Whatever it Takes: Maintaining Student Wellbeing and Engagement
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Presentation at the Student Journey and Success Symposium
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Whatever it Takes: Maintaining Student Wellbeing and Engagement
- 1. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B Maintaining student engagement and wellbeing in unprecedented times ‘Whatever it Takes’
- 2. Session Overview Laura Burge Student Experience & Engagement Manager Angelica (Gel) Klein- Boonschate Campus Life Coordinator Supported, Engaged and Informed 1 Challenges and Silver Linings 2 Transferable Lessons 3
- 3. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B Home to close to 3,000 Residents 4 Campuses across Victoria Geelong Waurn Ponds Geelong Waterfront Melbourne Burwood Warrnambool Deakin Residential Services
- 8. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B 94% 95% felt that student accommodation at Deakin is a safe place to live during COVID felt that Deakin Res had proactively managed COVID risks in the residential environment 96% felt that COVIDSafe practices had been well communicated
- 9. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B 92% Were satisfied or very satisfied with virtual programs offered by Deakin Res reported a positive interaction with a staff member 97%
- 10. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B Challenges Disruption COVIDSafe Management Reimagining Student Experience Effective Crisis Communication Wellbeing Student Life in Lockdown Staff Wellbeing and Engagement First v Second Lockdown Limitations ‘Authentic’ Community Building Digital Expertise Available Resources
- 11. Silver Linings Unified Approach Cross-campus Collaboration Borderless Communities Innovative Technology Unique Student Cohort Engagement Globally Accessible Content
- 12. Transferable Lessons 1. Determine Priorities 2. Acknowledge Life Out of the Ordinary 3. Act Swiftly and with Pace 4. Meet Students Where They’re At 5. Invest in Technology 6. Engage Student Leaders as Co-Creators & Promoters
- 13. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B “…2020 will not be defined by what we lost to this virus, but by how we responded to it." Malala Yousafzai Human Rights Activist
- 14. Questions Laura Burge Student Experience and Engagement Manager l.burge@deakin.edu.au https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauracburge/ Angelica (Gel) Klein-Boonschate Campus Life Coordinator a.klein-boonschate@deakin.edu.au
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon and welcome to our presentation today; Whatever It Takes: Maintaining Student Engagement and Wellbeing in unprecedented times.
- My name is Angelica (or Gel) and together with my colleague Laura, we will be sharing our experience navigating COVID-19, supporting students living on-campus at Deakin University. Today, we will share with you our three-part strategy of supporting, engaging and informing students, exploring elements that we found to be silver-linings and likely to remain part of our operation post-pandemic, along with briefly discussing some of the challenges and opportunities which have arisen throughout 2020
- To provide some context, Deakin Res provides a home to close to 3,000 residents across Deakin’s four campuses within the state of Victoria. As many of you would be aware, Victoria has been subject to varying strict lockdown measures, which have included curfews, requirements for social distancing, and compulsory mask wearing. This also resulted in a complete cancellation of all face-to-face events, activities and meetings. As the pandemic unfolded, in early March Deakin Res made the difficult decision to require residents to return home wherever possible, and without penalty. Whilst some returned in between lockdown stages, Deakin Res has remained at approx. 30% occupancy throughout this year. Whilst today we will cover some of the initiatives undertaken within student accommodation during this time, much of what we have implemented, and the lessons we have learnt are transferable across a wide range of settings including within the broader university.
- SUPPORT So how did we ensure that our residents felt supported during this unprecedented year? We, like many of you realised the gravity of the situation very early on and swiftly began re-imagining our approach to our student experience, in part not only from necessity but in order to publicly acknowledge the reality that life really was, out of the ordinary. Not only for students, but our staff also. In a standard year, Deakin Res facilitates a Student Experience framework encompassing five pillars (Academic, Social and Community, Health and Wellbeing, Leadership, Arts and Culture). However in 2020, we saw the need to create and implement a temporary wellbeing and experience model that reflected the completely revised landscape. and which drew attention and focus to three key priorities. Our ‘Belong, Balance, Broaden’ approach was designed to: Foster students’ sense of belonging and engagement with our residential community, Encourage students’ to balance mind and body, and, Enable students to explore opportunities to broaden their horizons through virtual personal and professional development activities, webinars and workshops. Aside from this new approach to programming, perhaps one of the most important new initiatives during this time also involved the introduction of monthly welfare checks (via phone and/or email) for every resident who remained on site. By connecting on a regular basis, our Campus Life staff were able to ensure residents were provided with key information, access to additional support services and had a friendly (albeit virtual) face to raise any concerns or problems.
