 Welcome, parents and families. It's great to be back with you. Today we're going to be talking about the first six weeks of college and what comes after the first six weeks of college. My name is Erica Calero. I'm the interim vice provost for student affairs. On our next slide, we have for you several presenters today, all of them experts. They will introduce themselves as they speak. Next slide. We have several goals for our conversation today. As I mentioned, we will be reviewing what has gone on on campus and what in general students have been experiencing over the initial portion of the semester and will share with you quite a bit of information that can support their success throughout the next significant portion of the fall semester. We will also embedded throughout offer some questions or conversation topics that you can ask or introduce to your student to support their thinking and help them mentally rehearse portions of their success that they can create for themselves as well as find resources and identify people who can be resources to them throughout again the fall semester. Next slide, please. So here we go. We're going to first talk about success and activities during the first six weeks. On our next slide, we talk about the student success skill set. The overlapping circles are the set of skills that help students flourish at UVM and listed are some of the great things that happen as students develop these skills. The academic and social and maturity skill sets are constantly in flux and can be impacted for better or not by a lot of things. You've seen your student, for example, tired or hungry or stressed and noticed how that impacts how they show up. You've also seen your student rested, supported, excited and you've seen how that positively impacts their sense of agency, their resilience and their relationships and this is all very, very true in college. So next, we consider where are we now in that span of the first six weeks of college? That's a question that's on your minds probably because whether or not you're in frequent contact with your student, you're not living under the same roof anymore. You're probably wondering how they're really doing from moment to moment and the view that we have from campus tells us a lot. Next slide, please. So in brief, they've been very busy. New students and transfer students in particular have been busy. They have figured out where their daily routine takes them on campus and now they're figuring out how they want to connect and fit into those varied spaces and how they can satisfy multiple needs and wants related to the major areas of functioning as college students, friends, classes, engagement, just to name a few. Next slide, please. John Paul Grogan, our Director of Center for Health and Well-Being, will be taking it from here. Hi parents and families, good to be with you today. My name is John Paul Grogan. I'm one of the directors of the Center for Health and Well-Being and my work on campus is really to support our teams that do health education outreach and prevention and also our team of staff that do clinical mental health care on campus. So by now, your student has no doubt experienced some of the highs and lows that are a natural part of the first semester and we like to use the roller coaster metaphor meaning that we know there are moments of excitement and fun and delight that are also can be followed by moments of stress, fear, and even some prepidation and you know want to name and normalize that we expect students to face and navigate these challenges as a part of their college experience and very likely they're feeling some of this you know quite intently as we as we head into this next week. And I want to name importantly that we know families play a key part in supporting students through these challenges which is why we're talking about this at the moment. On the left hand side of this slide is a list of some of the things most frequent things that students said they did to manage their stress during their first year of college and this is these are data points taken from a national survey of students near the first year. On the right you'll see some examples of some student affirmation cards that some of our student employees have made also sharing messages. You know the key takeaways here for me what you all be thinking about is that you know one your key role is families and supporting students knowing that you're often the first place that they turn when they need support. To remind you all that being involved, connected, and engaged are really positive parts of this student experience and similarly making tough decisions about how to make commitments are also critically important during this time and that might mean pulling back from a club, pulling back from an org, pulling back from even a responsibility off campus. And finally just to remind you all that we don't want your students to struggle alone and want you to be aware that there are many resources in place to help students navigate these challenges whether they be health related, academic related or social. As you're talking to students we want you to be aware of the resources that we'll get to on the coming slides. Next slide please. As we think about hot topics in student health and well-being at this middle part of the semester I limited myself to a couple here that feel really timely and important and we'll start with flu shots and physical health. We know flu shots always important on the college campus I will say they're more important this semester than ever as we continue to navigate pandemic complexity. It is important to know to keep students as well as possible and really paying attention to that physical health and flu shots are a part of this. I'll also plug sleep eating well and exercise as some of the things that we know are going to support students in staying well and healthy and able to do the things that they want to do including academic work, all of those good important social things. This is a good time to really think about and encourage you to engage with your students about what their plan is to manage their mental health as we approach times of the semester that may feel more stressful as the newness and excitement wears off. Some good things to ask about are what has helped in the past, what's working now, what needs attention or what needs some more attention. I always want to remind students that releasing their self care strategies and these critical times of the semester to align with stressful times feels really important. We know it's often our pattern to decrease and to cut back on some of those things and that's not the right note for students at the structure. I want to say a little bit about substance misuse. I can't say enough that we firmly believe that the misuse of substances is not supportive of positive mental health or academic success on campus. Our ask is that you continue to engage with your students about how they're navigating decisions around whether or not to use substances this semester that feels especially critical in this month of October as we approach holidays like Halloween. Finally, it's a good time to remind you all and to ask you all to remind your students of what resources are actually available to students on campus. I'll say quickly that in addition to all of the support that our student health services are providing around COVID related needs, student health is continuing to function just like the primary care medical office