Student Life and Engagement Committee

Student Life and Engagement Committee

Initial Committee Charge: Create cohesive, comprehensive, sticky student experiences that include all ordinary services and strong student life elements under all scenarios.

Committee Members:

• M. Davis O’Guinn, Chair, Vice Provost for Students and Dean of Students, Division of Student Affairs
• Kathy Adams Riester, Associate Vice Provost and Executive Associate Dean of Students, Division of Student Affairs
• Sohile Ali, Student
• Hannah Armstrong, Director of Operations and Strategic Initiatives, Division of Student Affairs
• Tanya Camargo, Student
• Lillian Casillas, Director, La Casa Latino Culture Center
• Katherine Cierniak, Assistant Director, INSPIRE Living-Learning Center, School of Education
• Mara Dahlgren, Director, Student Involvement and Leadership Center, Division of Student Affairs
• DeeDee Dayhoff, Assistant Dean for Student Care and Support, Division of Student Affairs
• Mary Embry, Director, Undergraduate Studies, Co-Area Coordinator, Apparel Merchandising, Eskenazi School
• Leslie Fasone, Assistant Dean for Sorority and Fraternity Life, Division of Student Affairs
• Cedric Harris, Director, Bias Response, Division of Student Affairs
• Denise Hayes, Director, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), IU Health Center
• Sara Ivey Lucas, Director and Assistant Dean, Residential Life
• Alexis Karwoski, Assistant Director, Sorority and Fraternity Life, Division of Student Affairs
• Katherine Kearns, Assistant Vice Provost for Student Development, University Graduate School 
• Meredith Knoff, Learning Commons Librarian, Herman B. Wells Library
• Luke Leftwich, Executive Director, Residential Programs and Services
• Joseph Lovejoy, Director, Walter Center for Career Achievement, College ofArts & Science
• John Nieto-Phillips, Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion
• Aimee Oestreich, Associate General Counsel, Office of the Vice President & General Counsel
• Katie Paulin, Assistant Dean for Student Care, Division of Student Affairs
• Melanie Payne, Director, First Year Experience
• Jackie Puterbaugh, Associate Director, Campus Recreational Sports
• Shruti Rana, Director, International Law and Institutions Program, Professor, International Law Practice, Hamilton-Lugar School
• Beth Rupp, Medical Director, IU Health Center
• Rendy Schrader, Senior Director, International Student and Scholar Programs and Initiatives, Office of International Services
• Brian Seavey, Director of Undergraduate Student Engagement, O’Neill School
• Libby Spotts, Associate Dean for Student Conduct, Division of Student Affairs
• Shirley Stumpner, Director, Disability Services for Students
• Graham Vogtman, Student
• Lamara Warren, Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, Luddy School
• Cassi Winslow-Edmonson, Director, IU Corps

