking to advance themselves but could have kids at home.

Yep.

Or have jobs that just it's you know, the hours are crazy and so you know, I think that it's a timely thing and I'm glad you brought it up.

As far as some things that you may have implemented during covid or for these times, do you see yourself kind of sticking with anything for the future? Because it like just worked out so well. Other than this advising where you're advising. But like in the future, like if things ever if and when things go back to normal.

Um, are there things that you've implemented in your offices, whether enslaved or not, that you think?

It works well and we're going to continue doing it this way. My you're shaking your head, but yeah.

Yeah definitely. I would love to continue hosting those virtual admission sessions and I know that Crystal and I we we chatted once before this and a lot of our roles are very interchangeable, right? So for example, for me and admissions alot of times our admissions Department.

Acts like advising because when students come in, we do want to provide them with with that full experience and with a lot of information because they might just have that one hour at 7:00 PM on a Tuesday.

So I would definitely love to expand this too.

Fisher

people so.

Post kovid and make sure that we continue providing these remote services because what I've noticed is that students actually really like them. They like being in their homes. They like sitting down. They like being in their bed and just chatting away. Almost seems less formal, right? So they get to ask those questions that I've never been asked before, so I definitely plan on using our remote services after.

Cool.

Yeah.

And I would say the same. I think other offices and departments have seen the success in our virtual advising program and they said how can we get in that? How can we do that? And so we're excited to be helping our trio programs that serve current students and our financial aid office, our testing office, and even our admissions and recruiters get into, you know, kind of similar formats for remote services, because like I said.

Sure.

The students want us to come to them and we should want to do that. So we've seen just a great success with it.

No.

Awesome, one of the questions that came into the chat that kind of goes with this conversation. It's directed to Crystal, but I think that it can be for either of you. Have you been able to extend your hours because you're doing more of a virtual thing, whether it's staff or maybe now not?

Having the same in office hours, you know they're at home, so maybe, maybe not. You both seem to be in the office, but if their home like are their hours changing, are they extending? You know, so can you speak to that at all?

Sure.

Yeah, so for us we became a little bit more flexibel, just depending on you know who we're talking with that week. I try to stay very connected to our recruiters but also keep in mind that students out there they have very different schedules right now, especially with covid with childcare with how people are, you know, going into works or remoting into work. It's a lot different than our regular right business hours.

So we are able to. We have been able to extend our services each Wednesday. We do stay behind for our walk in Wednesday hours that are now extended until 7:00 PM so that non traditional students can come in and they can speak with somebody and we also offer kind of on-demand appointment. So if somebody is like hey my I really I don't have time to speak in the you know during the week because I work my husband works whatever it may be. We do offer those appointments that may happen on Saturday, they may happen.

On Sunday, and we've also.

Awesome.

Bert

Additionally, we also asked other offices to collaborate with us on that, so we've created a really cool series of information sessions called Factual Fridays and we had. We've asked other offices to kind of collaborate with us and have the open discussion. Took students you know, especially right now I know everything is confusing. It definitely is to me. So how are our students feeling out there? So just kind of making sure that we're easing that anxiety and providing as much support as possible.

It is definitely important to us.

sure.

Crystal.

In our area we have been doing a lot of the on-demand appointments, so since it was a fairly new platform for my team and you know and for students to get used to, we thought let's just kind of stick with the normal thing, but go remote. And now we're at the point where we get to experiment with later hours on demand appointments. I'm lucky that my advisement team is fantastic so that they are gung ho, willing to help a student. So if we've got somebody that's like.

I'm at work until 6:00 o'clock, and is there any chance? You know, I really want to do this over virtual advising versus over the phone or email my people. We say yes, you know, we do whatever we can to help those students, because that's the way they want to engage. And that's the way they feel most comfortable so.

Sure.

You know, I'm probably going to somebody's going to get mad at me for saying this, but you know, I think about we were kind of. It's kind of one of those things where you're just kind of thrown into this. Like there's a saying, it's escape in my mind at the moment, but there was no choice. You know the virtual meetings in the virtual one on ones had to happen, and you know I'm carrying us. If if they will continue and I could see it, especially employees. Or you know advisors, admissions counselors.

