 Good afternoon. My name is Kamala Khyam. I'm one of the associate dean of students here at Fairfield University. We will be talking about homesignments and transition at Fairfield University today. Before we introduce the rest of our panelists, we just want to go over briefly what our agenda is for this pretty much 40 minutes or so. We're going to have our panelists introduce themselves. We're going to review the kinds of adjustments that our first-year students experience here at Furfield. We're going to talk about strategies for our families, how we partner with you to ensure that our students are transitioning successfully. We're also going to talk about resources, some key upcoming events, and then we're going to leave a good 20 minutes or so for you all to post your questions and then for us to respond to the questions that are posted. So with that, I will pass it over to my fellow panelists to introduce themselves. I'll start with PJ. Awesome. My name is PJ Lucky. I'm one of the associate directors in Residence Life. Hi there. My name is Meredith Smith. I'm another associate director in the Office of Residence Life. Hi, my name is Julia Smith, and I am a psychotherapist in Counseling and Psychological Services. Great. So I'm going to pass it over to Julia to talk about the kinds of adjustment issues our first-year students deal with. Thank you, Kamala. Hi. I was asked to do this this morning, so hopefully everything's all good with that. It's really an honor though to speak to you. I meet with a lot of the students, the first-year students, and I was reflecting back this morning on when I first started and how surprised I was initially and really a little overwhelmed by the intensity of feeling that students can have as they transition to college. And I'm wondering maybe if a couple of parents out there are feeling similarly, because it really is, it's such an exciting time, and it's also at the same time quite a challenging time. So what are the issues we see with our first-year students? Primarily, I would have to say homesickness. They miss you. This is, you know, homesickness is a universal feeling, and it's estimated that about 70 percent of first-year students in the first couple of weeks of college will feel some homesickness. Our studies show that by the middle of the semester that's down to about 40 percent of the students, so the good news is it does get better, but it can take a while. So that's, I would say homesickness is the biggest thing that drives the students up to counseling services. The second one is social issues. It's really hard to come into a new environment without the people you grew up with, without your parents, without your siblings, your dogs, your cats. It's just a big adjustment socially. So that's another helping students, you know, get the courage to go out and start talking to people and joining clubs, that sort of thing. The other thing is time management. When students first get here, they're very disoriented by our schedule. Everybody's on a different schedule at high school. Everybody had the same basic, probably usually over-structured schedule. But at college, sometimes the class doesn't start till about five o'clock in the afternoon, and that leaves a big, long day to fill. And that can lead to some, it can really unbalance students. And some people think homesickness is really just the cessation of all of their former schedules and things that they know and are comfortable with. So that's a big one. The other one is just the stress. Our bodies, we respond to everything positively and negatively as stress. So, you know, getting your first home or a marriage or the first child, all of that, as wonderful as those things are, can bring stress. And coming to college is no different. It feels like a big stress load on students. The other thing is roommates. Moving in with a stranger is really difficult. I would be challenged by that, is probably most of our panelists would as well. It's just a big change to move in with somebody and have a bathroom down the hallway and have to negotiate space and who's sleeping where, and all of those things, what time people go to sleep, all of those good things become really hard at first. And then the academic adjustment. It's just, it can be much more challenging for students and they can be taken aback by that as well. Every year we see, well last year I'll speak about, we saw 569 students in the university and 175 of those students were first-year students. So we see, I would say yearly about 20% of our students, our first-year students. And if we could go to the next slide. So in order to understand what's going on with students, I like to go back to the beginning a little bit. Up on your screen you see something called the circle of security. And this is really a parenting education course, but I think it helps to really understand development using this model. If you'll see there's two hands on this circle, and those two hands represent your hands, the parents' hands. So the top half of the circle, as it says, is the secure base. And that's what parents provide for their children, a secure base for which they can go explore the world. And when they are off exploring and need a little support, they come back in around the circle. The other hand is the safe haven, providing the support and help. So on the top half is the secure base from which they can explore their world. The bottom half is the safe haven where they come in for the support. So what I'd say to my students is that when they started out as infants and toddlers, that circle was very, very small, maybe just a room that they were exploring and