and offering a full menu of primary care services like illness management, injury management, medication, mental health resources, sexual health and more. Just a reminder that counseling and psychiatry services, TAPS continues to offer rapid assessment and support, short term individual counseling, a broad menu of groups and multiple let's talk drop-in conversational opportunities in psychiatry services consistently throughout the semester. All of these clinics are available during the day and also compared with on-call after-hours supports and on-nights and weekends and I put our website on there. I encourage you to check that out at this time of the semester so you're fully aware of this full range that also includes educational and supportive programs and services covering everything from substance use to mindfulness to nutrition to sexual health that happen in our data center space and virtually. So I will stop. Oh, I'm sorry. I got one more. Next slide please. I'm not going to say a lot here but it feels important to name that we're still operating in the pandemic context that's going to continue to evolve and so most importantly I put the UVM Forward website on this page. My hope is that you'll bookmark this and continue to check back so you can find the most up-to-date information about our strategy and policies to keep students safe and healthy on campus. Our early takeaway is that students are doing a great job but we need them to keep up this good work and continue to be diligent about wearing masks and getting tested when it's appropriate. We continue to ask for your support in reinforcing the importance of masking indoors and crowded spaces, getting tested when they think they might have symptoms and following any guidelines that are given around quarantine and isolation. These are the pieces that are going to be critical to keeping themselves and our community as safe as possible. With that, I'll pass to our Executive Director of Rest Life Rath. Hello everyone, my name is Rafael Rodriguez and I'm the Executive Director of Residential Life and I get to talk to you a bit about what's going on in housing. Erica talked about some of the social skills, maturity skills and basic life skills that our students are developing, particularly beginning that process in the first six weeks and that process occurs in every part of our campus. Of course, Residential Life is not excluded. Specifically, there's a space in which those skills are tested often and really helping our students develop and that's when it comes to roommates. One of the ways in which you support our students and figuring out and navigating roommate relationships is by developing a roommate agreement. I think we can all agree that for the most part, there are very few times in our lives in which we are placed in a space with someone who is a complete stranger or unknown to us and that can be a challenging time for most adults, let alone for most college students. Our roommate agreement process is a great tool. It's a self-guided tool for our students to come together and get involved in some really difficult and good conversations around what are going to be the boundaries that they set individually and collectively for their space. It's a self-guided process. We want that to be a supported process and a process developed by both roommates or all three roommates. However, if your child needs support and it's absolutely appropriate for your child to ask an RA to help support and facilitate that process. What's so important about roommate agreements is that it connects to the next part, which is trading spaces. I know that some students might be interested in shifting communities. We should know that or you should know that roommate agreements are the gateway in order to be able to submit a request for trading spaces. If a student in a room did not submit a roommate agreement, which we consider as our foundational aspect of learning how to live with other students, they will not be able to submit a request for a trade. So I do want to say a bit about trading spaces. It will open up on October 3rd to demystify the process a bit. We do not have a sort of a surplus of inventory which we can move folks. The way a trade request goes, and I'll give you specific examples, is if I'm a student who is an outdoor experience and I'm interested in moving into the wellness environment, then what I would do is submit that request and that will be granted if and only if we have a student from the wellness environment who's also interested in moving into outdoor experience. So the trades are completely dependent and relying on who else wants to come in and out of the community. So I hope that helps. And just again to repeat that date will be October 3rd in which trading spaces will open. I just want to again share and remind folks that we have professional staff members in the halls. While we do have resident advisors who are great peer support for your students, we also have professional staff in the halls and I'm happy to share that in just six weeks in the residence halls alone, your students have had the opportunity to participate in over 40 programs which I think is just fantastic. Engagement opportunities are critical for student success and the fact that in the residence halls in the space where they spend the most time they've had at least 40 opportunities to connect through formal programming I think is amazing. So please make sure you're checking with your student and ask how have they been involved and engaged. I know it's not the question but it's one that I added so I'll share that as a good guide for you all. Please know that many of you are forward thinkers and planners particularly our parents who have students who might be traveling during the breaks I'll share a bit about that so that you can know what to anticipate and also plan accordingly. So it's important to note that once our residence halls close they are closed and with some few exceptions and I'll talk a bit about those folks are not allowed to be in the residence halls because there is no staffing and that's a huge risk concern for both us and for the student who remains behind. So the date for Thanksgiving break closing is Saturday November 20th at 12 noon. We don't close the halls on the last day of classes. We give students half of the morning on the following day to of course pack and get themselves ready so that they can travel home. Please be mindful of that data 12 noon is when the residence halls close so plan accordingly. Some folks do have later flights. It's just sometimes more affordable to have later flights. Please plan accordingly to make either hotel accommodations or have plans for a child to be at the airport for any extended period of time. But the halls do close on Saturday November 20th for Thanksgiving. With respect to our December break or our end of the semester break the halls will close on Saturday December 18th at 12 noon. There will be absolutely opportunities for folks to request break housing. There is an associated cost with break housing and it is limited to a specific set of buildings where students can stay. Please be on the lookout. That information will be published in either, it will be published in actually early October in the next coming weeks. So please be on the lookout for that. And for our parents who are super prepared and want to thank for next year a few things we have to keep in mind. Our housing selection process will begin the first week of February. So