What's Next? Your First Year Experience at Allegheny

He picked outside.

Video.

Hey Katie.

How are you?

Hello.

Can you hear me?

I can hear you, yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. I can see you, um, I'm here the whole time for you, but I'm really your you know, tech support slate side of things.

And so you'll post the questions in the chat for us. Is that right?

OK.

That's me, I'm also right now controlling the slides, but I think you should be able to take that over if you'd like to.

Uhm, OK uhm yeah. I let me just try that.

Sure, Absolutely.

OK, so.

Control slides OK. Alright, so I can do that and then I'll just let you know that 'cause I know when to advance it for him. So I'll let him know.

That way we don't have to say next to you and.

Sorry, ever since the Windstorm. Yesterday My Internet spend a little worse which.

Oh yeah.

The work from home, so just trying to figure out how it can work best on my end is just a fun new IT.

Yeah, uh.

Ha yeah, little world how?

Only days after I know, I know, but.

How are you holding up?

I'm doing OK. Yeah, you know better than many. But yeah, we'll just it's this week is really starting to wear thin, you know?

That's fair, you know it's.

I can't really complain because as you said, I'm doing much better than many, but like it's it's definitely still a lot so.

Yeah, yeah.

But here we are. Uhm, an you guys are familiar with this tag. So yes, I'm just here to do. You want questions as they kind of come up and they pertain to what you're saying? Or do you want questions at the end?

All, I think we mostly took him at the end is Ari in last time.

Yes, we did. You hear me?

Yes.

OK.

Yeah, I think I think.

And so I've got. I've got control of the slides this time. Even so, I'll be able to advance AM.

OK.

If you have any troubles, I'm right here.

I think Jake, I think.

Jason last time I forget, but he kind of dribbled the question being overblown.

All right, uhm, it looks like.

Here can tell.

I'm here, I can see me. Can you not see me?

No.

100

Hi.

And here, uhm. And then just so you guys know, there are actually almost 60 people registered for this too. I know this is your second session, so getting 160 kids feels pretty great total. So Yeah. Alright so I'm that I'm going to turn my video of-. I can still hear you guys, so I'll be here the whole time if anything comes up, just give a shout and I'm right here, any questions will come through at the end.

Thanks, Katie.

Given that this was going to be recorded, I took down the cat food that was in love. You it's it's all their stuff is now dumped on the desk out of the room.

Brianna

Yeah I can. I can downstairs for this one because my office upstairs is the girls former playroom, so it's kind of creepy. It's got creepy. China dolls is stuff in it, so this is a cleaner look.

Now it's been really. It's been really kind of weird watching other peoples lives. In fact, one of the things I saw talking about.

Zoom Zoom's ability to actually have fake backgrounds.

Oh yeah, yeah.

They were saying that, particularly depending on you know, some students don't live in the best of circumstances and everybody being able to see what their conditions like.

Cool.

Yeah.

Oh dear.

So my my friend like Madison at at Wynberg. He did this in the sun set up this thing where his son like did a tick tock or he was walking in the background while his dad was teaching and apparently it got so many shares that it ended up on like a ABC News affiliate. So that was pretty funny.

So, but that's it. It's so Mike, my friend Mike. He's such a He's such a card. And so it didn't surprise me that his son and his son set that up as a joke.

So I will try this time to actually turn off the video.

Turning on anything.

Yeah, it took me a couple tries last time to to figure that out, but turning off broadcast video just takes you all the way out instead of just turning off.

OK.

Yeah, I think I think your microphone is rubbing against. I'm getting a lot of noise in the microphone rubbing against something.

OK, is that better? I'll hold it out.

OK.

Yeah, I was it rubbing against your trip.

It's probably running. Is my shirt, yeah?

And I can't hear it on this end, so I'm glad you told me that things.

And we just need.

I don't have. I don't have a wireless.

Huh?

Well, so here's the thing, that wireless headset doesn't work with zoom, and it won't work with this, so it only works with Google meet. I don't know why.

Is it a Google product?

Huh?

No. Hello, it's uh, uh, I don't know who it is, actually.

Oh, that's weird.

No idea, but just for some reason it works with Google Meetin. It's connected to the computer, but it won't work on here and I've never been able to get it to work on zoom.

Huh?

That's a good idea.

So when I do these, I just sit here and talk. That's why we brought some of the noise machines from the office, and so Brianna machines outside our door.

That's a good idea, yeah?