would, you know, they would crawl out and look back at mom and dad or, and they might bump into something and then they start crying and then somebody swoops in and picks them up. It's a very small circle. So then it starts growing. Elementary school, they get on the bus for the first time. They might have their first sleepover. Then they go to middle school. They start exploring their world more. And by high school, you may not have seen your student very often because the circle gets bigger and bigger. They might have even have gone away for a little bit or summer camp. What happens when they come to college is that circle gets gigantic. And that revolution around that circle, which used to take, you know, a couple of hours when they would come back in or even at the beginning, just a few minutes as they explored their room, becomes really large and they can feel very disconnected from that circle. And I try to encourage them and let them know they're still on that circle. They're still very much part of that circle. The other thing that I tell them is while they're still on that circle, what's happening is they're developing their own very tiny circle. They're taking their first steps off of their parent circle, which of course we know they stay on for life, but they will be forming their own circle eventually and that will expand and eventually maybe that will include children of their own that they provide the hands for. So right now it's this very early circle of they're providing their own secure base from which they can explore the world, their own safe haven, when what they need to do that to supply that for themselves. This is a useful way of helping them to understand development. We also know with families, some families are more comfortable on the top half of the circle, allowing their students or their children to explore the world and a lot of families are more comfortable on the bottom half of the circle, which is keeping them close. So we know what we see a lot is more that families that keep them close so that when they go out on the circle, it provokes a little anxiety to begin with. And then that's just a good thing to know about how that impacts. So if you're seeing a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, a lot of nerves, that's very typical at this point of their process. So next one. So we are counseling and psychological services. We are connected to the health center. And as I said, we see about 22% of the students here about close to 600 a year. And so it's a very well used service as part of everybody's tuition. And they are entitled to receive 10 individual sessions. And we also run groups. We run support groups. And this year we're doing something called the anxiety toolbox, which is more of a seminar, a didactic seminar, so that they can learn how to manage the anxiety that comes with coming to college. So that was developed in a California university. And we're hoping that that can be really successful for the students. The other thing is I just want to talk about is our health center, which is, as I said, located just down the hallway. And their students can get flu shots and they can have walk-ins and just take care of their general health. So thank you for allowing me to speak today. And I'll pass it along. Thanks, Julie. So a couple of other key resources for our families. As you all may know, if you came to orientation or attended Fall Welcome, one of the key programs that all of our first year students are experiencing right now is the first year experience program. And the first year experience program is essentially a weekly seminar where students meet for about 75 minutes and they meet in cohorts of about 20 to 25 students, depending on what group they're in. And that cohort is mentored and facilitated by a new student leader who happens to be a sophomore, junior or senior, as well as a faculty or staff member known as a community associate. And so those two individuals meet with our first year students weekly. They discuss targeted transitional topics such as emotional navigation, social navigation, academic navigation. We talk about academic planning as well. We talk about the alcohol and the hookup culture, how to manage your time effectively, as well as a number of other different topics that are pertinent and relevant to first year students. Coupled with the first year experience program, we partner with the Academic Career and Development Center, which connects with our faculty members and currently right now, a majority of our faculty members are submitting to that center academic alerts based on how a first year student is performing in the classroom. So if they're falling asleep, if they're coming late, or if they notice that the student is struggling in a particular area, they will be creating an alert that will go to the academic support, academic and career development center. And then that center will triage out to connect with the student to see how best to ensure that they are transitioning effectively when it comes to their academic life here on campus. Great. We work in the Office of Residence Life. We work very closely with the Office of Student Engagement. And living with your students, we have a master's level area coordinator staff, and this is a great resource for you. Our area coordinators are a professional staff. And if you ever have any questions about your students' experience or you're talking to your student and you want to talk to somebody who lives basically in the same building with them, a professional staff, feel free to give us a call. Living with your students, we have the resident assistants. And these are