- ENGAGE Effectively engaging our residents has been another key priority throughout this year. Like all of us working across the industry, our entire calendar of face-to-face events was effectively thrown out the window in March with the onslaught of COVID-19. In light of the restrictions in place, Deakin Res completely transitioned to a virtual space, offering a daily program of online events and activities to our entire cohort. These were hosted within existing social media groups with students, and varied in style, scale and level of involvement required as we were extremely conscious that they were in the midst of complete upheaval – transitioning to online learning, isolation from friends and family, and generally adjusting to life in lockdown. Whilst levels of engagement understandably waivered over time, some of our most popular activities included Meme Monday, Tik Tok Tuesday, and Trivia Thursdays. Over the course of the past eight months, the Deakin Res team has coordinated XXX number of digital events and activities. Our student leaders have been heavily involved throughout, not only providing regular feedback on the efficacy of each program, but also taking frequent responsibility for facilitation of various events. Virtual program offerings were also accompanied by limited and covid-safe face to face door drops of food items and activity packs. This initiative was particularly well received by our community who were craving any kind of face-to-face interaction.
- INFORM Our final strategy, and of obvious critical importance during a crisis of any kind, was ensuring our students were kept informed throughout the ever-changing levels of restrictions and lockdown. Whilst Zoom has certainly been the platform of choice for many, at Deakin Res we were particularly conscious that we had additional requirements for technology. Our initial goal had involved securing a platform which would enable us to effectively and professionally promote our accommodation to prospective students for 2021, but in discovering Webinar Jam, we ended up with a reasonably priced product that has actually proven vital in communicating key information to our in-room residents in a really interactive and engaging manner.
- This particular slide provides a back of house view of Webinar Jam (not a paid promo ) and I wanted to briefly share this with you to provide a bit of an idea as to some of the reasons why this particular platform has proven so effective. Not only did we use Webinar Jam to host live information sessions for prospective students in the lead up to our virtual Open Day, but we found that the program was extremely useful in facilitating compulsory online monthly community meetings with our residential population. All residents were required to attend live briefings provided by Deakin Res staff, who were accompanied by our student leaders. Sessions were also recorded to enable students to watch on–demand. The platform itself enables a very professional style of presentation, but also the ability for attendees to ask questions, answer polls, watch videos and view slides, resulting a very dynamic and engaging communication tool. A significant and unintended benefit of the initiative proved to be the ability for us to track attendance and compliance, ultimately saving us hours of administration which had previously taken place using google spreadsheets.
- Whilst we certainly felt as a staffing team that the initiatives mentioned have been effective in supporting students during COVID, it was important that we were actually seeking student feedback and validation of these claims. In any standard year we conduct an Annual Residential Experience Survey around August, and this year we added some additional questions to reflect the current landscape. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, we had a very impressive response – our highest yet, and of the 614 residents on campus, we had a 52% response rate. There are a couple of results from our survey which I felt were particularly worth highlighting. READ OUT
- Perhaps the results of which I’m most proud however, is the fact that 92% of survey respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with our virtual program offering, which is an impressive statistic in light of the challenges associated with digital fatigue during this time. 97% reported a positive interaction with a staff member this year (a 1.3 percentage point increase from 2019) and no mean feat when we were frequently passing on bad news like additional restrictions or curfews. This statistic in particular validates the incredible work of staff across DRS who went above and beyond in ensuring students had the best possible experience during a really difficult and challenging year. HANDOVER
- Whilst Gel has highlighted some of the successful elements of our approach to supporting students during COVID, it hasn’t all been completely smooth sailing. There were 3 main types of challenges we faced throughout 2020, many of which I’m sure will resonate with our audience. Firstly, the sheer scale and impact of the disruption caused by COVID-19. Whilst this looked different at ground level for each of us, in student accommodation we’ve faced one challenge after the other, introducing new policies, frameworks and guidelines regarding occupancy, physical distancing and use of communal facilities, only to be compelled to update, revise or completely overhaul and communicate new versions mere weeks, sometimes days, later. This has proven challenging, confusing and frustrating for staff who have had to reinvent experience plans and event programming, usually planned months in advance, overnight, but primarily for our residents, who not only have been impacted by changes to their learning, transitioning to online studies, but also their living environments, either by being required to return home, or to relocate. Secondly, whilst student wellbeing has been a key priority for us throughout the various stages of lockdown, as we’re all well aware, there’s only so much virtual programming can be of genuine benefit