2015 Student Arrival Weekend…The Wow Factor

The numbers are in for the Emory College Class of 2019…

The Class of 2019 has 1369 students and Oxford College’s 1st year class totals 489. This includes students from 37 countries and 47 states (maybe next year we’ll have North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont). Class of 2019 is uniquely grouped to maximize the potential of everyone both collaboratively and individually.

Network Access Control (NAC) is in its 2nd year and was definitely ready for prime time. The Back-to-School staff proactively used a student webinar in July to inform the newest students to pre-load Emory’s McAfee Anti-Virus from Software Express before they arrived. Staff also took advantage of a concierge service offered by Residence Life that worked to have a brochure and a multi-connector USB on every bed in Housing.

For returning students, the team sent an update that included all that would be “new” for them, including a relocation of Student Technology Support and the TechLab, the MediaLab opening, the rollout of EaglePrint and the expansion of space at the Computing Center in Cox Hall. The team also highlighted the change requirement for all returning students to change their passwords.

Weekend coverage consisted of sixteen Student Technology Support (STS) students and the Student Digital Life team on standby in Woodruff Library’s new STS space on the 1st floor.

The exciting new space offers high counters for standing, stools for sitting, and an enclosed iMacs counter along the back wall. There were a few people waiting at the door for us to open but then…all was quiet. Slowly, students came by but not anywhere near the numbers we have seen in past years past. It is safe to safe that in Fall 2015, getting connected to EmoryUnplugged really was the easiest part of the Arrival Weekend.

We saw significantly LESS students over the weekend and through the week so our advance efforts were well met in that most knew what to do. Here are some of the numbers (note: devices requiring manual registration required an in-person visit, including Xbox, PlayStation, TV’s etc):

Student Assists in STS:

More numbers…

Less? What’s up with that? Well, Bradford remembers everyone and their devices…and now in it’s second year. As of 9/9/15 at 11:59 pm, there was a total of 49,394 registered devices on ResNet.

We are working with Bradford to help us better discern new from ‘ongoing’…mobile devices register automatically so that big number of 49K represents everyone from Campus Services, Student Digital Life, Campus Life, etc.

For those interested, here’s a breakdown:

What was new for 2015?

• The reprise – Year 2 of the Bradford NAC handling network registration on ResNet: returning students were already registered and only new students had to process the app before getting online. It does require a different way of processing stats.
• Relocation of our operation for Student Arrival: in our new Student Technology Support space in Woodruff Library – 1st floor. Visitors are always welcome.
• Student Digital Life also highlighted:
  • The MediaLab at Woodruff Library, 4th floor (awesome space and specialized apps for student use)
  • Increased workspace in the Computing Center at Cox Hall
  • A new (bigger/better) location for our TechLab, also in the Computing Center
  • EaglePrint – rolled out after the spring semester and now in full swing – printing across the campus (yes, you too can use it)
  • The Learning Commons, Presentation Practice/Web Conferencing and Group Study spaces at Woodruff Library, along with Undergrad/Grad Labs and Emory Mobile all got airtime in our new SDL brochure

It was a great weekend and we gave our new and returning Students a genuine “Welcome to Emory” and the most popular response started out “Wow!”

Special Shoutouts to Tara McCurley, Michael Buchmann and Erin Mooney for the New Student Webinar, Alan White for Bradford stats, Stan Brooks for the visuals with connectedness and the STS Student Team rocked the house working alongside Student Digital Life.