Saying like they're going to, you know, shift their hours. Maybe they come into the office for a few hours in the office in the future, but then they also have night hours, but they're in their own.

Uh huh.

Space, so they're not. You know, they're not away from their family. They can be home and maybe in their Home Office. Having these one on ones with students outside of office hours. You know where I worked at a Community College before I came to technicians. That wasn't necessarily a thing there, but you know, I'm curious if this is going to prove that this is a great way to make sure that we're reaching all potential students.

So that's curious. It brings a lot. It makes me start thinking so much. You know it's like these holes that I keep going down to are you in and like? Well, this was this really, you know it's not a great situation, but maybe it is going to turn out to be OK in the future, so.

So.

It has. It has really kind of forced us to look at what we do and our standard operating procedure and go. Is that really the best and and what can we do to make it better so?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I sorry I yeah go ahead.

No, no God no please.

Oh, I just. I'm sorry I was like, yes, this is exactly what we needed, right? Because I know that the situation is awful, but just like the both of you, I have been thinking of all the positives that can come out of this and doing things that I think.

Pizza.

Right?

Up

Personally I thought would never happen. You know, in the Community College studying and and having those very flexible hours and doing a lot of these services in a non traditional way that currently it feels very normal, right? So just look into zoom meeting our log into a split meeting and just continue interacting with students and seeing them engage with us. I'm really looking forward to see what happens with higher education just in general.

After all of this and and and if we are going to be more even more student oriented than we were prior to this. So I'm sorry I got really excited like you.

that's good and like I said, I'm sure some folks in there going like that. I'm good I can work my I always, I always, you know we used to do the extended hours on Wednesdays like you guys have the walk-in Wednesdays or whatever and and it was great and students would come in and they'd come in after dinner if they needed to. Or you know when they got out of the late shift.

Google.

But it was really hard to get by in from staff to stay in the office when they have their own lives. And you know, it's hard. But it could be a quick quick conversation at home. You know, you step away. You can talk to the student real quick. I don't know. We'll see what the future holds. I'm sure there's going to be ways that folks are going to do it, so I'm excited to see what happens. But with that, you know, it also brings to light that.

Staying on top of an organized as far as what students have received or communicated to you and with you so you know when I talked to my and crystal a few weeks back when we were planning this, we chatted about the fact that, you know, when a student, sorry, I'm blurry again, sorry guys. When a student calls and let's say let's say they call an admissions counselor their admissions counselor, you now have their attention.

And you have them on the phone, specially a Community College student who we keep going over. This may have so much going on in their life or any stupid really we want to make sure that all the information that person who's picking up the phone is right there in front of them. So have you found whether it's late or other platforms you found anything that's helped with that like a cross Department? Kind of like?

Um?

Activities of the student if interactions, I guess.

Yeah, I mean so Sarah. We kind of call it well what we our goal is one student, one view so it would be nice to know matter what Department, anyone who's taking care of that student can see where that student has had engagement and where we might need to help. Or, you know, we can kind of have that story from start to finish on that student. So I mean, that's always our goal. Slate has helped us get there.

Right?

With just being able to document communications and registrations and things that students are opening an attending so you know, we can see if Johnny attended his virtual advising appointment or if he even opened that email and the reminder that we sent so there's a lot of things that slight has just been able to help us do to help us get there. We're not there yet, but that's the goal 1, one student one view.

Yeah, I like that. That's great.

Makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

I want that too. Yeah, on our end. So like I said, we're selling you to sleep. So for us we are planning a full integration or planning to, you know, include advising into into split. However, right now what's really nice is that timeline. Just knowing who has talked with this student before a lot of time. Admissions at SUNY Broome kind of acts like the overall Information Office for everybody, so we call ourselves kind of like the experts of all.

