With the busy September Welcome period now starting to settle down a little, the Welcome Project Board would like to extend a huge thank you to the staff from around the University whose commitment and support resulted in the successful delivery of this year’s project objectives.
The focus of the project for the 2013 intake was to make improvements to everything we had introduced in 2012, while also implementing new initiatives to further enhance and tailor the welcome experience for our students.
Here are the headlines of what we implemented:
– New monthly “keep warm” emails, tailored separately for undergraduate and postgraduate students;
– A restructured Students tab for SUSSED, which presents the key information students need once they arrive in an intuitive way;
– Tailored Banner emails for undergraduate/postgraduate and UK/International students to ensure all students received timely and relevant information;
– Made improvements to the undergraduate Are You Ready? pre-arrival website;
– Created “PG Welcome” – a new pre-arrival website specifically for our postgraduate students;
– Worked with SUSU and services across the University to develop a range of diverse induction activities that catered for a variety of interests and tastes;
– Launched a new online welcome timetable to enable students to access faculty induction information, SUSU freshers’ events and many other activities all in one place;
– Moved International and UK arrivals closer together to enable better integration of student groups;
– Provided formal welcome talks to all of our students, which were tailored to undergraduate and postgraduate audiences respectively;
– Opened key services on Highfield over Welcome Weekend (including Student Services Centre and the Income Office) and worked with SUSU to provide fun activities, which created a real buzz of excitement on campus for new arrivals.
The project will now be spending the next few weeks conducting a post-implementation review and we are looking for feedback from staff on what really worked and what could be improved to help us in our planning for the next phase of the project. If you have any comments regarding any or all of the above initiatives, please contact the Welcome Project Manager, Caroline Mitcheison, at [email protected].