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Ana Longoria: This is 89.1 WEMU News.I’m Ana Longoria, and very soon, Eastern Michigan University will transform from a quiet campus to a place where over 10,000 students are ready to begin the school year. Joining me today is EMU’s President Brendan Kelly. We’re discussing how the college is changing how it welcomes students to the campus experience with the launch of "Weeks of Welcome". So, President Kelly, what is Weeks of Welcome?
Dr. Brendan Kelly: So, I would start out with when I got back to campus for the first time at the beginning of March, I spent most of that month talking to students. The other Dr. (Tressa M.) Kelly joined me for many of those meetings, and it was just a chance for us to understand how they were experiencing their university. And one of the things that we heard over and over again were that there was an energy at the beginning of the year that tapered off pretty fast. A couple of big things, but it tapered off. And one of the things that we owe students are social networks. And to create social networks at the beginning of college, whether you're a transfer student or a first-time in college student, it doesn't much matter your status, you do have to be around other people, and we want to do that in a fashion that they're receiving it the way they want to receive it. So, I charged our team with creating Weeks of Welcome. It did start off as six. It ended up being eight-and-a-half.
Ana Longoria: That’s quite a few weeks!
Dr. Brendan Kelly: Well, it's a major event that occurs each week, and we partnered with all of the student organizations that were open to it to have each of them drive another event during the course of that eight-and-a-half weeks.And what we found was a robust schedule that's really focused on creating a sense of strong community, strong connection between people, and a sense of culture that's unique to Eastern Michigan.
Ana Longoria: For these eight-and-a half-weeks of Welcome, what is the goal? How do you plan on capturing students' attention for feeling welcome on campus and being engaged with the local community here at EMU for eight-and-a-half weeks, rather than, as you said, before petering out maybe within the first few weeks?
Dr. Brendan Kelly: Yeah, that's a great question! And I like the fact that you said partnering with the community as well because that's a key piece. When you come to Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti should be part of your campus. In fact, I look at it and say Detroit and Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor all the way to the western line of Washtenaw County, that's our campus. It's all of the amenities, culture, and people that we have available to us as part of your Eastern Michigan experience. One of the key ingredients was partnering with student organizations. This is a student-driven initiative. And Nina Freeman, who is our president of student government, she was really the one on the front end of this planning that pushed that idea. And it was a welcome one, and one that was immediately implemented, and I think it's produced a set of better results than we would have otherwise had. Additionally, we are marking some very intentional things that are partnerships with Ypsilanti. On September 17th, for instance, we are going to host what I believe will become an annual tradition. We are going to shut down the street in Depot Town and host a block party for this community driven by EMU. And I will tell you, I was talking to a group of students the other day and they said, “Well, who's invited to the block party?” And I said, “It's a very choice guest list. It is all of the alumni that are alive, all of the members of the community, and every single student at Eastern Michigan.”
Ana Longoria: So, since you came in, this is going to be a lot of logistics to plot out all this new stuff, especially a block party at Depot Town, as you just said. How did the logistics process go in getting in touch with people to be like, “This is going to be a thing, and we would like your help to make this happen”?
Dr. Brendan Kelly: Everybody has the most valuable resource in the world, and that is time. And where you invest your time and effort will define what results and outcomes you produce. We had a number of people who have great talent in community engagement who leaned in with their time and effort to make certain that all of those logistics were put in place.And we enlivened partnerships, so it's not all us. For something like the block party, it's business owners and different organizations inside of Ypsilanti who are contributing to that. It's different components of the university that view that as an opportunity for different reasons, but all rooted in us coming together to create a richer sense of community. And I will tell you, across the rest of the Weeks of Welcome, it is the Division of Student Affairs that is driving most of that activity. The Division of Student Affairs partnered with the student organization and the students of Eastern Michigan University and having that as an organizational component of what we have to offer at Eastern Michigan is critical to us achieving outcomes like this.
Ana Longoria: If you’re just joining us, I’m Ana Longoria, and I’m with Eastern Michigan University’s President Brendan Kelly. Many schools are gearing up to welcome students to their campuses, and EMU is launching a new engagement strategy called “Weeks of Welcome” to help students get comfortable on campus. So, if I were a new student, or a student that's transferring from a place like WCC, what will I be experiencing for these eight-and-a-half weeks? When I arrive on campus, what happens, and then what follows for the next little around two months or so?
Dr. Brendan Kelly: You will see an enormous array of different types of experiences, all of which everybody is invited into. They are designed around the idea that every student is going to find their person and their people. Students have a wide variety of different interests. I mean, if I'm a student who is part of the EMU Marching Band, and that is an incredible organization to be part of, my core group is probably being drawn from Marching Band, and that's already started with Band Camp, which is just concluding. If I'm coming in the way I did with EMU Forensics, those were my people. That team became my social network and professional network and people who, still today, we share our lives with. If I'm part of a fraternity or sorority, those are my people. All of those are designed, though, to invite people into those organizations and groups and then bestow a sense of belonging onto them, right? And that's a key piece of what we're trying to accomplish at Eastern Michigan, because I believe very strongly it's in the DNA of this university. When you become a student at Eastern Michigan, you immediately become part of a community, part of a lineage of people, part of the group of people who are alumni of this organization that love this institution because they loved their experience here. And it is our duty to try to make certain that every student we're in service to looks back 20 or 30 years from now and reflects on it with nothing but positive feelings.
Ana Longoria: This seems like a change for EMU to enhance that new person experience and make the memories stick with them. So, I guess then, with that, on your end, what would be the measure of success for this first year of Weeks of Welcome?
Dr. Brendan Kelly: That's a great question. I love the fact that you're asking about the measure. And the measure for me, some of this is more qualitative than it is quantitative. Quantitatively: participation. The more people are participating in these activities, the more opportunity they have to build the types of networks and community that enriches our lives and certainly makes for a much higher quality and transformative university experience. But the second piece is qualitative. If you feel like you belong to something as a student at EMU, then we've achieved our job. If you feel like you're connected to people at this university, then we've done our job. If you feel like you are part of something that's larger than yourself and you have a sense of ownership over it, then we've done our job. And where we fall short, we'll go back at it in spring semester and introduce another set of experiences that are designed to do the same thing.Because in the world that we live in today, there is no more important thing than us to be relentless about engaging each other and building community amongst each other.
Ana Longoria: That is Eastern Michigan University’s President Brendan Kelly. We discussed what the college’s new student engagement strategy called Weeks of Welcome will be like for the many students arriving on campus this week. Thank you for joining us today, President Kelly!
Dr. Brendan Kelly: Of course! It's my pleasure!
Ana Longoria: I’m Ana Longoria at 89.1 WEMU News.
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