Stony Brook has to offer just because you're right, we get the student on the phone once and they ask us a billion questions. And they're not just about admissions there about advising, you know financial aid, housing, even food on campus like is the food good. Do you have basketball courts so we have to have those answers right then and there, so it's really nice to go back into that timeline and say, you know what Chris already talked with with Sarah and this is what they've discussed so that we can continue that conversation.

Stupid.

Right?

We're not repetitive, but I I think that that also creates a plan that connection with the student because they're like, oh, this person knows me, right? They know exactly what I want. They know what the program is that I'm interested in. So I I very much enjoyed that about interactions in Slate. Being able to track events were also a banner school, so we do. We do actually have a process of getting all of that information from sleep into banner.

So then another office can go in on whether it's advising that you the starfish or just everybody else who uses Banner.

On our campus they can kind of follow up and know exactly what admissions has been communicating.

Awesome cool.

Alright, let's you know you guys both touched on a lot of different topics and something that I think is super important to break down a little bit. It are the different types of students who can be applying to a Community College. You have a traditional student who might be, you know, coming right out of high school. Maybe they took a gap year, you know they could be a transfer student who was coming from another school and transferring in.

You might have your nontraditional students, so there may be students who had a career already an now they're looking to change or they lost their job, and so they have to. You know, whatever it is, you're looking for an advancement. You also have the students who are coming and are known right away that their plan is to transfer to a four year school. Then you have your non matriculate EED students, and I don't know exactly how you guys handle those. If you're using slate for non matriculate students yet, or you plan on it. But are there any things that.

Sgli or your day to day tasks. How you keep kind of these students. I don't want to be separated 'cause they're not. They're not separated, but you do. From my experience, you do often have.

Different messages right to these different constituents, so I'm just curious, you know some of the? Maybe there's tips or tricks that you use or do to kind of keep these constituents on in their own little area in slate or elsewhere.

So our enrollment process is very similar to student populations, especially within Slate currently.

However, I do have a question on our application that asks students if they would like to enter the workforce right after graduating from Suni broom and getting their associates degree, or would they like to transfer to a four year institution? You know, a big chunk of our students will go on and transfer to schools that we have articulation agreements with or you know to Binghamton University who is right in our backyard. So we do tend to use that.

Sure.

Question a lot when really discussing program options here at Suni Broom discussing curriculum all of that. It's funny that you're asking about non matriculate EED applications, because I just started building hours, so I really would like students to apply to Tony Broom and pick that non matriculate EED option on slate, just so that I can create some specific communications to that population. Sometimes I'm finding that.

You know those students, if they are applying as a non matriculate EED student, they can miss out on some of the things that we have available here at Stony Brook, like our Learning Assistance Center. That's just one example. Just because they're not getting those communications right, because it's not a traditional application that they're filling out. So I will be using sleep for our non matriculate EED students. I'm trying very hard to kind of put that together and find out how exactly that's going to work, but.

Vehicle.

Sure.

I I can't really speak. I'm not the expert in the admissions area so but I do know that you know our admissions team is doing great things with their communications and really just trying to tailor those two to the specific students so that we're not in in dating them with information that they don't care about to or that isn't relevant to them. So that's really what we're working on now is is to really.

Create a streamlined communication plan that is specific to those different types of students.

Sure.

Awesome.

Alright, so I say final questions and thoughts. There's actually quite a bit here, so stay with us.

I'm actually going to skip to the second one down real quick because we have we have our question in the chat that I want to get to and it kind of folds into this a little bit so.

Can either of you or both of you speak to your institution's experience with implementing Slate? For example, was it involved where they needed? How long did it take? Did you have to get by in from your leadership? Was it a no brainer?

And the other question that came in is how is it integrating with your Sisi? Know my you said you use Banner So what do you guys use at?

Where banner as well.

OK, so hopefully you're going to have the same conversation, but if not, we'll talk later.

So Chris, I don't know if you want to go first and just kind of speak to some of that experience implementing slate.

Sure, so we knew back in fall of 2017 that we desperately needed a CR M and so our director of recruitment and admissions just kept pushing for it. And you know it was. It was fairly easy to get buy in from leadership because they knew.

