For the past week, the Admissions counselors have been on their annual staff retreat. As I mentioned to you guys last week, the first two days of the retreat consisted of meetings around campus. The graduate assistants and I were invited to accompany the staff on these meetings and luncheons.
After we met with the academic departments on Monday, Tuesday was a much more laid-back day. We started out with a tour of the athletic facilities while learning more about the sports related majors that MSU offers. The afternoon consisted of meetings with Cheryl Dill, Associate Director of Admissions & Scholarships, and also two representatives from Holmes Cultural Diversity Center.
After receiving such negative feedback from the academic departments, it was refreshing to hear praise from the Holmes Diversity Center regarding the population of diverse students that MSU has attracted. They informed us of future activities they have planned to educate our students of cultures around the world, and they also expressed their interest in forming a deal with the Office of Admissions to begin traveling with the admissions counselors to recruit. Everyone was excited about this idea and the counselors are anxious for this partnership to begin. It's exciting to witness two completely different departments partner together with one common goal in mind -- something we should definitely be mindful of as we begin our careers as practitioners.
As the staff departed Starkville to travel to the Gulf Coast for the second half of the retreat, I came to the office on Wednesday to learn the "underground" of Admissions: admitting applicants. I was able to meet with Crystal Sloan, Admissions Coordinator, to learn how to read transcripts and process applications. Throughout the morning of learning the ins and outs of admitting, I definitely realized I had much rather travel, recruit, and interact with students -- computer work is NOT fun... especially when it involves denying admission into MSU!
Megan
Megan,
ReplyDeleteOne interesting thing the U does is their recruitment office has a counselor that is specifically assigned to recruit under represented students. I'm not sure how I feel about just having one because that should be the mindset of the whole office and institution and not just one of the staff members. I think Miss. State's diversity is something we take for granted. Although it is mostly white and African-American students, it is much different than the U where the huge majority is white with only a small percentage of students of color.
JMV