Shelly Vitanza:
Welcome to the LU Moment. Thank you for listening, I’m Shelly Vitanza, the Director of Public Affairs at Lamar University. Each week we showcase the great events, activities, programs, projects, and people at Lamar University. The big event this week of course is the election and Lamar University’s been encouraging students to vote, even providing a shuttle to voting locations. We encourage everyone to get out and vote. The second big campaign on campus is the flu shot campaign. The student health center here on campus has sponsored three flu shot fairs and they’re encouraging everyone across campus to get their flu shot. Faculty, staff and students. And we encourage everyone to get their flu shot out in the community. There are two other events out on the LU calendar that you need to know about. The first one is Big Red’s ride. It’s a classic and antique car show. It will be held on November 7th, from 10am until 3pm at Spindletop Gladys City Boomtown. The entire community is invited to take a step back in time to see an amazing assortment of beautifully restored cars from area car club. Big Red and LU will be there too, so the kids will enjoy it. There’s no entry fee, it is absolutely free. It’s just a great opportunity to get out of the house. We’ve all been stuck in our homes for so long. It’s going to be outdoors, free, open to the public, and if you stay until 3:30, the gusher’s going to blow and to blow and you get to see the reenactment of the Spindletop Gusher. Of course, masks will be required, and social distancing will be practiced. If you want more information about Big Red’s Ride, you can go to www.lamar.edu/bigredsride. Okay! Another event that you won’t want to miss is a really unique event. It is a discussion with distinguished alumni, Billy Kubbs? and Norman Ballard. It’s going to be in November the 1oth at 6:op, it usually lasts about an hour. It’s going to be on Facebook Live, Lamar University’s Facebook Live, or you can go to lamar.edu/live and watch it. So distinguished alumni, Billy Kubbs? graduated in 58’ and Norman Ballard in 79’. They’re going to talk about their basketball careers and of course, Lamar University. It’s going to be very entertaining, a lot of fun. Both of these guys just have a ton of character. They are character’s in and of themselves. They have so much experience with Lamar University and basketball, and Norman Ballard is still at Lamar University still making a big difference, he’s the Assistant to the President in Community Relations responsible for the Southpark neighborhood; the nest that we have built in the area, VISD schools. So, it’s going to be a great, great event and a live event that you can watch in the comfort of your own homes at lamar.edu/live. So, we’ve got elections November 3rd, we’ve got Big Red’s Ride November 7th at Spindletop Gladys City Boomtown, and then on November the 10th, we’ve got the discussion with Billy Kubbs and Norman Ballard which will be virtual. So, you know it’s been kind of a rough year. I’m not telling you something you don’t know, but imagine during this year, we were responsible for recruiting 18-year-olds to college, during 2020, when your campus is closed, no visitors can come on the grounds for a tour and you’re role is to recruit students and that is the role of our Welcome Center Director, Tracie Craig, one of the things you do here on campus, right Tracie? So, we are going to talk about some of the challenges and how you guys have overcome the challenges. And really, recruiting is up and so it’s just a remarkable story, how you’ve been able to tackle this year. Let’s talk about what happened in the beginning. Did you just completely freak out when the campus was closed?
Tracie Craig:
It was tempting to freak out at first, but we didn't't’t have the luxury of freaking out, we just had to adjust and move forward. It happened right at the time of our planned admitted student day which we had to turn into a virtual day, which we did. I have next to no technical skills, but I’m surrounded by people who do.
Shelly Vitanza:
That’s when the students come in handy!
Tracie Craig:
They know I can paint the picture of what we want to accomplish, and they have to fill in the technical pieces. I could not be prouder of how my colleagues and my student team just pulled it off. We engaged 441 students through our three virtual events, during the live version of it. And an additional 165 who used the recording of one of those. We covered topics relevant to admitted students and answered all of their questions and we had staff available from the CSI office, advising, and student orientation, STAR services, financial aid and scholarships, housing, and health center. Every question that a parent or an admitted student might have, they had an opportunity to live chat with…
Shelly Vitanza:
…residence life, what’s going on on campus, student organizations, all those things. Okay so, you had this big plan where students were supposed to come on campus and get all of their questions answered about living, breathing, and studying here on campus and you had to make that completely virtual. So, was it this gigantic zoom call?