for your students who's looking out and thinking about what house will be and mean like for them next year if you're interested in understanding what deadlines your child has to be keeping track for which there are plenty with respect to housing critical deadline for beginning the housing selection process will start in the first week of February. So a quick question I encourage all parents to ask to support their student at this moment as to reiterate that developing those foundational skills to navigate conflict to work through challenges. A great question I would encourage all to ask is do you and your roommate have a roommate agreement? It's something that can really support a lot and address a lot of the challenges that some of your students may be experiencing at this moment. So I hope that was helpful. I will now hand it over to Joe. Thanks Raph. And hi everyone who's watching. My name is Joe Russell. I use geek and pronouns. I am the assistant dean of students here at UVM and so work often with the university's care team in supporting students. So it seems if we're talking about the first six weeks clearly one of those hot topics that we're going to touch on will be academics. My hope is that you have been kind of hearing from your student and in contact with your student about how academics are going. And this is not just for our brand new students to UVM but students from across years. My hope is that you are hearing from your student how is the course load feeling, how are courses evolving. We know that kind of normal progression. We've gotten through what we call syllabus week maybe we don't call this syllabus week maybe only Joe calls it syllabus week. We've gotten through syllabus week and we're now really starting to kind of feel students should be feeling the what is this and how much work do I need to put in. They've now started to get some grades back and so really again a helpful point to check in with your student about academics. To highlight some of the things that we want you to know and things that we want you to reinforce with your student certainly will be the number one is one of the primary points of support for your student outside of the faculty who teach their individual courses will be their primary academic advisor and multiple ways to get academic advising here at UVM. And so an invitation would be to check in with your student about have they checked in with their primary academic advisor since the start of the semester. We know from previous years that for our new students or new especially new incoming first time first year students at this point in the semester about two thirds of them have checked in with their advisor which is good. My hope would be that it would be narrower to 100% and so again a helpful gentle reminder without trying to overwhelm your student will be have you checked in with your advisor about how things are going and it may be a good time to do that even if things are going really well. Another point of clarification and support for students that we want to highlight will be your students academic unit dean's office and so an example if your student is in the College of Arts and Sciences then the College of Arts and Sciences dean's office will have staff set aside to do full time advising and academic support for students and so again I'll name especially for students who may be having questions or concerns about academics there may be some early worries that are coming up your academic dean's office is a really helpful point again they may not be content specific areas in the same way that your faculty members will be but this is their full time job they do it really well and this idea of holistic advising and support for students is really amazing to see how it's lived out so again just helpful for you to know if your student is kind of voice in oh my gosh they're all these things are happening in academics and I don't know who to turn to a simple question could be have you yet connected with academic dean's office and if not then that sounds like a good first step. We have highlighted in previous webinars and events some of the academic resources support resources on campus many of them through the Center for Academic Success and again just to highlight if your student is taking writing heavy classes a gentle reminder is that we have a writing center on campus that really really does work one on one with students to kind of help take their writing to the next level this is not just for students who are struggling with their writing but even for strong writers who want to again continue to move their writing skills forward a helpful resource similar there are subject area tutoring opportunities at UBM all that does not come at extra cost and so again I recommend to many students that I meet with and I will recommend that you really plant this seed with your student is just are you taking advantage of these and certainly if there is a course that a student is starting to realize as the semester is going on yep this is a tough course and it's going to take a little extra effort on my part a recommendation may be a helpful point of regular ongoing contact to brush up and to improve in that course would be scheduling tutoring through our tutoring center online finally the in terms of resources again my hope will be that by now your student has is at least aware of how to access their faculty that teach their courses and that will be through office hours every course syllabus will list how a faculty member asks students to be in touch with them to schedule time during office hours and so again an invitation for you and a reminder a helpful question that you can always ask if a student is saying oh well this assignment didn't go so well or boy you know I thought I was going to do better on that test but but didn't the question will be well have you checked in with your faculty during their office hours and if not then when next is office hours coming up and it may be a good idea to meet with your faculty member to review that assignment or review that test we find that it's super super helpful and faculty really do cherish and value those points of contact most students really almost 100% of our students are using the Navigate app again we just want you to know of it as a really comprehensive online resource for your student not just I think many students use it to track their course schedule right that's kind of how they look at their classes but it also is one of those ways that they can access several of these resources all the resources above that I just mentioned can be accessed directly through the Navigate app you can reach out to find information about tutoring can make an appointment with an advisor all through the Navigate app we'll touch back on apps a little bit later Lastly in the same way that Raf was talking about thinking ahead about academic breaks in from a housing perspective just for all students even for students who don't live on campus is just a reminder that it would be helpful for them to start to think about the academic calendar this semester so certainly that will be the upcoming large breaks that will happen but even to start to think ahead towards the end of the semester and our exam reading exam days that will end the semester just to have a sense for yourself and your students to plan logistically both so they can know academically what they need to do but just from a logistical standpoint again know when UVM will be taking time away from