when students are restricted to a 4 by 4 studio apartment, away from family, friends and life as we previously knew it. An easing of restrictions followed by a return to lockdown particularly for our Melbourne based residents also proved challenging. Engagement as Gel mentioned as such has understandably waivered over time, as it has for all of us who can only take so much time staring at our computer screens. Finally whilst there were benefits from a number of the new initiatives we were able to put into place, there were – and still are – obvious limitations. Whilst we, like many others, have developed and rolled out creative and innovative virtual student experience programs, welfare checks and food drops, it’s important to acknowledge that there are limitations to authentic community building in purely virtual forums. Our students are craving face-to-face contact, even it’s not yet possible or in severely restricted formats. Determining effective ways to engage students in upcoming events and activities, foster a sense of affinity and belonging, connect them with their community, and proactively provide support in these new online spaces remains an ongoing concern. Digital expertise – or lack thereof – has also been a factor. After all, the bulk of work in a standard year for our Campus Life staff revolves around on campus event programming, student meetings and the like, and whilst we’ve all had to learn the ropes of Zoom and Microsoft Teams at a bare minimum, creating engaging online events and designing eye-catching promotional social media posts using new - and sometimes quite complicated – technology has had its challenges. Practice has helped make things ‘somewhat perfect,’ but it has certainly been problematic at times, particularly when resources are stretched and there are competing – and frequently changing - priorities.
- Challenges aside, there have been a number of silver linings from some of the initiatives that have resulted this year from the impact of COVID-19. In particular this has included: Firstly, A unified approach and greater cross campus collaboration which has resulted in the effective pooling of resources and staff, centralised communication, and facilitation of virtual events and programs for all regardless of campus location. This has further resulted in a borderless residential community, enabling students to interact, collaborate and engage with others’ that might never have met in pre-COVID times based on campus boundaries. Secondly, the application and use of innovative technology, like our webinar program for community gatherings, had the benefit of inadvertently enhancing our administrative processes, communicating key messages more effectively and saving hours of time previously spent manually recording and managing attendance records. Thirdly our new virtual programs, whilst not without their challenges, have also attracted unique student cohorts – many of whom might not have engaged in some of our traditional face to face activities or events. Finally, we’ve been overwhelmed and incredibly grateful to the global community for the amount of accessible content which has been shared by our colleagues and by organisations for the benefit of all. Never before have we been able to source international speakers and facilitators, seek advice, share examples of best practice, or access such valuable resources, than during this year (like we are doing right now.)
- Having covered some of the challenges and silver linings, and in appreciation for the diversity of staff in attendance, we wanted to conclude our brief time today highlighting some of the transferable lessons that we have learnt in responding to COVID and supporting our residents. Firstly, we feel a large part of our effective response was due to the unwavering determination of our priorities very early on. We were very clear to our staff, the broader University and our governing Board that whilst we knew we were facing a critical financial impact that the safety, wellbeing and experience of our residents was a priority above all else. This commitment then guided our entire response to the COVID crisis as it has unfolded. Secondly, our upfront acknowledgement of life out of the ordinary, via the introduction of our tailored student experience and wellbeing model, a revised program of virtual offerings, and the implementation of regular welfare checks, played a huge role in ensuring our residents felt supported, engaged, informed and perhaps more importantly, In control, in a time when by all accounts their world was spontaneously combusting around them. Third, the pace at which we were able to implement these changes, including relocating residents to ensure social distancing and directing those that could to return home without penalty, demonstrated that student safety and the student experience was front of mind – despite the financial ramifications. Fourth, we engaged with students on their virtual turf – we went and found them, we didn’t expect them to find us. This in part meant we all had to rapidly get up to speed with Tik Tok and Instagram Reels. Fifth, critical to our success this year was investing time and resources into technology which met our completely revised organisational requirements. As noted, this had the benefit of inadvertently enhancing our administrative processes, but more importantly, enabled and empowered our staff and students to connect and collaborate in virtual settings. Finally, and I appreciate I’m preaching to the choir here, but we involved our student leaders every step of the way – with anything from seeking their involvement as co-creators and promoters of the raft of virtual programs we introduced, to empowering them to role model COVIDSafe behaviours and in reinforcing key crisis communications.
- Before we conclude for questions, we wanted to share this final quote which we think nicely sums up the incredible work of those within the higher education sector but also the resilience shown by our students in the face of the incredibly challenging circumstances which have marked this year.