Tracie Craig:
Yes, that’s exactly what it was. I had joined zoom meetings, but I had never planned and managed. It was fun and again, I could not be prouder of our staff. We practiced. We all jumped on a pretend zoom meeting and we had our talking points and we just had one of just us. And so, we knew we were going to be ready for our guests and we did it and it was great.
Shelly Vitanza:
That’s amazing! So, what was great about it too was, that’s kind of meeting the students where they are. Because you and I, this generation, the zoom calls, it’s not our thing. We would rather meet face to face. But our students, they are cool with it right?
Tracie Craig:
Yes and another thing we’ve learned that has helped us make changes and how we do operations and moving forward is we’ve learned that the anonymity of being on the other side of the computer screen opened up more questions. Sometimes, when they come on the tour, they are timid about asking questions, but when they were chatting, they would ask more pointed, more specific questions, because again, like you said, they are more comfortable in that arena. It was very natural for them to live chat.
Shelly Vitanza:
Mom and Dad would normally come with a student, but were Mom and Dad on the zoom call too?
Tracie Craig:
They could be. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t, but they were invited to join if they wanted to.
Shelly Vitanza:
So, that was the launch of the virtual program and then you had others?
Tracie Craig:
Yes, we did three of those, and they were more and more polished as we went along, we learned. We even did one in Spanish, which I think is pretty exciting for us. And from there, we thought, okay people like the virtual arena, so we thought, let’s target specific audiences who are interested in a specific subject matter. We launched a series called a Major Discussion and we admitted admits, applicants and even prospects who showed an interest who showed an interest in a particular area of study, whether it was art, education, or a specific engineering and we had faculty and a student from that discipline who was available to live chat. They did presentations and they did a live chat for the students to ask specific questions like, “what does my first year of classes look like? What math do I have to take?”
Those were very well received and those were actually recorded and available for viewing on our webpage, lamar.edu/visit and then there’s a button that says “previously recorded sessions” so you can see them and they are divided by college.
Shelly Vitanza:
And that’s a beauty of this thing too, if you are looking for the blessings in all of this. The silver lining is that now we have some of these recorded and we can go back and look at them.
Tracie Craig:
Even though we are open now. We are doing live visits, there’s still a need for the virtual space and we are trying to fill it. Our Cardinal Boo yesterday, we made it live for people who were eager to come on campus and were not afraid to come on campus and we social distanced and wore masks and all those things, but we also did a virtual presentation of it for the audience at home. They got to interact with the departments that were here. They got to see all the booths and student orgs. We’re trying to walk the line of being available to those who want to come in person and also meeting the needs of those who can’t or choose not to. We have people in Dallas and other parts of the country who want to come and can’t get here.
Shelly Vitanza:
This probably wouldn’t have happened if COVID hadn’t happened. We didn't't’t consider the virtual platform an option.
Tracie Craig:
Right and we’ve embraced it at this point. We do both now, we do live tours, we do a virtual tour every week. We meet people where they are.
Shelly Vitanza:
That’s awesome. We’ve also changed some of the admission processes and some of the requirements. Can you talk about that?
Tracie Craig:
Yes. A TSI test is required if you are entering for a placement test. The TSI testing locations were closed during the pandemic and so to accommodate those students that could not take the test and who have not taken the SAT or ACT, we became a test optional institution. Students were allowed to submit their GPA which we normalize because there’s different GPA scales out there, so we have an internal process of normalizing those GPA’s.
Shelly Vitanza:
Because some schools are 5.0 scales, and some are 4.0.
Tracie Craig:
So, we try to even the playing field. The TSI office made some accommodations so that they could do the placement based on the academic record minus the TSI exam because kids couldn’t take the test, so we had to make accommodations. We became test optional during the coronavirus quarantine and we continued that policy. We are now a test-optional school, which is huge. Students who are maybe not great test takers and maybe do not want their record to be represented by one test on one day, they can just turn in their GPA and their transcript and that will be normalized and admission decisions will be made based on that academic record. The scholarships office has made the same policy. Scholarship decisions are not made based on standardized scores.
