 Good afternoon, Razorback family. You might have gotten my first take, the end of it there. We are having one of our very first Facebook live sessions to introduce you to some things that you're going to experience as a first year student when you come to the University of Arkansas. To start off, I am Megan Witherspoon-Evans. I'm an assistant director in the housing department, and I work with our northside buildings, but I also work with our leadership development programs. And I'm Hannah Barney. I'm the coordinator for student leadership, so Megan is my boss. So I work with lead hogs, RIC, and NRH, which we will tell you more about in a little bit. Great. Well, the first thing we're going to start with is talking to you about a thing called HogSync. You've probably heard us mention that a few times. We talked about it in our orientation session, and then you also may have heard other departments talk about it throughout your orientation experience. HogSync is a platform that we use across campus to connect students to what they're doing outside the classroom, as well as some experiences inside the classroom. So a variety of departments around student affairs and some of our academic partners, like the Honors College, work through HogSync to communicate to their students. That is how registered student organizations will get in touch with you and things like student government and other leadership programs. We want to provide this tool to you. It's something that we have to create a personalized experience for you to connect. You just get to go and create your little profile at hogsync.uark.edu. You can see there's links around the entire university campus to get connected between different departments that you're involved in. But it's going to let you do things like messaging and find a calendar of events so things like welcome weeks and A-week that you're going to experience as soon as you get on campus. You're going to be able to see those opportunities on HogSync. The best thing about it is this is going to make it so easy for you to attend some of our events and housing. This year was some of the COVID-19 response that we're doing, that we're having a limited number of people who can attend some of our events. So HogSync is actually going to be where you go in to say, I want to come, I want a spot. So if we're going to take students to an event or hold an event in a lobby, we may be limited to the number of people who can come. So in order to secure your spot with having craft night or movie night or whatever we end up doing throughout the year, you'll be able to go into HogSync and go to that event and say, yes, I'm coming, count me in. And then we're also going to be able to share news there and you can fill out forms. So occasionally you'll be asked to fill out an application or a survey and most of those are through HogSync connected to your UR email. And then also we want to make sure that you are connected with our community within Fayetteville, North West Arkansas as well. So you'll find a variety of service opportunities through HogSync. This is where you can sign up to connect with the Volunteer Action Center and sign up for different service opportunities on campus and off campus. My favorite thing about HogSync is that it's actually a very personalized experience. So when you go in, you're going to sign up for different things you're interested in and it's going to connect you to those things. So when you see the calendar events, it's not just the calendar events for everything happening on campus at the same time, it's actually going to pull in the events for things you're experiencing. So it'll pull in the event for the RSOs that you've signed up for. It's going to pull in the events happening in your residence hall. Not every single residence hall. You don't need all that. You just need what's made for you, right? So HogSync is going to create that personalized calendar, personalized news updates and forms that are just for you and your experience when you're here at the U of A. One of the things that we have created this summer, particularly for our first year students coming to campus, is a thing called the HogSync Challenge. We want you to get in and create your profile and start doing things in HogSync now. And so what you'll do is you just go to HogSync, that's H-O-G-S-Y-N-C HogSync.U-Arc.edu and complete your profile. It's literally when you go to that site, you're going to sign in with your UArc email and password and you're going to type in your first name, your last name, click a checkbox, click submit and you're done. You're in. It's very easy and then other things get auto-populated from your application when you apply to be a student at the U of A. So you don't have to worry about adding all the other stuff. But the challenge is going to have you go in, look at your profile, update a few things. Like if you have a preferred name, you may have your legal name in the system and you want it to show as something else. And so this is going to allow you to go in and change that, change your notifications. It's going to show you how to RSVP to an event so that when you come for a week and welcome weeks, you're already ready. You know how to do it. And then there's going to be a tiny short survey at the end of the challenge. Submitting that survey is going to qualify you for prizes. Everybody loves some prizes, right? So we're going to have prize packs that are a variety of things from across campus. Some, like some of your first free t-shirts you're going to get. Some coffee mugs and lots of excess swag from around campus. And then we're also going to have some grand prizes. So