full-time students. They've been through what your students are going through. And almost over half of them are in the first year areas on campus. We also this year have launched an interfaith peer minister program with Campus Ministry and the Center for Faith in Public Life. And we have one student peer minister embedded in each first year area. And they'll be doing a lot of programs related to homesickness and related to transitioning to college and ensuring that that spiritual dimension is important to your students. And finally, with our Office of Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, we're also launching this group called the CARE Team. And they're really there to help your students learn how to dialogue and talk about what's going on in the world and what's going on in their lives as well. They're a great resource that the RA's are using in terms of supporting roommate conflicts and helping students develop that language around asking for what they need and what their expectations are. Because as Julia said, living with somebody new is really a difficult transition. And a key part is that we want to help students facilitate through that transition and get through that transition smoothly. I just want to echo that one of the areas that I do believe that Fairfleet University does really well is our peer leaders. So our new student leaders, our resident assistants, our CARE Team members are student leaders here. Again, they're junior, software, software juniors and seniors. They're well trained. A lot of times they share their cell phone numbers with their first year students. They develop an amazing relationship with them. You know, we've we've asked specific NSLs or resident assistants to reach out to first year students that we might be concerned about. They take them out on a coffee date or they go have lunch with them. And they do thorough check into the students and make sure that they're transitioning successfully well. So we're really proud of our student leaders here. Awesome. Another office that we work hand to hand with is our Dean of Students Office. Our Dean of Students Office, they work very closely with residence, life and student engagement to ensure that your student is being served at the best rate or best way possible. If there are any issues when it comes to academic or wellness, it goes right through our Dean of Students Office and they're constantly communicating with residence, life and student engagement. They have drop-in hours weekly and they have a case management service where, again, if there's any referrals or any concerns concerning your student, it is communicated to them and, again, they communicate with the proper channels to make sure that we're checking in with your student to make sure that we're supporting them in the correct manner. If you ever have any questions for our Dean of Students Office, when in doubt, feel free to call. As you see, our number is 203-2544-211. And then, of course, the Department of Public Safety, they're open 24 hours. What I must add is that we have EMT-trained public safety officers. So we have some great staff that are here to support our students just in case of any emergency. Or we encourage our students just to get to know our public safety officers for them to have that relationship just in case anything happens, just in case they have any concerns. As well, feel free to call Public Safety if you have any concerns at 203-254-4090. I must also add we have our parent guardian guide, which is on our post-orientation page. Feel free at any point to check there. It's a great resource. I'm sure if you have any questions, a lot of those answers would definitely be right in that parent guardian guide. Great. Awesome. Yeah. Yes, so. And again, the Office of Student Engagement and Office of Residence Life, we're actually in the same suite in Barone and our Barone Campus Center, suite 96. The Office of Student Engagement, as they mentioned before, they're in charge of the NS cells and they also have master degree professionals working hand in hand with our students to ensure that they're getting the support they need socially. And when it comes to their wellness also, they're constantly checking in with our students, Residence Life, the same thing. Again, my office and Meredith's office, we're actually stationed right in Residence Life. We're there constantly and we're actually, a lot of our department is live on. So we're actually on campus here to support our residents 24-7 just in case of emergencies. And I definitely have to add other resources, our Academic and Career Development Center. Again, if your students have any concerns when it comes to their academics or even when it comes to their future, feel free to have them reach out to the Academic Career Development Center. Their phone number is 203-254. Somebody, it's him. Sorry. 