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

No, it's a pretty decent. I mean, you know we're very fortunate, right? We've got this. They have separate rooms, both employed, healthy, etc. Except I can't complain. We just did. In fact, I'll probably mention it without mentioning names. I just did a really great senior project. Do you know Robin laurentic?

Yeah, I well so I don't think you're supposed to share this with her, but she's up for the Senior Project Prize in English and I'm on that committee. So I'm actually reading her project.

Right?

So I'm Eileen Eileen had told me that she had been nominated. We didn't discuss this in front of the student, but I told me that she had been nominated. I mean, I thought it was a really fine senior project. To be honest. I mean, we just did the oral and cheese.

Yeah.

I basically abandoned that student. She is got nothing from him. Seriously, I'm not joking. She got nothing for me out of the last month. But I had read all she's given me up until about spring break, but no, it she did a really fine job.

Do you actually have a committee? We just sit around and lobby each other.

Oh, really, yeah. So we we have a committee that reads the ones that are up for consideration so.

We are going to fail with this year.

Oh yeah.

Um, unfortunately.

Yeah.

Not one of mine, but I've got to this.

Because Alisa and Angela we're both on sabbatical one in the fall and one in the spring. I picked up senior projects that I wouldn't otherwise. We're done.

Right, yeah?

They both probably would've been illicitly ever listen was here.

Yeah.

Yep.

Well, we've got like 2 minutes.

And so you said you have control of the slides.

I can.

I have control aside so I should so you can see him advancing OK, alright.

And I can see all of the slides, but I'm assuming that the other people can just see the one.

Yeah, I don't know how this works.

Yeah, I'm assuming that once it goes into the present view, I don't know. I'm sure I'm sure Katie's got control of it.

I heard Katie.

Why is my phone? Is my phone off?

What I've also discovered on these calls, as if you got your phone on vibrate, everybody can hear it.

Oh yeah.

How's your chair cushion home out?

So.

I got a purple I it's it's so I bought one of those purple chair cushions. Its great shame yesterday.

What's a purple chair cushion?

Oh, OK.

The brand purple is, uh.

Oh

They make up and now I'm getting advertisements on Facebook for purple everything, but I bought. It's one of those kind of waffle. It's plastic, but it's kind of one of the waffle type things that, so far so good, it's extremely comfortable.

You know it supposed to conform, but without without deforming.

Well here we go.

So welcome to the participants that are joining us. I'm going to let it go for a second or two to allow everybody who wants to participate in order to join the Web Conference. I see the numbers are going up ever so slightly.

Well, it seems like we're holding stable, so let me welcome you to what's next. Your first year at Allegany College, one in a series of admissions webinars. My name is in Bennington. I was Once Upon a time a professor in the history Department before I went into academic administration. I'm now deena curriculum in college registrar, and I will allow my partner Doctor Alexis, hard to introduce yourself.

Welcome everyone, thanks for joining us this afternoon. My name is Doctor Lexus Heart. I'm a faculty member in the English Department. I'm the director of writing for the college and I'm here today in my role as the director. At first year experience for the college. So welcome and will get started.

So I'm going to talk for a little bit about kind of an overview of the curriculum and what comes next, and then doctor heart is going to talk a little bit about Allegany bound and the summer orientation welcome type activities. This year is a year. Not like other years. Normally we'd be standing in front of you in a room in the campus center instead. I'm upstairs in my house.

Uhm, you know when you are in your locations. I hope that you are all safe and well and we are so delighted that you guys are thinking about Allegany College. We think Allegany College is a special and wonderful place and we hope that you are going to think the same thing by the time your admissions process is over. So I want to talk a little bit about our curriculum, not in terms of selling it to you, but in terms of describing to you the kind of special elements of an Allegany curriculum.

This is something that we've developed over the course of several decades and we are. We are very, very proud of. We have very, very good results in very very good outcomes. Our curriculum is scaffold it from Day 12.

The last day from the first day of your first year to the last day of your senior year, our seniors right now are in the process of defending their senior comprehensive projects. So every single student at Allegany College writes a senior project. As you may or may not know, those are things that most colleges are reserved for. Honor students. But at Allegany, every single student writes a senior project. In fact, I participated in a senior project or this afternoon with a student who is a double major in history and.

English and it was. It was let me tell you, it was a fine fine project and the reason I bring that up is because when that student set foot on Alleghenys campus four years ago, as bright and as talented and hardworking, is that student is they were not ready. She was not ready in order to write a senior project. Nobody expects the first semester student on their first day is going to be ready to write a senior project. It should feel like a daunting experience. It should feel like an experience. It's going to stretch you, but the curriculum is designed from day one to the last day.