classes or knowing what days will be reading days versus exam days and if you just search for a UVM academic calendar all of those dates are listed on our website. One quick date I wanted to make sure I highlight to folks who are listening is that the last day for a student to withdraw from a course at UVM is November 1st and so again for some students they will realize man this course was really more difficult than I thought it was or they have not found success in the course in a way that they expected to or hoped to or needed to for their major and what they are hoping to do at UVM and sometimes the right decision will be to preserve their GPA and ensure that their kind of overall GPA is not taken ahead that they may choose to withdraw from the course instead of realizing they may end up with a very poor grade at the end of it. Again just to let folks know the last day to do that would be November 1st if after that there is ever a conversation about needing to think about changes to your academic schedule again I will highlight your students academic office would be the right place for your student to initiate that conversation. So just again I'm hoping that you all are having conversations with your student I think it's okay this is one of the things that we hear from some families and parents is that asking direct conversations about academic sometimes feels like very tentative ground we think it's a really helpful conversation for you all to be having open communication about and so again the prompt from our end would be just to be asking some how are how is that class going have you gotten any feedback yet how are you feeling about it how much time are you spending preparing for that class weekly helpful encouraging conversation as the semester moves on past this week's mark so that's a little bit of academics I'm going to hand it back over to Erica to keep our conversation going. Thank you Joe as Thanksgiving break is you will be very excited to have your student come home and here we offer an opportunity to think about the many ways that they may be evolving and changing. You may notice that they're thinking differently that they're talking about new ideas almost certainly that their daily schedule has changed they may be sleeping and eating at hours that are a little different from the person who you dropped here not so long ago. You may be hearing from your student that there is some significant stress in their life and so you'll want to be attentive to what is present and also what's possibly missing in what you're hearing and this is another place where open ended questions will be a gift to your student your ability to ask questions where they have a lot of space to fill in the blank this helps them process what they're thinking and what they're feeling. Additionally when you think about what's ahead for them over winter break and into next semester the same holds true your ability to ask broad questions about their evolving thinking is really useful to them developmentally often more useful than asking very pinpointed surgically precise questions about a specific plan that they may not have thought through or may not have in place yet you can prompt good thinking and good conversation with your student by asking open ended questions. It's also true that as Thanksgiving break tapers and your student thinks about coming back to campus for the final few weeks of the semester you can play a role in helping them finish strong. It can be hard to go from being at home or being in a relaxed environment with a with a sort of a gentle daily rhythm to coming back to campus and to the rigors of the end of the semester so you can encourage your students to stay focused on what they can control and remind them that good habits can be formed anytime around sleep or studying communicating and so forth. On our next slide and we have mentioned several important dates and timeframes already in our conversation today a few of them are a few more are listed here and so I'll leave the slide up for a moment so that you can just see what we are thinking about in terms of career development jobs and internships the housing search process that others will be already initiating quite possibly even before you have a chance to hear this conversation many students have been thinking about housing for next year Joe mentioned the last day to withdraw from a course being November 1st we also have a majors and minors fair for students who are actively exploring different interests and intellectual pursuits that will be taking place in the student center in the Davis Center on November 1st a good broad question to be asking students at this point in time is to reflect on their strengths not just the strengths that they know about but to go even a little deeper and ask them what strengths they're newly noticing in themselves as they navigate this particular point in time as a college student whether they're new or continuing I'll pass it back to Joe for the next few slides. Thanks Erica. Making sure I'm unmuted. Again as we kind of think about the transition of what to expect as the rest of the semester plays out again here are some of the things that we know we kind of consistently we see as some of the patterns that are helpful for you to know and for you to be talking with your student about. Some of those are around communications and academics some of those are social and again very interesting patterns that we kind of see year by year that kind of follow along in a consistently predictable way a little bit different across year groups but certainly some of those that we know of again my encouragement to you would be now is a great time as we move forward in the semester just to kind of identify your student has been here at UVM enough so that you can have already have a sense family and parents what are their communication patterns with you back home are they calling regularly are they calling maybe more than you thought they would be are they calling maybe less frequently than you thought they would be and again now is a time especially if the communications have been less than expected to check in with your student and have a conversation about what that would what that would mean as we get to some of the other slides again I think you'll start to pick up the invitation and the encouragement to kind of foster and encourage this communication is not to micromanage or not to do kind of helicopter or lawn mower parenting but to really help avoid large surprises at the end of us academic semester just because there was not great communication happening over the course of the semester again we start to now already see some of the patterns of okay if a student is starting to be on top of academics then that's a really good sign if students are starting to fall behind on academics also we are now within this window of just being able to kind of course correct and catch things up as the semester goes on so again an invitation to think about what that will look like certainly one of the things that I see in the work I do with students pretty regularly is this kind of cementing or changing social groups or the shift and change that happens in social groups especially when I think about our sophomore students this point in fall semester of sophomore year is this real transition of some of the friendships that we had from last year are now shifting and changing and it has to do with some of us now live farther apart from each other some of us are now doing