you might be able to win something like, I don't know, an Apple watch or some AirPods or a year of free wash and fold laundry. So lots of things that you just, you know, don't want to wash and fold your laundry for the rest of the year. This is an easy way to maybe get a chance to win that. So filling out that survey at RSVP and for the event are the last two things you'll do. Super important that qualifies you for those prizes, that prize drawing. And then you also bonus, you can get extra entries for referring your friends to complete the challenge. So if they go in, they fill out the survey and they put your name in the blank at the very end, you're going to get an extra entry to qualify for those prizes. So get out there, get to it. You can find the links. When you get into HogSync, you're going to see that as an event to create your profile. And you can go through those steps or be watching social media. We're going to post the links to it some this week. And you'll also see other departments who are posting about the HogSync challenge over the next couple weeks. But you have to complete it by July 31. So if you can complete by July 31, your profile set ready to go RSVP to that event. And fill out our survey, you're going to qualify for the prizes. That sounds fun. It's going to be super fun. I'm really excited. Okay, so the next thing that we want to talk to you all about is Lead Hogs, which I want to say congratulations. We just had our fifth round of Lead Hogs accepted into the program today. So you might have gotten an email saying that you were accepted. Congratulations. Lead Hogs is a leadership development program that we offer here in University Housing. It's your stepping stone into all things leadership, into getting involved on campus. We help you get connected to RSOs. We help you get connected in your whole communities. We do some leadership trainings and sessions to help you grow in your leadership skills. So it's a really all-encompassing program to help you build your leadership skills ways that you can put things on your resume, be prepared for interviewing, and just all around have fun and get involved on campus. And so that's what a little bit about Lead Hogs Megan, do you want to add anything to that? Mostly this is just super fun and you get to move in a little bit early and meet new friends first thing off. So if you are coming and you're like I just want to meet people and have some fun and get into it, Lead Hogs is a great place to start. Most of the things that Lead Hogs do are right in the same building where you'll live. So you won't have to traipse across campus and do a whole lot with it. You actually can participate right where you're living. So that's a pretty great student organization to get involved in. Yeah and so if you are interested in it and you haven't applied yet, you can go on Hogsync but you can also visit our new website which is leadhogs.uarp.edu and our application is under next steps so you can go and apply. Let's see what else. The application deadline is July 22nd and so we will actually be closing the application on that day at midnight so make sure you get your application in before then. And then once move-in happens and everybody's back on campus we actually will reopen the application to anyone who didn't get a chance to apply during the summer who maybe got involved gets to know their Lead Hogs in their hall and they want to join as well. So remember July 22nd is your last day to be able to apply for the summer term. Let's see then we have Lead Hogs also is involved with RIC which is Residence Interhall Congress and where we are filming is actually the Student Leadership Office which is in University Housing and so if you ever want to come by and visit us we'll be here. Mine and Megan's office is close to here but mostly our executive teams for RIC and for NRH which we'll talk about NRH in a little bit. They work from this office so they work their office hours from here if you ever meet with one of them it'll be here so it's good to know where it is. So RIC is Residence Interhall Congress and basically it is your on-campus student government. You have ASG which is all campus student government associated student government but it's for everyone who attends U of A and then RIC is our version in housing of a residence in our whole Congress. So you get to vote on bills, write legislation. We start with a certain amount of money at the beginning of the year and as a RIC rep through Lead Hogs if you decide to run for a position to represent your Lead Hogs in your hall you get to vote on those bills and you get to know how much money we start with and kind of decide what what should that money be spent on and so as a rep you'll actually talk to other people in your hall and kind of get an idea from them of what they think money should be spent on what kind of hall improvement should be made do you want a ping pong table in your hall you don't have one um do you want to paint one of the rooms in your hall you know there's lots of things sky's the limit really. So if you have been involved with student government in high school or you're interested in that kind of thing this is a great way to get involved um and get that experience um we meet every Monday night um right after Lead Hogs. So Lead Hogs meets on Monday nights that's from six six oh sorry yes six to seven fifteen and then RIC meets from seven thirty till about nine p.m. um depending on how many pieces of legislation we have so if you are an RIC rep and you decide to run you'll get more information on that via the application if you said that you were interested we'll be sending you