NVC Leadership Message
Robin Lund, Dean for Student Success – Advising and Enrollment
Congratulations on the great start to another fall semester! With nearly 18,500 students enrolling into our classes, the campus is alive with students’ energy and excitement.
Let’s all take a breath and a moment of appreciation for all that has been done (and will continue to be done) to welcome each of these students to or back to Northwest Vista. Our enrollment growth is to be celebrated and it is no small feat; your dedication and commitment to our students is simply amazing. Thank you.
As we move into the upcoming weeks, I invite you to reflect upon what you can do to ensure the success for each of these students. It’s not enough to simply enroll students, we need to also help them continue and complete. As a community college, access is at the forefront of our identity… AND access is more than enrolling – it’s about having the opportunity to learn, grow, thrive and succeed.
If you’re thinking, “I’m not even sure where to start,” … read on my friend. 😊 I too had similar thoughts and then, upon reflection, realized there were several intentional things I could do to help students. I’ve started a list of ideas I plan to share with colleagues throughout the semester with hopes it might encourage you to reflect upon your own unique ways to support students.
We all can do something, we just might need a little help finding our “something.” Have a wonderful semester and thank you each for all you do, every day.
Providing intentional support to students… things I can do (right now):
Ask them how they’re doing AND slow down to allow myself to actively listen to their response.
I often find myself walking quickly to my next “wherever-I-need-to-be” and as I encounter one of our student employees, I may greet them with a “Hey! How are ya’ doing?” … with no actual possibility of truly listening or receiving a genuine response because I’m off to the next thing on my calendar.
I can make a point to slow down and leave a little earlier for my meetings to allow more opportunities receive a response and actively listen.
Ask if they knew they could register for spring and summer 2024 right now.
We are shifting our culture of enrollment by opening up “Full Academic Year Registration” We still haven’t adjusted to what that means, and I can help.
I can help create the new culture and experience for our students, but simply asking if they knew they could. Students no longer need to wait until November to register for the next semester… they can start right now.
Utilize this website as a resource for students (and myself): alamo.edu/fayr
Embrace the teacher identity… even though I’m not in the classroom
I can still “teach”, even though I am not in the classroom. When asked a question by a student, I can change my approach in providing the answer. I can offer an answer AND provide information as to how to find it.
Whether it’s “When is the next payment deadline?”, “Where is Live Oak Hall?” or “What’s my instructor’s email?”; I can provide more than just the answer, I can also provide where and how I found the answer.
Let go of my old assumptions when I find a student action (or lack thereof) to be disappointing or frustrating.
There are times when working with a student to resolve an issue, I will ask them to complete something… and they don’t follow through… completely missing their opportunity to arrive to a solution.
Rather than assume the student just didn’t care enough to follow through, I can inquire if there is anything I can do to help them complete what was asked of them. I can let go of my assumptions that their lack of action is synonymous with apathy. Perhaps they don’t know how to complete something, or maybe they have had a horrendous week and in attempts to get all of the everything done… my request had to fall to the back burner for a while. Life happens… and students have so much more to their identify than what I get a glimpse of each day.