different things or have declared a new major and those social groups can start to shift and again for some students that's a really exciting and wonderful time and moment of exploring new identities with themselves connecting with people in new ways that they had not connected to previously and for some students it feels a little bit tenuous and challenging I've heard from some students who have just said I thought by now I would have found my core group especially our new students and I've been given the gentle reminder of I think we all have come out of COVID world and continue to live in COVID world are realizing that again some of those things will take a little extra effort and extra time and maybe some patience and some willingness to continue to put yourself out there will go a long way and so again these are big picture some of the things that we are seeing I'll move us on to the next slide to focus in a little bit about some of the patterns around academics that we know as we've gone through this semester students it sometimes feels especially toward new students they've just kind of gotten accustomed to this semester's course load however you're going to start to already think about next semester's course load but we just want to make sure that everyone is aware that again course registration for spring semester will happen in the second week of November that's the week of November 15 and so your students should start to already think for themselves well what might come next in spring semester in terms of courses some students will have really clear thoughts about that good for them some students may kind of not have clear thoughts about that in either category I'm going to encourage students to be meeting with their academic advisor prior to course registration week regardless of what year group they are in they could be seniors and they could know what they need to do it is always a helpful check-in moment of kind of a touchstone point with their academic advisor to ensure that where things are now and what next semester will hold will keep them on path towards degree completion so again a helpful date for you all to be aware of the last two bullet points here are also the useful and sometimes difficult mechanisms of academic feedback that students will get at this point and moving forward into the semester and so certainly one of them is as we head into mid-term season and for each student that could look a little different for some students they will have very traditional kind of major exams that they will sit and they will know those are coming up and their faculty will be preparing them for alright folks here's a big exam coming up and let's kind of work towards this big exam moment and for other students it may not be as pivotal a moment they may have projects or papers or it may be a regular exam but kind of at this point in the semester faculty will really be attentive to how students are doing on those because it often will predict well what would the rest of the course look like academically if your student is doing well then great I think that's a moment of being able to kind of encourage the things that they're doing reinforce that alright keep doing the work you're doing you're seeing that payoff in really helpful ways it's a good sign to keep doing what you're doing and for some students we're getting some feedback that might be not so great again my hope is that you are aware of this and they are communicating this with you and if that is the case again it is a moment to pause and say okay well what are the resources that you're connecting to who are you working with to kind of help this moment this is the way your faculty can give some feedback about something will need to shift or change and how your student is taken part in the course to turn things around to get it okay great at the end of the semester a formal way that you can does that is through what are called academic alerts and so again a helpful maybe point of conversation will be if your student has said to you that they've received an academic alert then again the advice from my end would be you need to make sure that student is checking in with their faculty member directly and then maybe the second point of contact checking in with advisors in their academic dean's office these are moments of right now we have so much time left in the semester to be able to address some of these concerns but if they go on heated or on address or kind of swept under the rug then often unfortunately things only get worse as the semester goes on academically I will pause I could keep talking but I'm for the sake of time will move us along and we'll kind of pass it back to Erica just to talk about again some of the key dates and things that will happen over the rest of the semester thank you very much Joe I'd like to ask that we scoot forward one slide so that we can again review those dates one more slide please and as we review these again these are I mentioned these dates earlier there are many many points in time in the life of a college semester that will matter to many students we think that career thinking career development and for many students looking ahead to the spring semester and indeed the summer is something that can be supported by coming to the job and internships fair many of these opportunities are connected to interests and passions that students are already exploring others may be in new areas of interest and so this is a great opportunity I did mention the housing search that sophomores are undertaking already so I'll just draw from a course being November 1st and then again that majors and minors fair that's pretty important to students next slide please as we move into talking about resources for students I'm going to invite Joe to come back and tell us more about that thanks Erica this little next section we kind of maybe we'll move through a little bit more quickly or I will endeavor to move through it really again are some resources that we want you to be aware of in the hope that you can then reinforce for your student here are some available resources the first will be a number of apps that UBM will use so if we can go to the next slide just want to kind of highlight some of the big ones that we think every student should download I'm not really going to talk about them all some of the new ones if you've seen this presentation before or you have a returning student we now use Byte University in terms of being able to order things ahead for food services on campus which is super convenient and super effective again you've heard me talk about the Navigate app as a platform that really does have very robust access to resources for students another fairly new app that I'll highlight here is the Live Safe app again an opportunity for students to be able to report concerns big and small to be able to call for help or assistance if needed there are even some cool features in it for example that students are able to do a virtual walk along with someone and if they're walking back from the library they can have someone on their phone just to kind of help keep them company if they felt that that was something helpful so encouraging your students to do that I'm not going to go through them because our folks over at UVM board have really written a wonderful blog post about all of the essential apps for UVM students to have and so I will direct you to the website that's posted here on the screen UVM board dot com slash apps is a wonderful