21 Days, 2017

Hello Denisonians! It’s just three weeks until classes begin!

The Office of Student Development has had a busy summer preparing for the 2017-2018 year, and we have lots of news to share: new staff to introduce, programs in place based on things we heard last year, some changes in office locations, and more.

Instead of sending a massive email on the first day of classes—more than anyone can absorb—we’re going to send a super-short message on each of these 21 days that lets you know about something interesting. They’ll be quick and to the point.

Fingers crossed that you like it. Let me know.

See you in 21 days!

Laurel Kennedy and everyone in Student Development

Supporting Student’s Financial Well-Being

Financial Wellness Counselor Guides Students in Financial Literacy

What’s today’s story? Today it’s a pair of stories, and they might especially interest students who want to learn more about managing finances or who have ever experienced stress due to financial circumstances.. The first, here, describes what we learned when we asked students about financial stressors. The second, introduces a new staff member, Lini Zhang, who is joining Denison to serve as a point-person on financial literacy and financial counseling.

A little more, please? After a couple of students came to us with concerns about a particular policy on student employment, we decided to dig in and get as full a picture as we could of what was triggering financial stress. We learned a lot about book grants, printing allowances, meal plans, and lots more. We were able to move quickly to adjust several of these right away. Read more here, or find a very detailed summary on MyDenison under Student Development/Assessments & Reports.

A big problem that students described was just not knowing where to turn for information on campus. We also learned from alumni who had just graduated that they wished we had prepared them better for their post-graduation financial lives.

Lini Zhang is an Ohio State University post-doc who specializes in consumer economics and financial planning, from her office on the first floor of Doane. She’ll help us begin to develop programs that help students navigate paying for college, and obtaining the financial knowledge to carry them into life after graduation.

Get “In the Know” with the Knowlton Center

What’s today’s story? The staff of the Knowlton Center has rearranged the furniture!

Um… What?? It’s actually true. They did. And: they did it for you. You have to read about why here. I promised you short.

PS. If you open the link, you’ll also get to read about an incredible guy, Hank Malin.

From Denison Posse #1 to Director of Multicultural Student Affairs

What’s today’s story? Thomas Witherspoon’s engagement as a Denison student became a template for success:

• 1. Explored new interests (Gospel Choir, DCGA, fraternity life, the Black Student Union, the Denisonian).
• 2. Found what gave him a sense of purpose (his major).
• 3. Had a genuine commitment to building community (an RA, then an HR).
• 4. Mentored younger students (June O leader).
• 5. Modeled character, seriousness about academics, and a genuine interest in others. (Trust me. He did.)

Why does his story matter? Because after he earned his Denison bachelors, and then his masters and his doctorate, he came back. Dean Witherspoon ‘05 is our new Director of Multicultural Student Affairs and Associate Dean of Students.

More, please? Since mid-June, Dean Witherspoon has been catching up with students to hear what’s new and what’s on their minds, and gearing up to lead Multicultural Student Affairs and support students in pursuing their educational goals. His first program will be the Paving the Way Pre-Orientation.

His office is on the fourth Floor of Slayter in the Center for Cross-Cultural Engagement. He’ll want to know you, and you’ll want to know him.

Scrumptious Senior Year

Quote of the Day: “Basically, I just burn things to make sure they’re safe to eat.” -Class of 2017 Grad.

Senior – 1, Salmonella – 0.

The story: Seniors asked for opportunities to explore wellness in practical ways: cooking skills, nutrition education, yoga and mindfulness.

Asked; answered.

See more here.

First-Generation Advice First-Generation Students

What’s the Story? We believe a lot in the power of stories, and over the last year, we’ve collected stories from a special group of Denisonians: students, faculty, staff and alumni who are the first generation of their family to attend college. Their stories are full of inspiration, and offer good advice for any reader who is navigating a situation for the first time. And college? It’s a major situation.