Shelly Vitanza:
I think that’s awesome. Like you said, it’s one day, it’s one test and does your performance on that test really determine how you are going to do in college? I’m not sure.
Tracie Craig:
Right, and that’s not to say we won’t accept scores on standardized tests, but we don’t require it anymore.
Shelly Vitanza:
Got it. So, what else are we looking forward to in the future besides your welcome center being open?
Tracie Craig:
I know! I’m so excited about the welcome center being open. They tell me that we will be doing business there in March which is amazing! The team in planning and construction is to be applauded for keeping the project on task. When they told me that we would be in in the Spring, I thought, I’m going to be happy if we get in in the summer, but I did my very first walk through yesterday and Dania over in construction said, “we’re still on-target for March.” I could not have been more excited when she told me that. It’s going to be beautiful. We’re just so excited. Admission counselors will be there, my team, the tour guides will be there. We’re going to be the hub of operations, not just for recruitment, but if you are just want to look around campus, if you are an alum and you want to come visit, come see us and we will point you in the right direction of where you want to go.
Shelly Vitanza:
Well, it really goes towards Lamar’s mission of creating a new front door off Cardinal Drive, which makes the most sense, and it’s going to be great.
Tracie Craig:
Yeah, we talked about landscaping yesterday, and the outdoor part, and it’s just becoming a reality. It’s going to be wonderful and everyone needs to come. I look forward to the ribbon cutting and all that stuff happening in March
Shelly Vitanza:
That’s going to be great and hopefully things will be more normal in the world. So, we’ve got about a minute and a half left, so tell us what we can look forward to and what your team is planning. The numbers were amazing too. During this time, you all recruited just as many or more?
Tracie Craig:
More!
Shelly Vitanza:
So, it was a big 20% increase, I believe.
Tracie Craig:
Well the recruiters could probably tell you down to the decimal point how many more it was. I know everyone was really excited about an increase in enrollment. We’re really proud, especially under the circumstances, that we got more students seated and after the 20th class day, which at that point, is the real number, we were still up. That was really exciting.
Shelly Vitanza:
That is very, very exciting.
Tracie Craig:
And we are continuing to move forward to recruit more. We have FAFSA nights coming up virtually. All of our events can be found on lamar.edu/visit. We are partnering with local high school counselors to do a financial aid night, basically with them, those opportunities can be found on our webpage. We have inside views which are similar to what we do with the major discussion, where you can come, we serve you lunch and you can visit with a faculty member from your area of interest, we do that both virtually and in person. All of those opportunities can be found at lamar.edu/visit. There’s nineteen of those opportunities coming up and they’re by department. I encourage you to check those out so you can really get some quality time with the faculty representatives.
Shelly Vitanza:
I love it. That’s great. We also have a website that I was not aware of: lamar.edu/admissions/coronavirus. And I guess that goes through some of the things we’ve talked about today, the no test requirements and things like that.
Tracie Craig:
Right. All of that information is there, and it’s constantly updated as new opportunities or new adjustments are made.
Shelly Vitanza:
Very good. Someone who’s listening and just wants to call and talk to a human, what’s a good number to call and talk about admissions and get information? I know you’ve got the chatbot and that was launched during this time.
Tracie Craig:
Yeah, the chatbot is called “Chirp.” You go to lamar.edu/admissions that chatbot can answer all kinds of questions. If you have questions for me, my number is (409)880-8248 of if you call the main line, my team actually answers the switchboard for the entire campus, then they’ll direct you to whoever you need to talk to.
Shelly Vitanza:
Tracie, amazing things during this time of COVID, recruiting and letting people come from all over the country see Lamar University in a virtual way, so we appreciate everything you do and thanks for being here.
Trace Craig:
Thanks, Shelly.
Shelly Vitanza:
And thank you for listening to the LU moment. I’m Shelly Vitanza, the director of Public Affairs at Lamar University, the pride of Southeast Texas.