How much work we were doing and how much slate could save us. Save us time, save us money. Help us streamline processes and so we I guess we got approved for in February of 2018 and they went to the launchpad in September of 2018 so it was exciting stuff for us. We did not need as much heavy lifting from our IT Office or Department as as some might because our main campus.

Tak

totally?

Sure.

In still water and another one of our branch campuses over by Tulsa had already implemented slate, so we were able to to ask politely for some files and just kind of tweak them so we didn't have to start from square one on that it implementation side, as some others might have too. But yeah, we're still tweaking some of the getting Slayton banner to talk back and forth.

So it's not always a quick process, but yeah, you definitely want at least someone from IT in there helping.

Sure, if not. If you know for anything else the integration part.

Crystal, was this your first? Was this the schools first CRM or did you guys were you prior to?

It was our first yes.

OK OK am I? How about you? Was this your first erm yeah?

True.

Yeah, so this was our first CRM so far us. We did start from square one so we actually went to Launchpad twice. We went to launchpad ones with just our admissions team and the second time we did bring our IT department with us just to kind of familiarize themselves with the with the product and see how they can help support us. Here in admissions we use.

We just constituent to talk between Slate and Banner.

OK.

Sure.

And to kind of filter through applications, see if there are any holes and being there as you know, for community colleges we have a lot of students who are coming back to school. Maybe they've attended, you know, in 1980s nineteen 90s. So we definitely wanted a product to connect these two just to make sure that we are not harming any student records. But yeah, for us it was. It was a left, you know, we definitely didn't have to.

Convinced leadership to purchase this product. They knew that it was.

Excellent solution for us, especially, you know for admissions. It has been, I mean completely night and day from what we've been doing before. For myself. Personally, I kind of was like I jumped into Slate. The previous director went out on maternity leave just as we were implementing slate, so I kind of had to come in and learn everything at the same time, but but it's been, it's been great.

Awesome.

And I'm going to kind of touch on something related to the fact that you know there are schools who had CRM or a very long time from what I've experienced, specifically community colleges. It wasn't a priority because for a very long time students were just kind of there and ready to go to school. And I think that in order for Community colleges now to to keep up, if you will with their competition, which more and more so is becoming four year schools.

You know, I think that's why a lot of community colleges are now saying like a CRM is the way we need to go. It's you know, it's personalized. It's going to help us stay organized an the students can tell a school that's keeping track of them versus not, you know, and I think that's it's kind of important.

So with that, even though community colleges are now competing with four year schools, a little bit more than they used to, we also have to keep in mind that you guys tend to be on the same team as far as having students come to you an hopefully seamlessly transition to a four year institution. I think we talked a little bit about this in our first call, but do you guys have articulation agreements? An if so you know just kind of what that looks like? And if not, that's OK, but one of the questions that came in our registration form was.

How can for your Community institutions better engage with both you as employees of Community College as well as students?

Just this in this might not be sleep related at all. This is just, you know, real life really so.

Well, I mean, I think the main thing is that we may be competing for the same student, but at the end of the day, whether you're a two year institution or four year institution, the goal, hopefully, is that you want to help the student get to where they want to be. You want to help that student, and as long as it's student focused, we're down to partner. So partnership is our biggest benefit to be able to tell us student, hey, I just talked with the main campus in Stillwater and you can actually do this this and this.

Versus I don't know. You'll have to check with them. I mean, that's not any sort of service we want to provide. So just keeping lines of communication open, having some points of contact at each institution where you can drop a friendly email or have a phone call and talk about those things. We've also done what we call reverse transfer initiatives. So with you know the area for your institution, so that if a student does need to leave us at OSU, OKC before they've earned that associates degree.

Sure.

They can go on, get started at that for year and then transfer those credits back and we can help them get that associates degree whenever it's right for them. So I mean, that's great for us. It's great for the four year institution and at the IT benefits the student.

Of course, yeah, great points. Thank you.

So.