an email about that and then also in hall you'll learn a little bit more about how to run for a rep and on Monday nights you will have a lots of fun going from Lead Hogs talking about legislation there and then going to RIC and voting on legislation. So that's a little bit about RIC I don't know if I'm forgetting anything Megan um well I would just say a few things with RIC um if you um want to have your just have your voice heard on campus like that's their tagline is the voice of the on-campus student and so um they speak into things like sustainability initiatives on campus we have a seat on the parking committee um for campus to represent the on-campus student voice the dining committee um and so there are opportunities for you to get involved and really make a difference on campus so um they do decide on a lot of funding things um but they're also involved in um we have an event uh that is surround Constitution Day which is a federal day um but where we talk about everybody's right to vote and getting out getting out there making your voice heard in your community um but then to things like having a tailgate before a football game or um participating in homecoming so there are a lot of really fun things that come along with being a part of RIC um and just just being able to speak for your peers um and and represent those that live around you yeah and um we also work pretty closely with ASG and so that's been a good relationship we've had over the last few years so if you're interested in ASG related things um after your freshman year that's a really good way to get something on your resume to say I was involved with RIC um I know how to write a piece of legislation I know how to present legislation so that's a really good way to get involved um in that aspect too and lots of other RSOs we have um worked with for events and stuff like that so RIC is really just a way to utilize funds in your voice to you know do any kind of initiatives or anything that you want to see happen on campus so come talk to us about that our execs work here in this room they have office hours so you can come see any of them during that time um they will be posted to our website Joseph said hello he's tuning in saying hello hello and if anybody has a question he's watching we have about 16 people watching right oh cool awesome if anybody has a question feel free to ask it yes we're just kind of talking to get you all the information ask questions yeah because if because we might not tell you something you want to know because we do this a lot so um so hopping from RIC um I'll talk a little bit about NRH which is our other student leadership organization that's housed in housing here in the student leadership office as well um NRH is the national residence hall honorary so there are chapters across the nation for NRH um we focus on recognition and service so if you're really into service projects um wanting to serve the community but also the campus community NRH is here for you to do that NRH also works very close with RIC they have representatives um on the RIC exec board as well and so there's always someone from NRH at RIC meetings and there's always volunteer opportunities through RIC so they work really closely together we do lots of things from serving the community um we've gone and served breakfast in the community for bikes blues and barbecue um we do a lot of campus cleanups the cigarette butt cleanup is our um semester we do it each semester um and we clean up the um sidewalks that are close to campus where people go and smoke and so we make sure those pathways are clean for people um we've also done some nature cleanups um we we do lots of things so there's lots of opportunities to get involved and volunteer we also work with the VAC for make a difference day and we usually have some sort of service project for that um and then for recognition we like to recognize staff faculty students um RSOs that are doing really great things on campus and so we have an OTM which is of the month submission process that anyone on campus can actually submit um and a recognition piece about someone or an organization or an event um and so if you go to the NRH website nrh.urf.edu you can read a little bit more about NRH and what they do and then also find the OTM process um and so we like to do recognition projects as well so we do things like um making candy bags and giving those to our administrative service workers and housing um we've decorated cookies for UIPD and brought them to them um we do lots of fun things NRH is really fun we meet um every two weeks on Tuesday nights and if you're interested in NRH you can apply on hogsink through the NRH portal um which you can visit our website again nrh.urf.edu to find that link to the application oh yeah so these are our fun door decks that my summer intern Allie who's amazing have been working on so kind of an homage to COVID and the masks we're making you your own lead hogs mask so if you actually become a lead hog you'll get one of these fun door decks if you become an RIC rep you'll get a flag on there for that if you join NRH you'll get a flag for that and then we also have lead more this year which is for upper classmen who are coming back to campus and want to stay involved um and so we it's actually going to be a whole different door deck it's going to be different colors and it's going to have the lead more logo on it um and so that's exciting as well um we've been doing some giveaways this summer so if you aren't following us on Instagram for lead hogs or our Facebook page follow us um this is one of our um tie-dye shirts that my intern and GA made live on our feed