254-4081. Thank you. Great, just to tag on to that piece, these three offices, along with Counseling and Psychological Services, we're in constant communication. And we really wanna make sure that your students have a safety net, but also have the ability to grow and thrive here at Fairfield. And ACDC is their one-stop shop that's Academic and Career Development for anything related to their academic adjustment issues. We're a student engagement in Res Life. We handle more of the social out-of-the-classroom concerns with students. Great. Yeah, I wanted to add that if your student, if your child really needs urgent services, that we do have a walk-in hours from two to four every day. And that means somebody will be there. They will be able to see your child between that time, two and four. And to access our services, the phone number is 203-254-4000, and it's extension 2146. I also, Julia, do you wanna talk a little bit about our satellite program? Oh yeah. These, oh yes. Yeah. Yes, yes. We have what we have now, which is new as of last year. We do have clinicians going into different departments at the university. We have a clinician who is over at the athletic department at Walsh. On Monday afternoons, we have somebody at the academic support and retention area on, I believe it's Tuesday afternoons. And then we will be having somebody over at Brown so that we have different areas that students can come to if they don't feel comfortable coming up to our department. Yeah, great. Great. So just some key upcoming events that are occurring on campus. So this weekend is our fall break. Our students do have Monday and Tuesday off. Some students do stay on campus and some students do take the time and reconnect with their families and that's completely fine. Meredith, do you wanna talk a little bit about new Monday? Sure. Our inner residence hall association sponsors this little fall festival. We call it New England Day and we celebrate all things fall and that's next Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. There'll be entertainment, free food and activities for your student to engage in and hopefully connect with other students. And this is open to all four class years but we typically see about half of the first year class come through to this fall fair and it's a lot of fun. I'll be there. That's a great day. Yeah. The other major event that's coming up and which is where we wanna welcome our families back to campus is Alumni and Family Weekend is October 21st. Tickets are on sale at fairfill.edu slash AFW. It will be that weekend actually is coming off the heels of our new president's inauguration week of wonderfulness. Lots of events are happening that week because it's our inauguration week over a new president, Mark Nimmick. In addition to that, we've also invested one of the areas that we know as a university is that if we engage our students heavily, especially on the weekends, then in creating really substance free programming then that allows for us to mitigate the alcohol and hookup culture that can happen at pretty much any college campus. So every Thursday the university sends out the Weekender which is made up of all key events that are happening Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for our students. We also invest heavily in late night programming from 10 p.m. to around 2 a.m., especially on Friday and Saturday. So parts of the Weekender, some I think pretty cool components of the Weekender is Southside which is this late night cafe. I don't know if anybody knows about these Yogiibo bags or massive bean bags that students sit on. There's free food that's being offered. They do fun like hands on pottery or stuff or stag or there's a band sometimes that are there but it's a really cool environment. We also have Fairfield Flicks which is our movie night series on Fridays. Every Friday I believe and I think it's 10 p.m. I think. Yeah, thanks. In addition to that they're once a month or twice a month we have late night. It's actually at the Tully now. It used to be called late night at Barone but it's now late night at the Tully. And again it's free food at the dining room with some kind of complimentary entertainment going on. The bingo series for some reason I cannot explain it. Our students here at Fairfield love bingo. I mean like we're talking about like attendance rates of about 100, 150 each bingo night. I'm not sure what's going on there but they love it. We also have shuttles and shopping that's also occurring on the weekends. And then if any student one of the wonderful things that if you're ever bored at night a student can just simply click on OrgSync. There is an app. There's also they can log into OrgSync and they can see all the events that are happening here on campus. And you yourself can also log into OrgSync and the website is on our screen Fairfield.OrgSync.com for events on campus. So with that being said, so we've hopefully provided you with some wonderful resources. We now want to pass it over to you all to ask us some questions. We have Brendon Hunt behind the scene. Brendon is actually one of our co-chairs of new student programs. He helps supervise a new student leaders. He himself may offer some insights as well. Thanks Kamala. So we had a couple of questions that were submitted. The first, someone is wondering if counseling offers any sort of bereavement groups? Yes we do in fact. And what we do is we have one of our clinicians and also Father Scalise who is at campus ministries. And they both, it's a nice, it's a really good bereavement group where they both come together. And last year I believe there were about eight or nine students who were in that and it ran the whole year. So that is right now in the process of getting started and I would say contact our office. The person who will be running that group from our department is Mary Ellen Spitzfaden. It's a great question. Awesome. A second question is that a care team member was mentioned. Could somebody just explain what that role actually is and what it means? Sure, sure. Could you repeat what we did? So care stands for community advocates and relationship educators. The goal of that team is that they oversee a group of residence hall buildings, let's say it's a quad area. Their goal is to bring together students who live in the quad, they bring them together and they actually engage in intentional difficult dialogues around current events, social justice