little blog post if you want to do some reading so you can feel savvy about it as you talk to your student about the apps that they use at UVM I'm going to move us forward and I think I'm handing it back to John Paul. Again everyone we've heard about a number of resources already I want to highlight a few specific ones that I think are relevant to supporting student mental health and really wanting the point to have you see this broad menu of options that are available to students and by no means is this an exhaustive list because we know there are many ways in places that students support mental health but once again there's some key center for health and wellbeing pieces that I want to share so top left and this is more of an information component but we manage an Instagram with the help of students it's be well UVM this is a place where we're promoting programs sharing relevant health information and messages with students this is a place where we're most current things being coming out for students in a regular way below that just a plug for our sound cloud which is where students find a variety of guided meditation and mindfulness programs this is a self service resource that's always available to students in the center I included a let's talk poster is a reminder to say that you know in our clinics we offer a lot of formal and scheduled appointments we also want students to know that there are many many drop in on demand resources available these happen in the data center let's talk happens in our identity center is the prison center mosaic center and the women agenda equity center and these things are happening most days each week. That top right image is a plug for the massage program that happens weekly it's actually every Friday during the semester so and the board link is plugged there too we make it a point to make sure that all helping wellbeing programs along with social programs are promoted on this website and so you can simply search for living well when you visit that website and once again just a reminder that all of these services and programs and more are going to be talked about in detail at our website which is there at the bottom of the page we can go to the next slide please so I share this before I pass up to my colleague Linda and student life but what you're looking at here is an adaptation of the flourishing model and this is a model that comes from public psychology research and this research is really embedded in defining what are the key elements of our lives that contribute to positive mental health and we show this model we show it to parents we show it to students and we talk about it repeatedly because I think it's a simple way to offer a frame for both students and parents to think about what are the things that they're engaging in that are helpful and what areas may need some attention as we're really striving for this positive wellbeing situation which we know is going to be conducive to both being healthy and being successful academically we know that all of these pieces of our lives are linked but in this particular model they use circles and they use circles of varying sides to help us really understand where the priorities so those bigger circles like interacting, playing, learning represent key places where we should be investing a good amount of time I also share this model because I think it's really aligned well with the resources that are available to students in the university community and so with that I'm going to pass to Lena and Student Life to really talk about the ways that your student might live out some of these pieces of the flourishing model on our campus Lena. Thanks John Paul. So hi everybody my name is Lena Balcom I use she and her pronouns and I am the interim director of student life and so I want to talk with you a little bit about the areas that John Paul just mentioned and we'll start with the ones that were the largest on that chart of interacting and learning and playing and so a lot of learning of course happens in the classroom and Joe talked about that but a significant amount of learning happens outside of the classroom and it happens in opportunities that students engage in where they are either connecting what's happening outside the classroom with the things they're involved in or perhaps learning experiences and skills and information that aren't connected but complementary and a big part of that is our clubs and organizations and so one of the things that is a significant event that has happened already in the semester is our activities fest where all of the clubs and organizations we have more than 200 of them set up tables and opportunities for students to come and learn about all of them that's not the only way that they can get involved in an organization so I want to highlight to you UVM clubs which is a platform that all students have access to where they can learn about what are all of the clubs contact those organizations get an opportunity to join so they don't need to have participated in activities fest in order to join a club so if a student realizes partway through the semester that now I'm really interested in this new thing that I never learned about before and I hear that there's a club for this new interest but they never joined during activities fest it's not too late so that's a really important thing maybe to ask them is what are you involved in it and what are you thinking about becoming involved in and a student can join a club at any time and both Joe and John Paul have already talked about our really wonderful resource of UVM board which is a platform an online website platform that is created by students for students and it's housed here in student life but really it's a curated list of events that students can participate in most of them are on campus many of them are off campus most of them are generated by the university but they also highlight things that are happening outside of the university that students can get involved in so another question to ask is what have you seen on board lately have you gone to UVM board I think most students are really connected and know that it exists and really interact with it pretty frequently is my understanding. The one thing that I think is helpful maybe as the family members to understand is that UVM board has this blog and I think John Paul mentioned it already or somebody did that there's blog posts that the students create one of the blog posts that's currently writing is UVM board's favorite on campus study spots and so they post blog topics that are relevant to what's happening at that time of the academic semester or cycle so that's definitely a really important place to ask your students if they've been connected. We can go to the next slide so another one of the circles on John Paul's chart is about spiritual, spirituality and we do have a lot of opportunities for students to make connections in those places and be engaged in those places here on campus so one of them is that there are a group of student organizations that are focused on this work so student organizations like the reformed university fellowship or HALEL there's a student organization called HALEL there's also an organization for students called HALEL that's a little confusing because they're not they're a little independent but connected. There's KAYALFA and the Catholic Student Association and others so if your student is interested in having more time to be examining and engaging in their meaning making and