and we're giving these away which are super fun these are some of our older lead hog shirts that we're repurposing and giving away um if you join RIC as a rep we are actually going to be giving you one of these fun shirts and they're going to be personalized with your haul on the back of them so that's fun as well um what else we're doing lots of fun giveaways this summer we have some um of our fundraisers our care packages and um our dorm outfitting company that we work with we're going to be doing some um giveaways for those as well so we have some uh stock the fridge um exciting giveaway that we're going to do soon on our page and then also um we're giving away some comforters and some sheets and some fun stuff so if you want the free stuff definitely follow us on social media um it's just lead hogs um on Instagram Twitter and um on Facebook so yeah yeah and then um the last opportunity we want to talk to you about uh the other leadership position that that we work with is the resident assistant position so many of you I'm sure have heard about RAs uh it's a pretty common term um and a part of the college experience that we have upperclassmen who go through an application and interview process to work with incoming students and everyone who lives on campus um so typically there's one to two RAs who live on every floor and they're there to just serve as a friend and a mentor uh on your on your floor and just help you navigate the transition to college um and so a lot of people come in and they're like but wait how do I become an RA um and so we just wanted to address that too really quickly because if you're involved in leadership things and you live on campus a lot of people um get interested in how can I how can I do this position and so we do have an application process that opens every fall for the following academic year and you'll start seeing that marketing come up around the mid mid to end September um and so we have um a social media handle which is at uark r.a um and so you can follow that for more information or you can also find it on the housing website housing dot uark dot edu slash r.a and so we'll as we start updating the timeline we'll get that published there like I said by late September um we do have mandatory intercessions that happen in each application cycle um you have to attend one of them um and so it's going to walk you through what the position is how to apply what that interview process looks like all the things you need to know for updating your resume and getting you going um is also a good professional development experience because you're going to get access to resume workshops mock interviews and then actually go through um a couple levels of interviews for this so um it's a it's a fun experience um it's obviously a great leadership opportunity it's a year-long leadership opportunity um for upperclassmen um and so if you want more information you can check out that website or once you get to campus the best thing to do is to talk to your r.a um or your c.r.e who live in your building um they're going to be able to answer your questions and help get you connected if you're interested in this opportunity um so look for that stuff coming out in september um application usually opens in october and closes in november so um be on a lookout for that if you're interested in being an r.a next year and um fun fact your c.r.e will actually be your main advisor for lead hogs so if you join lead hogs you'll be meeting with them every monday so you can ask them those questions anytime you want any final thoughts about uh leadership here at student opportunities for that i was like we're just we're really excited to get the year kicked off and for everyone to get to campus um we've had a really wonderful just overwhelming response to the lead hogs program this year um there are a lot of you um who have applied so shout out if you're on this call and you've applied to be a lead hog so far um they're a wonderful group of students and we're really excited to get started with them um if it's not pretty obvious for most of our things with the masks and the things it's going to be a different kind of year um and so we're super excited to adapt the program um and still make sure that everybody has a really fun time while continuing to be safe um in our in our current climate um so events might look different and meetings might look different but you're still going to get a great experience and it's still going to be um just a really fun way to add something to your resume and see how you can leave a footprint at the University of Arkansas um by being a student here and living on campus so it's it's a fun opportunity to be a part of uh the future for the rest of the students that will follow you yeah for sure we want to make sure that you feel like you know you're at home when you're here um even though it might feel a little different this year um and so we're here for you um I'm here for you like I said I'm the coordinator for student leadership so if you all have any questions about lead hogs about NRHRIC RA stuff like anything um you can email me at barnie at york.edu like the purple dinosaur for those of you who are old enough to know what barnie is um but you can email me and ask me anything um but our execs who are student leaders will be here in august and they're also a great resource like I said you can come by over here anytime and talk to us um and just hang out and get to know us and we really like to have fun and want you to feel at home here okay well thank you so much we'll be doing a series of different u.r.com live videos so continue to tune in please all right bye bye