In order to get you to that point, we have a a scaffold of classes from your from your first semester to your last week. All these are FS classes are first year, second year, first year sophomore seminars. You'll take two of them in the first year in order to get you ready. One in your first semester, one in your second. Those introduce you to writing, speaking, listening, critical thinking into the college experience as a point of distinction for Allegany that.

We concentrate on speaking across the curriculum. Many campuses, colleges and universities have writing across the curriculum programs. There is a well established the very good. We have a writing across the curriculum program, but we also integrate speaking into our curriculum from Day One. And that's a really important skill. Frankly, I wish it something that I had more access to in my undergraduate education in your second year. You'll take a sophomore seminar in your major or minor discipline and FS two or one in your third year. Typical it, you'll take a junior seminar also in your major discipline, sometimes in your minor.

And all of those things will prepare you for your senior project, which most students right in the second semester of their senior years or most of our students are either handing in an getting ready to defend or frantically finishing their senior projects. You will have heard me say a couple of times, major and minor. That's another thing that distinguishes in Allegany curriculum we.

As many campuses do require you to declare a major, but many campuses ask you to declare reminder that don't require that you declare a minor, and there's a very good there's a very good reason for us doing that. It provides a sense of breath and a sense of depth. It provides you with a competitive advantage, as you probably know, we have very high placement rates. For example, in the medical school, in to graduate and professional schools. But a student going into medical school with a biology major isn't particularly distinguished. There are lots of schools going Dominican. There are lots of students going to medical school with a biology major.

But our students are going to medical school with a biology major in a Spanish minor or an English minor or global health studies minor on economics minor. They've stretched themselves in some way, and if they if they, if they really fulfilled the promise of the education, then they've integrated those other concepts in some way, shape or form into their into their studies. We require that students stretched themselves across multiple disciplines across multiple ways of thinking, multiple modes of learning we don't allow you to concentrate purely in the natural Sciences.

Or in the humanities or in the social Sciences, we require you to stretch yourself outside of that, because our long experience in history of doing this decades of doing this in the in the contemporary model suggests to us that our students have a significant competitive advantage when it comes to the other end of their education, and you'll see on this chart, for example, that shows you are graduate 6 to 8 months out, the percentage of them that are employed or in Graduate School are in some sort of service. The biggest blue section there are the students that are employed.

We're also very proud, though of our students history of service in many, many different ways and a lot of students find ways to incorporate that into their studies. Whether or not it's through a community and Justice Studies major or minor, or global health studies, major or minor, or whether it's simply participating in service Saturday or some other service opportunity, we are nationally ranked, I believe, for the number of hours that our students put into service. We have extensive connections in the local community in our students, do amazing do amazing work.

All of these things are setting you up for what you're going to do after college and if we think about what some of the most in demand skills are as employers are telling us things like creativity and persuasion and collaboration and adaptability in emotional intelligence and I would ask you to think about this current moment how many of us could have imagined that we would be asked to do our jobs from our living rooms from our bedrooms from our attics from our basements.

From our couches, from various environments in which we're all doing it, we have adapted. We have been creative. We have found creative ways in order to deliver our curriculum. We have adapted to the circumstances in which we face ourselves, and I think that are excuse me. I think that our students have demonstrated the same level of creativity and adaptability in order to be able to continue their classes in a remote setting. This, in short, is what a liberal arts education does for you. The other thing that is very powerfully come home to me in the past month.

As our students have attempted to take classes remotely, is this just the power? The significance of a small liberal arts College of a residential college?

Right, the residential piece of liberal arts colleges. Supremely important. The ability for students to motivate each other to work together, to have a sense of community. To have their residential and their academic curriculums correspond with each other to build on each other. To find fellowship and companionship, and friendship. And networking with people who may very well end up being friends for the rest of their lives.

It is come home to be very powerfully in the past month as we have sent students. We all in American higher education sent students elsewhere that the power that comes from having those students live together with us on campus and we are very much looking forward in the future to a circumstance in which the residences reopen in which students return to campus at such point at which it is safe to do.

We have committed ourselves to community. We have committed ourselves to safety. We have committed ourselves to respect. We have committed ourselves to treating each other in a respectful and a positive manner that can be hard. That's not necessarily easy. It requires us to listen. It requires us to think. It requires us to imagine what other people are thinking and feeling who are not ourselves, and those can be difficult skills. But those are exactly the sorts of skills.