their spiritual activity with their peers those student organizations are a great place to explore and to join. There's also mindfulness meditation yoga those kinds of programs and activities that are put on by a variety of partners on campus many of them are put on through John Paul's department in the Center for Health and Well-Being and specifically in the Living Well area here in the Davis Center but beyond the spirituality there are also religious organizations that students can be connected to some to highlight are HALEL which I've mentioned the Catholic Center and also the UVM Interfaith Center so again lots of different places that students can make connections and have engagement around meaning making and spirituality we can move on to the next slide where the next circle to talk about is helping others again there's a theme here in my world of there's a club and organization for that and so there are a lot of clubs and organizations that are specifically focused on helping others there's a whole group of organizations that are under the umbrella called volunteers in action and they have a wide range of ways for students to engage in the community and help others through service and through volunteer opportunities so that's a really great opportunity there's also alternative spring break which is a group of students who plan opportunities for themselves and their peers to spend their spring break in March traveling to near and far places to do service and to give back to the communities that they maybe live in or might learn about just for that one week and be part of and it's really one of the highlights that students say that has been really transformational for them when I've talked with students who participated in alternative spring break. There are other student organizations that are focused on helping others but we also have as part of student life one of our program areas is civic engagement and they do have a newsletter where they organize they offer a lot of information about organized experiences and opportunities to be engaged in that way so students can sign up on the student life website to be included in the newsletter. We can move on to the next slide and the next circle that I want to talk about is the playing and exercising so again there's two there's a lot of ways for students to engage and really promote this part of their life. Campus recreation is a big one they have a variety of programs including group fitness drop in sports yoga certification classes and a variety of other things you can see here on this slide it highlights their website and all of the most offerings are listed there so if the students aren't sure what's available in the coming days or weeks they can certainly go to this website and find that information. You'll also notice that the fitness center has extensive hours from 6am to midnight most days a week so if a student wants to be more independent in playing and exercising that's definitely a way to do that. We also have more than 20 club sports so a student doesn't need to be a athlete in order to engage in sports in our campus. They don't need to want to have competitive intramural experience in order to engage in sports in our campus so a wide variety of sports that are represented in our clubs and many of them have intercollegiate competitions as well so next slide so some students the mountain calls them and so our ski and snowboard club is a really great place for our students to connect to for those that are interested in skiing and snowboarding so if we can turn to the next slide you'll see the information there is that our students that club this ski and snowboard club has created agreements with a variety of mountains local ski resorts where we are able to offer students discounted ski passes so if your student is someone who wants to be out on the mountain this is a really great opportunity for them to be able to do that without it being the same price as if they weren't part of our community so the deadline is in early November so there's plenty of time to get these passes there's passes to a variety of mountains but a couple to highlight are smugglers notch and J peak and there are others as well so the ski and snowboard club organizes structured times for students to come and buy the passes and pick up the passes but they could also reach out to the club or just up by the clubhouse which is on the first floor of the data center in addition there are buses and trips planned throughout the winter so if your student wants to get to the mountain but they don't have a car or they're not sure how to do that the ski and snowboard club does organize transportation to and from the mountains throughout the winter so lots of opportunity there and again if the students don't know how to connect go to UVM clubs and that is definitely the best way to find the contact information for any club organization so and then I'll just add that there are all sorts of ways for our students to engage in these places outside of clubs and organizations so I don't want to you know there's this theme about what I'm saying that the thread the clubs and organizations are really the heart of student engagement in many ways but they're not the exclusive way so lots of connections through student life that will be promoted on board so again board and UVM clubs are two primary places so the questions you can ask your student are you know what have you seen on board lately have you been involved in clubs so and I will pass it back to my friend Joe. Thank you for those sounds like again awesome opportunities and I'm hoping that families and parents as well as students are taking advantage of them I'm going to wrap us up here in a few moments again we've shared a lot of resources that are really resources for students and we want you to be aware of them we certainly want to make sure that we're ending with a few resources for families as well that you can go to directly if we go to the next slide one of the starting points I made point families too will be if you were to search on the UVM website for the Dean of Students website we have a whole section dedicated to resources for families and parents one of those resources is family calendar are we going to the next slide I'm going to pause and allow us to move the PowerPoint along here we go again if you go to the Dean of Students website under the parent family resources there will be a family calendar and so a shameless plug for and to highlight if you were to open up the October under October events in this calendar you'll see that they're almost all primarily focused around this year's family visit model that we are launching for the first time and it's an invitation for instead of just one single appearance will often ask us when is family weekend and family weekend was great and really had wonderful energy on campus and we also know that family weekend and then meant that hotel prices in the area were just exorbitantly expensive and so this fall we are inviting families to kind of choose your own adventure and plan things according to what works for your schedules and your student schedule and we've offered a whole list and range of events that you can take part in we've thematized some of those so again you can start to think about what kind of adventure might you want to have if you're able to come up to campus and some of those will be offered as well virtually and so if you're not able to come up to campus it still is an opportunity to feel