Ink Aleaga from Student Athlete Academic Services and I sat down with Natalie from First Year Programs yesterday to follow-up from the FYP-Athletics meeting in January to further discuss how to include Athletics in Summer Orientation Leader training during the Winter Quarter.
As anyone who has attended college knows, when you arrive on the scene in summer before your freshman orientation you have no clue what is cool, what the norms are, where people go, what they do. If you were anything like me, you were doe-eyed and a little intimidated and a sponge for trying to figure out what the heck was going on. This is where you orientation leader came into play. For all you knew, they were the coolest dude (ahem, lady) on campus and you wanted to be just as sweet as they were.
What if Athletics had an influence on Orientation Leader Training? This would allow Orientation Leaders to become Athletics ambassadors and pass along tips to new students on what student-athletes are all about and that attending Husky Athletic events is not only free (except Football and Men's Hoops) and awesomely fun to watch our teams dominate, but it's a big part of a student's UW experience. This will allow the Husky brand and perception of Athletics to sink into students' minds the first time they set foot on campus as incoming students.
We had a great meeting. The Athletics portion of the 30ish member Orientation Leader training will go down on May 14 and will include two parts.
- Ink will be creating a panel discussion of student-athletes and key staff to debunk some of the myths surrounding student-athletes. The panel will also help to connect student-athletes to Orientation Leaders, who may now feel that they have a connection to our sport programs.
- I will present and represent on behalf of the Marketing, Creative, and Communications departments sharing all of the good bits of information and steps to do with students first thing when they arrive. Such as following all of our handles and pages on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Chya.
More to come on May 14 but lovin' our new friends at FYP's willingness to collaborate!
Erin
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