Um, yeah, and I wouldn't have to say very similar. You know we've had some for your institutions reach out to admissions even in the past few weeks to collaborate on remote presentations and just letting students know, like, hey, you're a local student. You have a great Community College here waiting for you. And then we have this partnership with this institution. And this is how we can get you enrolled here. But then get you connected to go on and receive your bachelors degree, your Masters degree or PhD in a week.

Want to see students succeed and we want them to feel like we're working as a team? We're not working against each other, you know? We invite.

Representatives from other Sunni schools and also not so nice goals, no private institutions to come on campus, and kind of just hang out with students. Let them know what their programs are. Let them know how they can enroll. So definitely keeping those.

Connections you know alive and well and and letting students know that, hey, these are all of these options available for you. Let us help you. And then we take it a little bit further by Oxy you know, connecting with the school and letting us know that you know the student is interested.

Sure.

I love that idea as soon as you started saying like I had already started thinking about the idea that like.

What we're doing right now. You can have representatives from either just one other school or several, and it's easy conversation to have between you and have students involved. And saying, you know, here's how we can make it work for you. I think that eases the students a little bit, and where I came from, I don't think we did anything like that, but it's kind of, you know, kind of makes a lot of sense to be able to do something like that now.

And even like you know, advising aspect absolutely. It's not just an admissions tool, you know, being able to talk to a four year advisor with a 2 year advisor at the same time. That's like gold to a student, you know. Then they know that what they're going for is attainable, and they've heard it first hand and hopefully wrote something down and.

We're going to stick with it.

Sure.

Yeah, and again, it's really just taking what we've been doing and making sure that it's focused on the student. So as long as as long as they're in the center then we can help them figure out everything else.

Exactly exactly.

OK, unless there's any more questions that anyone has in the chat, feel free to ask anything right now. Now is your chance for Mayan Crystal, but in closing sort of including one of the questions that came up which I actually found very interesting and I think it's important to talk about always, is what are you and your staff using for resources when learning about specifically using Slate right now?

The.

So so far for our staff here at Suni Broom, we actually we. We have a consultant who is working with us on creating, you know, some additional components of slate. I know that that individual has been working with it for a long, long time, so we learn a lot from him. But we also attend as many webinars as possible just so.

That we can stay on top of everything that's going on. I know that everything is always evolving, right? And I I'm a little bit of a nerd. I really love to hear about like what's the new thing that is coming out there? And I and I like to go and try it out for myself. So yeah, we we love to you know just see what's happening and an attend as many of webinars and meetings as possible.

Awesome.

I would say I'm just to basically say we do the same thing, so we're webinars. We're talking to any of our slate Contacts, and then of course using those community boards and you know, just throwing it out there just to see to see what's working. I will say we we literally just had a meeting last week with our friends at OSU Institute of Technology in Ocmulgee, Oklahoma.

Oh wow.

Because they've been in slate for seven, maybe almost eight years, and so they're just a wealth of knowledge and are just fantastic about sharing. So we literally were just in a room together last week saying what are you guys doing and sharing all of our knowledge? Because it's just great to talk to other schools that are that are in it and tweaking things. And we I think we both took some things back to our our schools that we can implement. So that's exciting stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love to hear that and I think that you know, as we are growing and our partners are growing it is super important to continue to talk to each other and use those Community forums like you said and you know people. It's very interesting that when you put something out there, people are so willing to share their tips, tricks, secrets, even and you know it's kind of fun. So excellent. I'm glad you're both utilizing that.

Well, work to to the almost to the end here. I don't see any more questions coming in, so I just want to say thank you both. Do you have any parting words or anything else you'd like to say?

No.

Good alright? So thank you so much to the both of you for joining me for joining us for our first community conversations. We do have one next week that I'm going to plug. Right now it is community conversations. The international admissions in a changing, changing landscape, so it should be very interesting. It's no. It's this week. It's Thursday, November 18th at 2:00 PM, so we're hitting you guys back to back this week with some fun conversations.

And then you can take these conversations. If you celebrate Thanksgiving to your dinner table next week, that's fantastic. Again, thank you both and we look forward to hopefully seeing others in the future for our future webinars.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.