Tell me more. About one of every five Denison students is the first in their family, or the first generation of their family, to go to college. Although that means “first-gens” are a pretty large population, it doesn’t always feel that way. We’ve been working with students to develop the kinds of navigational tools that they find most useful. One of these is the stories of other Denisonians and how they found their way to success. More information for and about First Gen students (including their stories and words of wisdom) is here.

P.S. We’d love more stories!

An Affirmation of our Community Values

What’s the story? We’ve been having fun this week sharing the stories of new staff and new programs, but events yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia warrant a pause and reflection. The turmoil and hate we saw are the most extreme expression of intolerance for difference. It is the antithesis of what we seek at Denison.

As a small, Midwestern, liberal arts college, Denison is remarkably diverse, across lines of race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, economic status, religion, and political perspective. That is entirely by design; a Denison education rests on our belief that engaging with difference, in many forms, makes our thinking better. It is also a source of our community’s strength.

Denison’s diversity is one of the attributes that attract many of us to Denison. We experience it’s effects on our lives as so profound and so positive.

Does everyone embrace difference, all the time? Not always. For many, the degree of diversity that Denison offers is entirely new. Navigating differences in others’ thoughts, beliefs, and experiences is the hardest work we can do, because it involves questioning our assumptions and expanding our perspectives.

It’s also the most important. Ours is a campus where we try to make space for the fact that we’re all learning, and we try to repair harm when it happens. A vibrant academic community is one where we are open to all we can learn from others. Students do this work, faculty do it, and staff and administrators do it.

We believe in what we’re doing together.

And we look forward to having you all back.

We’ll return to updates tomorrow. Best to you all.

Alumna Carrie Fox ‘09 Joins Residential Communities Team

What’s the story? Who would take a job without entirely knowing what it is?

A Denisonian would, if it promised to challenge an innovative mind, to let you do work you care about with people you care about most, and it offered meaning and purpose every day. That would be Carrie Fox ‘09, who accepted a position as Assistant Director of Residential Communities, despite the fact that we’re rebuilding the job and the department from scratch. (More on that later this week.)

Tell me more. Prior to returning to Denison, Carrie Fox ‘09 served as a licensed professional counselor, providing individual counseling to clients of all ages. Many of you will remember that Carrie began her work with the East Quad last year, stepping into the role in an interim capacity. Finding that she loved working with college students, she applied for the permanent position. The mental health training Carrie brings has proven to be immensely helpful, where she has infused this lens of well-being into her work as Assistant Director of ResComm, encouraging students to develop strategies for managing their wellness.

Carrie is excited to be back on the Hill, working closely with students to think about how we build community within residence halls, making them feel more like vibrant neighborhoods. Stop by the Curtis Community Center (formerly Curtis Service Center) to welcome Carrie!

The Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment

Quote of the Day: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin.

Thanks, Ben! Profound.

If you are investing with some help from Financial Aid, you’ll want to know that they have moved to Doane.

Tell me more. The Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment has relocated to the first floor of Doane. You’ll find their smiling faces just down the hall from Student Accounts, next door to Student Housing, and one flight of stairs below the Registrar’s Office. See a theme?

That is all.

A-Quad Becoming a Social Space

What’s today’s story? For most of this summer, A Quad was a series of huge piles of dirt, as work started on Phase 1 of a 3-year improvement project. And then suddenly, over the course of (it seemed) about two days, a new “seating wall” rose up out of the earth. Grass grew. Birds started singing and …

Okay, everything except the birds.

It’ll take you by surprise at first. It’s um… a wall (Ahem.) that is on its way to becoming a public square.

The wall encircles an important and iconic campus space (the flagpole) that gathers us together. And it’s a wall you can sit on. I’ve attached a photo.

Tell me more. The project is too large to be undertaken in one summer, and the committee decided that it was best to not have the area torn up during the academic year. So it is being done over the course of three years. In Phase I, this summer, the entrance to Fellows and sidewalks between Fellows and Higley were redone, and a curved seat wall was built just south of the flag pole in front of Slayter. In Phase II, in summer 2018, the entrance to Slayter will be further reworked to provide additional seating and interaction areas. Phase III, currently scheduled for the summer of 2019, will extend the brick Chapel Walk along the front of Knapp and Higley all the way to the Library.

