What Will September Bring as Students Return to Campus?

With students returning to campus next week, approaches to providing in person, online and hybrid learning and support vary from campus to campus. Given that both the incoming and returning? cohorts of students have had a less-than-traditional post-secondary experience, there is a lot to consider as we head back to school.??

In a recent webinar, we spoke to senior university and college administrators to find out what challenges they were facing, how they saw this cohort of students differently, what they are doing to ensure a positive student experience, and what long term changes they hope to see in post-secondary education.

Biggest Challenges

In addition to housing shortages, tuition increases, and a backlog in international student study permits, both students and staff are facing continued uncertainty and fatigue as universities and colleges adapt to the evolving nature of the pandemic.? Here’s what our panel had to say when asked what are their biggest challenges.????

Lee Ann McKivor, University Registrar at Memorial University of Newfoundland said that one of her biggest concerns is deciding which of the innovations and supports developed in reaction to “an exceptional period” should continue, “Are there things that students would like that maybe aren’t feasible anymore because of coming out of Covid?? How does that work when we still have students that we’re supporting online? We have had funding? directed during Covid to help put these supports in place and with the pulling back of that support now, what does that look like?? How do we decide what should stay and what should go?”

Bob Burge, Registrar at Okanagan College, said his biggest challenge is, “Supporting our students’ mental health and ensuring that our students have the support from our student services. If they can’t find the service in the community, what do we do to bridge that gap for them?”

Pirita Mattola, Interim Director, Strategic Enrolment Management at the University of Saskatchewan picked up on this theme of mental health saying that, “This level of chronic stress is affecting students and staff differently so how do we ensure that we keep people engaged whether it is their studies or work?”? Mattolla went on to say that we need to take proactive steps to support “underrepresented students or students who may have been disproportionately affected”, and in the case of international students and those individuals that are facing additional stressors and barriers to access, what does that mean for their continuing education?”

Ryan Sullivan, Associate Vice President, Enrolment Management at St. Thomas University emphasized the challenge of rebuilding community.? He said, “The traditional college experience was lost for a number of students over the last years; those who are going into their 4th year have not had one full cycle of a normal year.? With many (students) moving away from home for the first time and multiple years of students experiencing that first time away – that may be more of a challenge for us.”

Mattola added, “Multiple cohorts of students haven’t had that traditional student experience and so their sense of belonging may not be what we usually see.? I think we need to pay equal attention this year to new students as well as returning students to make sure that we retain them, that they actually have a reason to show up in person and connect with their peers.”

Sullivan also spoke about the challenge of the desire for different modes of learning and service delivery, “We’ve seen a difference depending on the year of study. Students coming directly from high school want nothing to do with virtual options, whereas some of our upper year students who may have gotten into a groove there are still looking for that.”

Burge added, “Some of us have become really adept at providing services online so now that we’re transitioning to a more physical campus, these students are expecting to get that kind of service both online, maybe 24/7, as well as having the offices open to get support. We have a student body that’s going to require us to reach them and to service them in all ways.”?

Join us for a deep dive on these and many other topics related to student recruitment, post-secondary marketing, and enrolment management at the 2022 SEMM Forum.

Ensuring a Positive Student Experience

In addition to addressing these challenges, our panelists are committed to setting students up for success by creating positive student experiences.

Sullivan brought up a concern about the lack of academic preparedness and the need for support, “Faculty members are concerned about a deterioration in academic preparedness coming out of secondary school given the pandemic and whether they are going to experience another challenging year in the fundamentals both in terms of subject matter knowledge but also students’ general study skills and lack of experience in taking exams.? We’re looking at ways to support those students and make sure that they are feeling prepared and not so overwhelmed that they get defeated.”

Mattola went on to say that, “we want to be mindful of the different types of learners we have on our campus more than ever and create environments where everyone feels that they belong and can show up as their authentic selves.”

“Supporting students in making social connections with their peers” is also important, added Mattola.? “A very holistic approach to supporting students in their academics as well as outside their academics contributes to their overall well being, so that they show up and stay with us because it’s a good experience for them.”?

Burge agreed that, “Reducing social isolationism and making sure students understand that they can look beyond the walls of the classroom, be it physical or virtual, to get a better experience” is key to student success.???

Long Term Changes in Post-Secondary Education

We’ve proven that change is possible on a scale that no one ever imagined prior to the pandemic. Here are some of the changes our panel sees looking ahead.

“The long-term change that I hope to see is the increase in accessibility,” said Sullivan.? “Remote delivery, in-person and blended learning gives us the ability to reach non-traditional learners.? For people who could not previously access education and those who may have been inhibited to pursue further studies, this might actually allow for them to do so in a really quality way.”

Burge hopes, “That we continue to offer our students a variety of delivery methods and flexibility.”? He emphasizes that that includes a lot of transfer credits.? “We should continue to break down those barriers so that students can get what they want and what they need and have it delivered how they want to take it.”

In this new context, it’s important that we pay attention to students and “find out what experiences they want to have moving forward and how they want to learn,” says Mattola.? “The word that comes to mind is avoiding ‘snap-back decisions’ and making assumptions that we need to go back to what reality looked like pre-pandemic.”

“How do we take advantage of the smart brain work that happened as an answer to the pandemic and transfer that into some of these other problems that we have on our campuses?” asks McKivor.? She further emphasized the need to “collaborate as institutions to capitalize on the thinking of each other.”

Based on the "SEMM Webinar: What Will September Bring?" featuring Bob B. , Registrar, Okanagan College; Pirita Mattolla, Interim Director, Strategic Enrolment Management, University of Saskatchewan; Lee Ann McKivor , University Registrar, Memorial University of Newfoundland; and Ryan Sullivan , Associate Vice President, Enrolment Management, St. Thomas University.

To dive further into these topics and much more, be sure to join as at the SEMM Forum in Toronto: https://semmforum.ca/