Office of Orientation and Transition staff members traveled to Denver, Colorado, last month for the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education Annual Conference.
During the conference, the office was recognized for its outstanding work in orientation and transition programs and won Outstanding Publication for New Students or Family Members for its orientation resource guide. The guide was provided to all first-year students and their families when they arrived for The New Vols Experience: Orientation. The resource guide serves as a helpful tool that provides students with a list of campus resources and ways for students to get involved.
The office’s graduate assistant, James Kelly, and intern, Anne Bures, won Best Overall in Graduate Student Case Study against forty other teams from across the country. Each year, the case study competition deals with real-life situations that could occur at orientation and allows competitors to respond as if they were a professional in the field. The scenario at this year’s conference dealt with social media, student supervision, and students engaging in inappropriate behavior while attending orientation.