August/September 2008 Issue Just 3 of the articles in this issue: ARTICLE 1: Setting Goals: The Most Important Step in Success ARTICLE 2: THE PASSPORT PROGRAM:  Get more students involved in your programming! ARTICLE 3: What SENSE Does New Student Orientation Make At Your Campus?

Del Suggs

ARTICLE 1: Setting Goals: The Most Important Step in Success
by Del Suggs

Here at the beginning of the academic year, it's vital to start off with an action plan. We all want to be successful.  Often, we just don't know how to be successful. That's why goal setting is so important.

Achievement at both the personal and organizational level is keenly linked to goal setting.  Until you've set a goal, you don't know where you or your organization wants to go.  In some ways, goals are maps that lead us to success.

But what are goals, really?  And how do you set them?

Let me share with you some insights into goals and goal setting that I've learned and applied to my own career.  You'll find that your personal goals, and those of your organization can both benefit from these ideas.

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ARTICLE 2: THE PASSPORT PROGRAM:   Get more students involved in your programming! By Lisa Binkowski

     Do you have great activities available for your students but have trouble getting them to attend?  Have you planned an unforgettable evening but are afraid that no one will show up for that perfect special event?  If you are like us at Lourdes College in Sylvania, Ohio, then you may have the same difficulty in drawing significant attendance by your students.  There are always plenty of reasons why they don't come to see a comedian, play in the annual volleyball tournament, or go to the spring carnival. Students are busy,  and time is valuable. For students to participate, there must be value placed on your activity, and it has to hold more value than the other choices they have for that day and time.

     About a year ago, my student staff and I met to discuss ways to instill a greater sense of value on our activities, in an effort to get better attendance and get more students involved in our campus life. We came up with the PASSPORT PROGRAM.  It was designed to encourage students to take advantage of the various opportunities to engage in campus life, and get rewarded for doing so. All of the activities sponsored by our department of Student Activities and Recreation, whether recreational, social, or educational, are included in the program.  The structure of the program is simple: it consists of a passport booklet, a specially designed stamp, students to issue stamps, and prizes.

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ARTICLE 3: What SENSE Does New Student Orientation Make At Your Campus? By Dave Leenhouts

Dave Leenhouts

Certainly a case can be made that the last thing we need in Student Development Services is one more nationally based survey pointing out to professionals and practitioners what is going wrong with the programming that is being presented on their individual campuses and what should be happening instead of those programs. Most student life professionals and practitioners are probably reeling at the thought of an instrument that measures the "worthiness" of their institutions new student orientation programs.

Orientation programs for new students have been a part of college campuses since 1888 and have some how survived the test of time. Why now should an emphasis appear on new student orientation?  In short response to that rhetorical question, it appears that new student orientation may have a lot more to do with student engagement (read that as student success and retention) then was originally thought. The first impressions research that was a part of everyone's social psychology class as an undergraduate has found its way to college student engagement.

The latest two instruments of note that professionals and practitioners need to be aware of are the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) and the Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE). The BCSSE is designed for use at four year colleges and the SENSE is directed toward the community college.  The BCSSE is usually given to students before they begin classes, during 'welcome back' activities.

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