Campuswide Actionable Recommendations

• Campus Commitment
  • Use of campuswide code/commitment, the “Healthy Hoosier Commitment” that sets a base standard for all IUB students.
    • Development of a Canvas course to educate students (and faculty/staff) on the basic expectations of the Healthy Hoosier Commitment, harm reduction education, and conflict resolutions strategies to support community consensus around public health measures.
    • Develop a live, real-time website that will supplement the Commitment with public health standards that may be changing rapidly.
    • Approach alleged violations in an educational manner to increase compliance and retention.
    • Develop a reporting form so individuals are empowered to assist with community standards and the University can respond promptly.
    • Develop a set of expectations for students engaging in remote learning/in-person classes.
  • Care and Belonging
    • Reassure students by sharing what student support services they can expect regardless of scenario
    • Develop a process and requirement for students to update their local address each semester. This is particularly important for students living off campus and could be linked to requirements within the Hoosier Health Commitment/Code.
    • Develop a roommate conversation guide (similar to an on campus roommate agreement) that helps roommates in discussing the safety measures they agree to take in their homes (see example) to be distributed both to on-campus and off-campus students.
    • Advance inclusivity, collaboration, civil discourse and engagement to create embracing, supportive communities for students to enhance belonging and learning, while mitigating against isolation, disengagement, attrition, stigma, and bias.
    • Identify those students most vulnerable, as well as, students unaffiliated with existing communities, organizations, scholarship programs, and students in quarantine or isolation, and reach out to them.
  • Health and Wellness
    • RCP Personal Hygiene and Prevention Measure #3: Provide tips and resources around campus for students to understand how to appropriately clean masks on a recommended interval.
    • RCP Personal Hygiene and Prevention Measure #3, RC Classes: Instruction and Learning Environments #3: Procure clear masks for students, faculty and staff to accommodate hearing and speech disabilities to ensure they can succeed in academic settings while also following public health guidance.
    • RCP Mental Health: Train campus mental health professionals on interactive and engaging workshops on how to identify those in distress and how to effectively intervene and refer appropriately.
    • RCP Personal Hygiene and Prevention Measure #1: Create public awareness campaigns on campus disinfectant stations and education/instructions for self-cleaning.
    • Engage students to help promote healthy behaviors and hold one another accountable will be critical in creating a safe campus environment. Students from various leadership roles, such as Orientation Team Leaders, resident assistants, Culture of Care, and the Peer Health and Wellness Educators, should be engaged to help promote harm reduction behaviors and norms associated with COVID-19 prevention strategies.
  • Engagement
    • Develop centralized guiding principles documents for campus event planners, faculty, staff, and students tailored for both in-person and virtual events (current outlined structure can be provided upon request).
    • Create a cross-disciplinary, cross-functional task force to design visionary, resilient, sustainable, meaningful co-curricular experiences for students that start with the virtual space as the default engagement space with communities.
    • Solicit commitments from offices that provide co-curricular programming about the nature of the experiences they can support.
    • Support and equip student leaders to reach out to their groups and use these spaces for meetings or for casual connections; e.g., athletic team captains, resident assistants, club leaders.
  • Inclusion and Belonging Recommendations
    • Advance inclusivity, collaboration, and civil discourse and engagement to create embracing, supportive communities for students to enhance belonging and learning, while mitigating against isolation, disengagement, attrition, stigma, and bias.
    • Anticipate possible scenarios of social conflict or division exacerbated by political or public health events.
    • Identify those underrepresented students most vulnerable, as well as, students unaffiliated with existing communities, organizations, or scholarship programs, and students in quarantine or isolation, and reach out to them.
      • Leverage and coordinate existing academic support units (GROUPS, HHSP, 21st Century, Mentoring & Student Leadership Development (MSLD) Program); Office of International Services (OIS); Affinity groups (centers); Community Education Program (CUE) in residential halls.
      • Ensure students have opportunities for in-person or online communities: virtual study tables; check-in buddy systems of mutual support; peer-mentors; virtual Residential Assistants for those living off campus.
      • Strategies for inclusive student spirit: facemask competition; video competition; playing off and reinforcing ethos of social distancing for civic good. Be intentionally inclusive.
    • View faculty as a conduit to resources for students and as allies in creating an inclusive teaching environment both online and in the classroom contexts.
      • Provide faculty online resources (workshops, training videos, documents, links, toolkits) that will help them to implement inclusive teaching practices; and provide additional teaching support as needed and as resources allow (e.g., additional grading and/or classroom support).
      • Schools might utilize “virtual ambassadors” to actively engage with students via check-ins, consultations, mentoring relationships, or via more intentional and impactful techniques to keep distance learning students engaged. Regular communication by the deans to set expectations, convey policies (especially about grading) and encourage instructors to adopt inclusive language in their syllabi, resources on Canvas, and practices in their classrooms.
  • Communications
    • Communicate campus commitment to maintaining IUB culture in any format- virtual or in-person.
    • Clear, consistent communication to current students to keep them up to date
    • Using evidence-informed data, develop a comprehensive communication strategy that promotes harm reduction and public health strategies targeted toward various audiences. All educational programs should reinforce these messages. Additionally, messages must be clear, consistent, and repeated.
    • Provide targeted communications that continually provide guidance about focusing on health and safety.
    • Keep messages positive and authentic, both verbally and visually. Be transparent to ensure trust.
    • Provide messaging that is consistent, sustained, clear, and realistic to parents and students. Be precise with language; e.g., “postponed” versus “cancelled” where appropriate.
    • Utilize all social media venues to communicate and engage with current students; e.g., show current pictures of campus, highlight virtual ways of students connecting, and offer contests with students sending in videos.
    • Post video updates that demonstrate resilience and provide students with strategies to help them adapt to changes associated with the hybrid model.
    • Be mindful of the climate before posting on social media. Ensure that post topics and tone are not insensitive to current events. Be careful with exclamation points, emoji, and gifs.
    • Ensure communication recognizes the critical need for differentiated and targeted support for traditionally marginalized and underrepresented populations who may feel even more disconnected from the institution; e.g., students with different abilities, students of color, first generation, lower earning families, LGBTQIA+, and other disenfranchised groups.
    • Create a “Keep Supporting” site mirroring “Keep Teaching and Keep Learning” sites with tips and resources for parents and families.
    • Update parents and families regularly through email outreach; keep everyone connected to decision-making and next steps.
    • Develop communication strategy to maintain engagement with deferred students to ensure that they feel connected to IUB in hopes that they do enroll the following year.
    • Share information on financial resources, such as Money Smarts, scholarships, grants, financial aid, emergency funds, to reduce financial stress.