issues. The entire purpose is to ensure that we're creating a space for students to not just sit in their room and just be in polarized environments in their echo chambers, but come together and actually talk about really important issues that our country and our world is facing right now. So the care team members are there to facilitate difficult dialogues as well as to create wonderful relationships amongst the students in our residence hall environments. And just to add to that, they do have bi-weekly discussions and campus-wide discussions that are actually in the residence halls. They, those meetings, they're assigned to different residence halls, but they're typically before our sophomore residential calls, they have a weekly community night, which all students are welcome to and we especially encourage first year students to go to the care team dialogue and then stick around, get to know some sophomores for some free food at the community night. And also the care teams are also embedded with each residence hall staff. So each residence hall that your student is, their first year RA team has a set of care team members that they can go to if there's a roommate conflict or if there's a difficult floor issue or any kind of, any number of conflicts and the care team member serves as a consultant and as a guide for the resident assistant to help facilitate those dialogues about issues or concerns that are directly affecting your student. Very cool, definitely a very valuable resource on campus. Another parent or guardian is wondering where exactly the counseling center is on campus. Yes, that's a good question. And even hard to describe, but we are literally right next to the health center. We are in Dolan West. There's two different Dolan buildings. There's one, which is the business school, which is down by the quick center. We are literally on the opposite end of campus. So we're right at the West gate up on the Western side of campus. And then Julie, you had mentioned the anxiety toolbox. Someone's wondering if a student has the opportunity to sign up for that or how to get involved with that. Yes, absolutely. The anxiety toolbox, what the student would do is what they would do is make an appointment to see a counselor, and that would be it for the individual session. They would say they would like to be an anxiety toolbox, and then we will slot them into one of our, they're gonna be rotating. Our first one actually is starting today. Sometimes it takes a little bit to get enough students interested, but the first one is starting today, and then we'll hopefully start another one probably in the next two weeks. So. Awesome, and then if a student is trying to get to the ferry or the airport, does Fairfield offer a shuttle of any sort? For fall break or, for Thanksgiving, our associate vice president and FUSA, our student government, typically sponsor several ferries and shuttles, and the shuttles to the airport, the ferry, and the train station, which is literally 10 minutes away in Bridgeport. And I do, we do also go to local airports, typically LaGuardia and JFK. All that information would be posted for your student on OrgSync. And again, that's typically for our November break or Thanksgiving break, which good thing to note, the halls closed that Tuesday at 6 p.m. If your student has a late class, they just need to let us know in rest life. But there are shuttles that run all day, and then again for winter break closing as well. And then I think our last one is someone's just hoping that we could talk more about the opportunities for those on the weekends that aren't interested in kind of the party scene. Yeah, so let me go back a little bit here. So this is, when we talk about the Weekender, I mentioned that we send out this email every Thursday, which incorporates a lot of the events that are happening on the weekend. Those are geared towards students who are not wanting to participate in the party scene. And I have to say that we've come a long way. Before, I would say five or six years ago, we used to, students would say to us, there's nothing to do on the weekends. And so, by default, they're partying. Now that rhetoric has changed drastically. There's a lot to do on the weekend. Students who want to participate in the party scene in a very safe way, they're welcome to do that. But also students who feel like that's not their environment, all of these events that are on the screen are available to them, like Southside Fairfield Flex, Late Night at the Tully, Banco Series. Those events are occurring on every weekend. And I know that residence halls and the residence halls themselves, RA's are required to put on events in the halls on the weekends as well for students. I would just add there's also a plethora of clubs that are doing programming on the weekend also. So again, if your student checks on OrgSync, I'm sure they'll find definitely something that's going on over the weekend to get involved with. And we also encourage students. We have so many athletic events, and that is such an underutilized activity on campus. And it's so much fun to really support their Fairleau peers. The athletic events are typically all on campus. We have basketball season coming up that is actually off campus, but we have a free shuttle, free tickets to the game. So really encourage your student. It's a great free resource for them and to show their Fairfield pride. That's all the questions that were submitted to me. Great, well thank you all so much for your time. We hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week. And with that, I think we are pretty much prepped up. Take care. Thank you.