Below is a photo taken this week and art showing what it will look like when it’s all completed.

Trinidy Jeter ‘04 Gets Involved at Denison - Again

Quote of the Day: “I love what I do because it encourages people to be their best selves, learn their purpose and love their home away from home.”

Trinidy Jeter knows student organizations, and she knows what kinds of mentorship and support help the leaders of student orgs to thrive. She knows because, before graduating from Denison in 2004, she was a campus leader in DCGA, the Black Student Union, and her sorority, and the mentorship she received put her on a career path in higher education. She is back as Assistant Director of the Community Leadership & Involvement Center (CLIC), to help today’s Denisonians develop and grow as she did. Read her story here!

Tell Me More: Trinidy Jeter ‘04 is the newest face in CLIC these days, but she’s never left Denison too far behind. Since earning her Masters, Trinidy has worked in different areas of student advising, returning to Denison often to lead workshops and activities with students. Now, in addition to working with students orgs, Trinidy will advise the University Programming Council, and will help students develop skills and cultivate their interests through their campus involvement.

Trinidy’s return to Denison corresponds with a number of changes that happened in the spring and summer around CLIC: the Denison Community Association and the Alford Center staff moved to Slayter and merged with CLIC, and Matthew Vetter became the Director overseeing it all. The new arrangement is generating lots of energy and ideas. Read more here!

Next great place to eat - or put up your feet

What’s today’s story? The much-beloved Julie Tucker has prepared this little ditty to accompany the photo below, taken earlier this week. (We don’t know what came over her.)

Over the summer, we’ve been hard at work.

So when you return, you’ll go berserk!

Where, you may ask, is this nifty new space?

Could it be that our dining hall has a fire-place!?!

The full story on Curtis is here. 

A Denison Education Prepares You for a Life of Success

What’s today’s story? Gainful employment is an awesome thing.

And it is an important statistical fact that your odds of such employment will increase if you set foot in the Knowlton Center. (Ditto your odds of admission to law school, grad school, med school, and success on other professional pathways.)

More, please? Consider these numbers: Almost 88% of the Class of 2015 was employed, pursuing another degree or doing service within six months of graduation. Cool. But among those who never went to the Knowlton Center, that number dipped to 83%. Those who went 3 times a year? 100%. So, you should go.

By the way, all those people who went 12 times? They didn’t have it all figured out before their first visit. They went anyway.

Recent graduates shared all kinds of interesting information with us. Read more about it here.

Introducing ResComm!

Which One Doesn’t Belong? Storytelling, Curtis West, social inclusion, civic deliberation, community well-being, Residential Communities.

Hmm. It’s a list that wouldn’t even have made much sense before… But it actually does now. They all belong. In fact, belonging is the thing. Because Residential Communities is doing something very, very different, starting this fall.

Tell me more. Last spring, Residential Education & Housing went through a restructuring that separated operational functions from everything related to the community-building elements. Student Housing Operations & Planning, a new office, moved into Doane 104, where staff will work with Facilities Services to keep the buildings running smoothly and coordinate lots of folks in planning for future renovations. A new department, “Residential Communities,” (on the West Quad in Curtis West) will support what happens in the halls around relationship-building, community development, and programming.

The split allows us to take our residence halls along an entirely new trajectory that will be about knowing your neighbors’ stories and creating the sense of true community. Read more about it here!

Supporting Student Mental Health

Quote of the Day: “Health is a state of body. Wellness is a state of being.” J. Stanford

Denison signed on with the JED Foundation and the Healthy Minds Network last year to undertake a comprehensive review of the campus mental health eco-system. Based on an environmental scan, a survey of students, an interdisciplinary team of students, faculty and staff, is now acting on the findings to create a campus that better supports wellness, not just for today but for life. You can read more about it here!

