In the summer of 2014, I was hired to help transform Orientation for International Graduate Students, in a joint-appointment between the Office of Student Life and the Graduate School, as the International Graduate Student Assistant.

Graduate Student Peers T-Shirts
Graduate Student Peers T-Shirts

Orientation, until 2013, was a one-day event, packed from 8:30 am to 5 pm, with barely any student life content. In 2014, the Graduate School, the Office of Student Life, and the Office of International Students and Scholars Services teamed up to offer a comprehensive two-days program. Instead of lectures, programming was based on small groups seated at tables (a format the Graduate Student Council had already pioneered the years before, under my leadership, for the one-hour session allotted to us on General Orientation).

Each table was paired with a dean or a Graduate Student Peer.

Credit: Matthew J Lyddon
Credit: Matthew J Lyddon

My works was fivefold:

  1. Recruit and train the GSPs (as well as the deans present at IO, who were invited to sit in on the training session, both to contribute possible experiences in the case of OISSS, but also to dissipate any misconception about content that should be provided to students during the two days);
  2. Advocate for student needs and advise on content when necessary by going to the preliminary meetings, starting in June (through Skype as I was in France at that time);
  3. Organize social activities financed by the Graduate Student Council, and coordinate with the GSC on their role;
  4. Write a report to the Graduate School, making recommendations about content and remarks about my work and bringing in the GSPs’ reaction to the new format (through a survey administered via the Google survey tool).
  5. Help coordinate the GSPs on the day of the event, and ensure that programming was running smoothly by giving on-day support if needed.

As part of this programming, I gathered and presented statistical data on the entering class.

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It was a challenge identifying and training graduate student peers, but it also showed, through feedback collected after Orientation, that there was an audience for this new format.

My recommendations were given on September 29, 2014, in a comprehensive 10-pages report. As part of the material available for next year’s liaison, I left a campus tour packet, a summary sheet of the training session I co-lead and co-created along with Dean Shontay Delalue King (Dean of International Students), and a model for “Socials and Things To Do” for newly admitted students.

Director of Communication Beverly Larson, my immediate supervisor during the course of this position had this to say about my work:

“I read and distributed your report yesterday, and I want you to know that I think you did an excellent job with this assignment and report.

Thank you very much for your diligence and contribution to International Graduate Student Orientation. You have laid a solid foundation for your successors in this role.” 

[Email published with Director Larson’s permission]

You will find here part of the material produced for International Orientation. All these documents are Brown and my exclusive property and cannot be reused without my consent.

International Report Annexes

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