Campuswide Recommendations 

• RCP Community Engagement: Develop a partnership program with off-campus apartments, sororities and fraternities, and businesses to encourage students and community members to uphold IU’s Healthy Hoosier Commitment. Have a sticker/decal or poster that partners can display as well as a letter people sign or registration of some type.
• Community building: How do we define community? By potential residence hall? By intended major? By special interest/identity? Some other way?
• Develop and conduct student or parent surveys to assess differing needs and to assist with critical planning purposes for the fall semester. We cannot assume we know what they want or need. Coordinating survey needs across campus.
• Academic units/advisors should develop an outreach plan for students who stopped attending class when instruction went online and ultimately failed the class (faculty have been reporting this to academic units and Care Team) to see if there are any ways to retain these students.

Divisional/Departmental Action Steps to Implement Recommendations

• Accountability
  • Express clear expectations to reduce confusion about expected behavior through the Healthy Hoosier Commitment.
  • Identify key campus partners who may also enforce the Healthy Hoosier Commitment.
  • Recommend how campus partners should respond if a student fails to comply with the Healthy Hoosier Commitment student/peer response will be required (possible university campaign)
  • Identify Student Roles (i.e. OTeam, RAs, Culture of Care) or a New/Separate Peer Group (similar to Culture of Care) that may assist
    • Faculty/staff response (required training)
    • Formal Response
    • Charges via the code
    • Include possible loss of privileges up to and including loss of student status for behaviors
    • Recommend educational focus for most violations and increased awareness on equitable accountability for all students
    • Recommend consistency across all IU campuses in formal response measure
    • Recommend development of a course to educate students (and faculty/staff) on the provisions listed in the Healthy Hoosiers Commitment and connect the course to IU’s teaching/research mission.
      • Normalize behaviors through the course.
      • Provide opportunities for engagement in a larger campaign through the course.
      • Increase sense of collective accountability (including accountability for self/others/guests) through the course.
      • Normalize a healthy accountability response without panic or threat through the course. Encourage individuals to approach others who may not ‘appear compliant’ with the Healthy Hoosier Commitment without assumptions and with compassion.
    • Address key campus partners who may also implement their own expectations and accountability measures and assist with making recommendations for those expectations and accountability measures (i.e. RPS, Rec Sports)
    • Partner with Academic Affairs to develop expectations for remote learning to address behavioral and academic integrity issues in remote learning classes.
    • Address behaviors promptly to:
      • Correct behaviors of violators so they do not get ill themselves and are retained
      • Correct behaviors of violators so they do not infect others so others are retained
      • Demonstrate university accountability to others who are compliant who do not want to be in an environment with individuals who are violating the Healthy Hoosier Commitment, so they will be retained
    • Approach alleged violations in an educational manner to increase compliance and retention.
    • Consider re-directing the Brief Motivational Interviewing intervention efforts of Substance Use Intervention Services toward a similar model of behavioral change for Healthy Hoosier Commitment violations.
    • Develop a reporting form so individuals are empowered to assist with community standards and the University can respond promptly.
    • Develop a live, real-time website that will supplement the Healthy Hoosier Commitment with public health standards that may be changing rapidly.
      Identify key community partners who may set similar standards for their agency/business to reinforce these basic norms off campus.
    • Partner with local public health officials to keep standards up to date and reinforce basic norms off campus.