engaged and to be active in campus in the campus environment so I invite you to peruse look through in your own time that website and feel free to please be in touch if there are questions that you might have as you do that next slide please here we go again to kind of wrap up with two two little points will be again just a little summary of sometimes how we communicate with you and then a quick conversation about how you may communicate with us and so certainly my hope is that you have all just gotten an email that recently went out about fall visit that just went out to parents and families kind of giving some information pointing you to the website directly that's a great example of how we will communicate with you over the course of your students experience here at UVM with information things that we want you to know and be aware of and certainly invitations to be active and involved other folks will communicate with you as well res life does a great job of being able to communicate with parents of students who live on campus to give them information and make sure they know what are the major things that are coming up and how to navigate those. Also our center for student conduct which is the office that is asked to hold students accountable if there are potential policy violations that happen at UVM may reach out to families for students who are under 21 if they are found responsible for an alcohol cannabis or other drug violation at UVM we will send a short message home and the message home is really again to be an opportunity for you to partner with us in having conversation with your student about healthy choices and so again if that were to happen feel free to always reach out to us if needed but maybe more importantly or hope is that you will have a conversation with your student that will be a positive helpful conversation. And then of course there are these moments that we all kind of hope never happened but sometimes they do and sometimes that might be that something has happened specifically to your student. We may have some concerns about how they're doing or their well-being an accident may have happened we're entering ski season so I can almost predict that at some point there will be some broken bone from skiing ends up in the hospital. When we are aware of those and it feels like the right thing to do which is almost always we will be communicating with you as well and that you have information that you might need or points of contact here at UVM to support you as you support your student through whatever may be going on. Of course I will say that there are sometimes and the broken bone example is an example that students may navigate that all on their own. I've had experiences of parents calling me to say oh my gosh how come no one called me and the answer was simply oh that's because your student living out the independence that you've prepared them for and they were able to navigate that whole process on their own and we didn't hear about it until they showed up in class or they called home about it and you've contacted us. So again we do our best and welcome you to communicate with us as needed and certainly if you're not and you are open to or would like to sign up for our emergency alert system please feel free to go on the website and do that so that if there is an emergency that happens on campus you can be included in those notifications and if you search for an online cat alert on our website you'll be pointed to how to make sure that your contact information is a part of our database. Lastly I'm going to move us to the next slide and invite you to also know that as we communicate with you here in the Office of the Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Dean of Students that we welcome you contacting us as well and so again next slide always an invitation some of the faces here on the slide again just for you to know you've seen Erica and you've seen myself just to introduce quickly David Nester our Dean of Students and Julian Rodriguez who is our Diversity Engagement and Professional Development Director staff here in the office who are happy and willing to have conversations and partner with you provide information and give answers in support of your student so the short answer to when should you contact us is please do not ever hesitate to reach out and contact us certainly my invitation will be if you are hearing from your student very significant concerns and that might be that they're feeling like they are overwhelmed or in distress or experiencing a crisis or they may be really struggling with academics or really struggling with an interpersonal issue or concern please do feel free to reach out to us. At least I find often those conversations are helpful consultative conversations and again an opportunity for us to partner together to think about what's the best way to support the student going through whatever they may be going through we value your partnership and connection in those moments contact information for all of us is on our website so again if you search for the UVM Dean of Students website you'll be able to find our direct contact information and again feel free to reach out. The last little graphic at the bottom of the screen I'll highlight is another way that you can reach out to us it's less direct it is through our online care form process and so again if you were to search for UVM care form you'll see an online way to kind of bring to the care team's attention concern about a student and often with some regularity we get those concerns from family members and so we invite you if you start having concerns for whatever reason hoping that your student might get connected with additional support resources and it was not an emergency or a crisis feel free to communicate that through the care form to us and then we'll be helpful in trying to coordinate some support and care for your student. So just to wrap us up again this for us is a helpful moment always we kind of know the importance of the first six weeks of the academic semester and the moment to kind of see how things are going and as we move from this moment into October through midterms to Thanksgiving to finals to the end of the semester again this is a helpful little check-in point it was for us a moment of saying yeah this would be a great time just to have some information out there for parents and families because again from your perspective it's unclear how much you may be hearing from your student and sometimes you'll fill in those gaps with a little bit of information in a webinar like this. So if you've managed to stick with us all the way to this point thank you for your attention and for kind of staying with us through the webinar. I'll move us to the last slide because I love the last slide's energy of coming out of the year that we've had with COVID so far the energy on campus the excitement the engagement that we are seeing with our students that we ourselves as staff I hear from my faculty colleagues and folks who teach classes the joy and the energy that this semester has brought and so again we leave you with this a sense of we hope that things go well for the rest of the semester we look forward to being in touch either us on our end or if you have the need to reach out to be in touch with us. Thank you for your time and attention and we hope that you have a good fall visit if you are able to come up to UBM this October. On behalf of all my presenters I will say thank you and goodbye to everyone.