Grants and Funding resources

Out of the Blue and Into the Red: Red Thread Grants Make a Mark

What’s the Story: In the last two years, Denison staff have worked to reduce barriers to students’ financial well-being. One of those strategies has been to waive, reduce, or offer resources for costs students face when participating in different opportunities, like study abroad, student organizations, internships, etc. We also are trying to make information about resources more accessible.

Tell Me More: There are a number of different sources of funding across campus, but students told us that it was challenging to find out about these resources, what they can be used for, and who oversees the funds. (We think so too!) So we created a centralized table of funding sources available to students on MyDenison.

One of those funding sources is the Red Thread Grant, a fund students can use for emergency expenses or to offset costs of participation in campus activities. Read more about the impact of Red Thread here.

Another opportunity we wanted to make you aware of is the “Passport Caravan” coming to Denison on October 26. Through this program, 130 Denison students will have their US passport applications paid for by Denison’s Off-Campus Programs Office and CIEE. Read more about the program here or visit the Office of Off-Campus Programs. The deadline to apply is September 27. You’ll need several official documents that you might want to bring from home, so read up while you’re packing!

Creating Change Agents: Denison Launches a Center for Innovation

What’s the Story: We told you last week about the wall that went up this summer in front of Slayter. Today, we’re telling you we also knocked a wall down, inside Slayter. Why did the wall come down? To create a center for creative problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. This summer we have launched the Red Frame Lab, a space where students can come together to design solutions to problems, as well as receive the support to do so, through our newly hired Design Thinking Coordinator. Read more about our Red Frame Lab here.

Tell Me More: The Red Frame Lab is a place where students, faculty, and staff can come together to understand issues and design solutions to problems. If a residence hall experiences a student vandalism of community property, it’s a space where that floor can come together to design a solution. As students in an organization are trying to figure out a new, more effective way to do something, they can come to the space to collaborate and think through how to re-approach their work.

In addition to a physical space, we have an exciting suite of programs in store —ranging from leadership and design thinking workshops, faculty talks, and even a program on applying principles of design thinking to designing your life or your semester.

Next week, Steve Krak begins as our Design Thinking Coordinator. With a 25 year career in engineering and 8 years in educational consulting (even leading teams in Kazakhstan, China and Egypt), the heart of his professional background is about facilitating dialogue around creative problem-solving. Most recently Steve led a team to co-design, open and sustain new public STEM schools in Egypt. He’s going to be great.

Read more about design thinking and the Red Frame Lab here.

A Conversation with our Interfaith Resident Vanessa Avery

Quote of the Day: “Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.” Shakespeare

That sounds so promising! How do any of us become that?

Vanessa Avery thinks that looking at architecture will help.

Tell me more. The staff of The Open House* has recently been joined by an “Interfaith Resident,” Vanessa Avery, and a big part of her role is to help students explore how virtues are embodied in space, especially the physical space of different religious traditions—churches, synagogues, mosques, temples… When you read about Vanessa’s own background, you’ll see why she is the perfect person to lead this exploration.

*The Center for Religious & Spiritual Life is also known as The Open House.

Policies prohibit discrimination against transgender persons’

LGBTQ 

LGBTQ+ Definitions

Quote of the Day: “All schools must ensure that all students, including LGBT students, are able to learn and thrive in a safe environment.” U.S. Department of Education

There’s been a lot in the news in the last few months about changes in federal protections for the civil rights of gay and transgender people. Denison remains committed to providing the same rights and protections for LGBTQ students as we do for all students.

Tell me more. A statement published on Denison’s website explains more about our policy stance. Basically, we’re leaning into the values of inclusion and equity that correspond with our educational philosophy and mission.

We’re working to make sure those values are in evidence across campus. We also want to note some special spaces: LGBTQ students come together around activism, education, and support on our campus through Outlook (weekly meetings are on Thursdays from 7-8 on the 4th floor of Slayter), and Spectrum (a support group coordinated through the Counseling Center) meets on Thursdays from 11:30-1 pm in Burton Morgan 216.