Co-Curricular Engagement

• Require offices that provide co-curricular programs to ensure virtual option for all participants.
• Support the development of student service corps to assist IU and local community and health officials in actions supporting the public health strategy.
• Create student experiences that allow them to contribute to community health/safety initiatives while building marketable skills.
• Solicit commitments from offices that provide co-curricular programming about the nature of the experiences they can support under any of the campus restart plans.
  • Identify partners and experiences for students
  • Coach students and faculty in making the most of these experiences
  • Share best practices for engagement given our current conditions
• Identify guiding principles for providing co-curricular services that focus on immersion and mentorship, especially with respect to equitable participation and community-mindedness.
• Use or learn from student-led academic support chat groups and online locations for tips and strategies the students themselves have adopted for success. Work with academic units for possible best practices and/or identify students to lead these initiatives.
• Leverage student employees to take on roles that require expanded staff work hours in the virtual space; e.g., building social messaging platforms, running chat groups, designing student outreach campaigns, and social listening. Helps provide employment, service opportunities or sense of purpose during this time. Look at student leaders, organizations, students who must complete service hours as part of their degree or employment opportunities for work-study or hourly students seeking employment.

Extracurricular Engagement

• Centralized and coordinated transition support for new and returning students.
• Facilitated communication between all offices on campus doing students events or supporting student activities to ensure decisions are consistent across campus. Campus partners should include: Office of International Services, Rec Sports, Culture Centers, First Year Experience, DSA, RPS, IU Student Foundation, Alumni Association and all academic schools to best support student engagement.
• Engage students in a strategic committee to review and ideate solutions for scenario planning and student expectations. Engage Cabinet of Student Leaders or sub-group of them to develop ideas for transitioning events.
• Provide clear expectations to Student Organizations regarding meetings, events and programs, including information on what they can and cannot do. Guidance will be needed regarding student organization expectations associated with in-person meetings, programs, and events. It will also be important to clarify how these expectations extend off-campus.
• Many of our students are “wired” for this kind of an experience; leverage their comfort, expertise, and brilliance as we move forward.
• Offer Quarantine Buddies hosted by institution. Support those efforts already in place.
• Help create in-person and virtual meetings and interaction spaces for registered clubs, organizations, and university sponsored groups; e.g., resident assistants, admissions ambassadors, athletic teams, orientation leaders, etc.
• Support and equip student leaders to reach out to their groups and use these spaces for meetings or for casual connections; e.g., athletic team captains, resident assistants, club leaders.
• Create online groups, classroom spaces, or similar digital spaces where students can be engaged, ask questions, reach out, etc. based on special interests/identity.
• Engage alumni in online workshops, networking sessions, and career readiness workshops.
• Develop educational communications and online private groups for students to deal with abrupt changes; i.e., anxiety in uncertain times, how to live back home again, strategies to remain engaged in the home environment, and staying connected with peers.
• Create and publicize online “lounges,” free, open spaces where students can catch up and chat; if campus is open to limited staff, host hang out time in actual lounge space virtually so students can still remain psychologically connected with space on campus.
• Leverage eSports opportunities to broaden student engagement.
• “Ask me” chat by various university officials so students feel they have access to leadership. Officials should reach out to students and ask them to engage—to ask questions, express concerns, share support.
• Engage faculty and staff at IU to assess student engagement programming.
• Communicate regularly with professional and community associations, councils, and organizations involved in executing student engagement.
• Create a centralized location and communication for resources/guidance/best practices documentation to enable effective event/program planning in any format.
• Create a temporary policy requiring all university connected events be registered with the IU calendar and following university health and general policies.
• Request IU Studios to add a custom field to the new campus event request form (for the IU Calendar) that allows a unit or organization to describe the safety measures they are taking to reduce risk.

