Well I finally made it to Utah. I got to campus about 3:00 Saturday afternoon. I spent Saturday and Sunday getting oriented with campus and the area. Salt Lake City is set up as a true grid so it is easy to get around town. It has been an adjustment not having a car here and having to rely on the public transportation system, which is very nice and reliable.
I started work this morning (Monday). They have also just hired a new admissions counselor who also started today. She graduated in May from Utah so she is very helpful because she already knows the area. There is also another intern who is getting her masters here at Utah and is also working in the Financial Aid office. We spent most of the morning in training and orientation just getting to know everyone and how the office operates.
As I have mentioned before, their office is doing some restructuring and trying to improve their recruitment methods. July is somewhat of a dead time so they are doing a lot of the training/retraining and working with some new things they are trying to implement. One thing that we will be doing throughout the month is having guest speakers and presentations from different offices across campus. I am really excited about this because I will be able to get a view of many different offices and departments while still working with recruitment.
Utah has recently joined the Pac 12 conference. Many times we think of this just relating to sports. Monday afternoon someone from institutional research gave a presentation about how this benefits the academic side of the university also and how this should be used as an advantage and a recruitment tool. He was very interesting. He had several examples of other schools that had moved up to larger and better known conferences such as Penn State in 1990 and how it had benefited those schools as a whole. A lady also came and spoke about their student support services office. It is really interesting to see the differences in the organizational structure in different institutions and also to hear the reasons why certain offices and departments are where they are in that system.
I am looking forward to the next several days and hoping I will continue to learn more about the institution.
Hey JM - Glad you made it out there safely! That is cool info about the Pac 10. That's a great opportunity to make a lot of contacts, I bet, that can benefit both student and academic affairs. And that's a LOT of possible contacts!
ReplyDeleteLyle
John Michael,
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you made it. Make sure and wear lots of red and you will be just fine. Enjoy the TRAX train and eat at lots of fun places! Be sure and soak in not just the culture of the West, but the organizational culture of what you are experiencing. I appreciate how you are open to new ideas and to trying to grasp how Utah works in relationship to MSU. I look forward to continually hearing about your learning. Go UTES! I mean DAWGS! ;)
Best,
Dr. H
I know the size of the city in which The University of Utah resides is significantly larger than Starkville, but I am interested to see how the Salt Lake City community embraces or collaborates with The University of Utah. John Michael, as someone who knows how closely Starkville and MSU are intertwined, I encourage you to investigate the differences or similarties that MSU and Starkville have with The University of Utah and Salt Lake City. -JT
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