More information for queer students and allies at Denison can be found here. A great site for understanding the language of gender and sexuality diversity is here.

Dr. Léna Crain Joins the Denison Community

Breaking News! Denison hires a non-alum!

What’s the Story: Okay, it’s true. We’ve announced the hires of several alumni recently, and we’re excited to have them back.

But we’re also jazzed about this new face on our campus, because sometimes fresh eyes, different experiences, and new ideas can make things really interesting. Dr. Léna Crain is our new Director of Community Values & Conflict Resolution—the office we used to call Student Conduct. Léna thinks about student conduct as a form of conflict that can have beneficial outcomes, and she brings lots of experience, particularly around the use of restorative justice as a tool to build and restore community. It’s not your mother’s conduct office anymore!

Léna’s office is on the first floor of Huffman on the quad side (the former Service Center, for returning students).

Read more about Léna and her views on student conduct here.

Policy Prohibiting Sex Discrimination, Including Sexual Harassment, Sexual Misconduct, Stalking and Retaliation

Code of Student Conduct

Code of Academic Integrity

Student Handbook

Proverb for the Day: A good beginning makes a good ending.

The work we’ve shared also underscores our commitment to Denison’s mission and values. We hope to help you thrive, and to find the support you need not just to achieve your college goals but to start along the path to a great life after college as well. As you embark, we hope you’ll take advantage of all that distinguishes Denison as a great college. In particular, we hope you’ll seek out:

• mind-expanding academic experiences,
• opportunities to develop life-long friendships—with people who are like you and also with those who are unlike you,
• motivation to build skills of creative problem-solving,
• reflection time to imagine the life you hope to lead, and
• the resources that you need for your individual aspirations.

As the year gets underway, I also share with you important policies and resources. These too are important to your success at Denison.

1. The following are binding policies for members of our campus community. You are responsible for knowing and following them. I invite your questions, as so my colleagues, and we would welcome opportunities to talk about the policies with your classes, organizations, residence hall groups, and others.

The Policy on Sex Discrimination, Including Sexual Harassment, Sexual Misconduct, Stalking and Retaliation is informed by input from members of our campus community, by federal and state guidelines, and by what we consider to be best practices emerging throughout higher education.

The Code of Student Conduct explains your rights and responsibilities relative to university expectations. The changes from last year are minor and will be reviewed with Campus Affairs Council and DCGA, and we are happy to discuss these with anyone interested. Four basic expectations remain the same: Take care of each other, treat each other respectfully, take care of this place, and act with integrity in classes and in your social life.

The Code of Academic Integrity explains Denison’s standards of academic conduct and the procedures for addressing academic misconduct.

The Student Handbook is a single point of information on a range of important subjects, from services provided by different offices to room reservation instructions to the University’s stance on the privacy of your records. It is super handy as a central point of reference.

2. Super handy: There is a customizable events calendar on MyDenison that lists events by category. To see the calendar, log in to MyDenison, and on the home page you’ll see a calendar section in the bottom right corner. Click on the “Go To Calendar” link. From there, you can select categories and choose events you’d like to add to your calendar.

3. A few final notes, related to your safety:

Check out the Campus Safety page on MyDenison to update your emergency contact information so that we can communicate with you in the event of an emergency. While you’re there, please review resources and safety-related opportunities.

Community Alerts are distributed in instances where there is any kind of imminent threat to the campus, and provide information that may be useful in protecting one’s own safety.

The “Campus Climate Watch” on MyDenison (Campus Resources tab, “Campus Life”) provides reports and catalogues data related to incidents that may influence the social climate of the campus.

4. Many members of Student Development staff have regularly scheduled “Community Hours” in Slayter and other spaces on campus. Our aim is to be highly accessible to students, particularly in a time when we are implementing lots of new initiatives, we welcome your input and feedback. Our hours are posted on MyDenison (Campus Resources=>Campus Life=>Student Development).

Best wishes for 2017-2018!