Family Engagement

• Create sites and virtual classrooms for parents and families to provide information and strategies to support online learning and examples of best practices in distance learning.
• Make it clear who families can reach out to if they have questions/concerns.
• Provide clear expectations for parents and families who visit campus and easy access to information to help support their students as they are navigating COVID19.
• Survey current DSA Parents Advisory Board.

First-Year Students 

• Provide clear information during New Student Orientation about social distancing and other precautions (wearing a mask, wiping down desks/seats, etc.) that will be taken on campus and in residential settings.
• Ensure that RAs and dorm staff are well versed in the requirements regarding social distancing, mask wearing, etc. Have RAs address this with students at the beginning of the year.
• Provide RA training on talking with students about their COVID-19 related concerns.
• Ensure RAs are not the only ones relaying this information and/or enforcing the requirements. Identify other individuals who can play a key role in this (i.e. members of the Res. Hall Student Governments, other student leaders, peer leaders/mentors)
• Include safety information on bulletin boards for visual representation (RPS).
• Partner with CAPS to develop resources or quick visuals for adjusting to life on campus in the time of COVID-19.
• Ask returning students, such as peer leaders/mentors (in the case of Living-Learning Centers) or paid employees, to serve as sounding boards for new students as they adapt to life on campus – possibly develop small groups or buddy systems to process.
• Consider adding peer leaders/mentors on all floors and residence halls that are not part of an LLC, as they are instrumental in their ability to assist new students in adjusting and adapting to life on campus.
• Engage Res Life Coordinators, CUEs, and student government members to play key roles in helping to build a sense of community for residential centers.
• RC Campus Housing #5 - Ensure activities are developed that build community at both the campus-wide scale and within the residence-halls/floors.

Off-Campus Students

• Connect with local landlords to help share IU’s guidelines/expectations for health and safety measures around COVID-19, provide resources and information.
• Develop a partnership program with off-campus apartments, sororities and fraternities, and businesses to encourage students and community members to uphold IU’s Healthy Hoosier Commitment. Have a sticker/decal or poster that partners can display as well as a letter people sign or a registration process.
• Develop program similar to RA/peer educators for off campus housing communities to share proactive health and safety tips around COVID and to help with community development.
• Sorority and Fraternity Life – RCP Greek and Other Off-Campus Housing #1
• Meet with RPS to discuss changes that will be implemented in the residence halls and provide a summary that will serve as guidance to sorority and fraternity landlords and house corporation boards. Topics covered should include information regarding dining and communal eating spaces, sleeping spaces, usage of bathrooms, tracking and monitoring guests and visitors, cleaning and disinfection, and internal accountability.
• Meet with the Monroe County Health Department to discuss oversight and recommendations associated with public health guidance for sorority and fraternity facilities. Determine expectations associated with safety, quarantine and isolation, and when the county health department may step in to close a facility due to safety concerns.
• Meet with campus partners who own, operate and advise sororities and fraternities to provide them with an overview of recommended changes, guidance from the county health department, and support needed to adjust and adapt living spaces to increase the health and safety of students.
• Require sororities and fraternities to have a crisis management plan for managing infections disease that is provided to OSFL and EHS upon request. The plan should provide a framework for organizations to utilize should there be an outbreak in the chapter facility. This can be included in the University Recognized Housing Policy for sororities and fraternities.
• Collect relevant and pertinent information associated with housing, including a list of live-in members residing in chapter facilities.