At a small liberal arts curriculum that in Allegany curriculum is going to give you my own example, I'm going to story and I think I mentioned at the top of the call my entire professional career and what I am teaching to students on any given day in the classroom is precisely about being able to understand the point of view of people who aren't them and people who are alien to them in time and place it is it is a significant skill and it's one that you're going to use every day for the rest of your lives.

The final point that I want to make before I turn this over to doctor Hart is the kind of personal approach the personal approach to teaching and advising there are many virtues, too many different types of colleges and universities. One of the principle virtues of a small liberal arts college like Allegheny is the personalized attention you get in the classroom, and the personalized attention you get in the environment of advising. With the exception of some of our introductory classes where sometimes lab sections, for example, may be combined into one room for a lecture.

All of our classes are small. They are usually under 20 students. As you get on in your Allegany career, they will probably get smaller or junior. Seminars are usually 12 to 15 and all of our faculty are individuals with terminal degrees in their fields. Research and teach who take the idea of being a teacher scholar incredibly seriously.

At the same time, though, we realize that it's not just about teaching right. What goes on in the classroom is a significant part of your education, but it is only a part of your education. What goes on in the playing field, what goes on in the residence Hall, what goes on in the in the Allegheny Gateway? What goes on in the learning Commons? What goes on over pizza or coffee? At some point during the day, those are really significant.

Places for your personal growth and development, and it's our job to try to connect you with those sorts of opportunities we have so many different types of opportunities in study away. An undergraduate research for which we are nationally ranked intern ships service opportunities. As I've already talked about it and we don't expect you coming in on day one to be able to know what all of those things are. I hope you've taken the opportunity or you will take the opportunity to participate in one of our webinars given by the Allegheny Gateway, which is the place that connects.

All of those things together, because there are lots of wonderful opportunities there in the gateway for you to explore.

So I hope that I've given you a flavor of what in Allegany curriculum in Allegany experience in Allegany, first year would look like. Will be happy to answer questions at the end if you got them, but otherwise I will turn things over for a minute to Doctor Heart.

Thank you doctor Bennington so we really like to think of your first year beginning at the time you deposit. So for those who you have made the decision to deposit and to join us in at Alleghanian fall. Thank you and we're looking forward to seeing you and hopefully for those of you who are still in the process of deciding you'll get some of your questions answered today. So first year begins at deposit, extends through the summer an into the academic year and you should if you.

Deposited you should have already received your booklet and some of your stickers were really excited about the stickers this year. Kind of a Pokémon. Collect them all, so hopefully you'll join with us in that fun. The booklet contains a lot of the forms that you'll need to fill out medical forms forms that help us to set up your accounts and things and all of that information is also on the Allegany bound website.

If you've been to the Allegan bound website recently, or you registered for an orientation, or you've received deposit letter in the last week, you will have come to the realization. Probably not a surprise that due to the recommendations of health professionals, Ann are governing bodies. We, like many, many campuses, camps. Other venues are suspending our in person summer programs so regrettably.

Are Allegany bound? Summer experience will be a virtual remote experience rather than an in person experience but were busily working away at thinking of ways to keep you engaged. Make sure you get the information you need. Make sure you get the personal attention and help you and your families need to complete forms to answer questions about housing. To answer questions about health and safety Wellness.

The kinds of interactions that we would have had on campus are not going to be.

Cool, but I hope they will be in many ways equitable in terms of getting you the attention and connections to not only faculty, staff and student leaders, but also to each other as the class of 2024. So as I said, we're in the process of figuring that out, and we hope to have the website updated very soon with what the summer programming will look like in its virtual form. But in the meantime, the forms you need to fill out the information you need.

Regarding housing the information you need regarding getting ready for registration, that's all available on the website.

Following the Allegany bound summer orientation, there will be a chance in mid July, July 13th, through the 24th for students to do their first year course registration, so that happens over the phone. You'll get a call from one of our first year course registration Advisors and hopefully through the Allegany bound process. You will have had a chance to get more familiar with the curriculum. You have been able to spend some time looking at our course catalog.

And typically a first semester first year student will take 4 four credit classes, so 16 credits. Sometimes students will take a music performance class or another two credit class or one credit class In addition to their. For standard classes. Sometimes folks will find that they may be ready to take more than four standard for four credit classes, so you'll work all that out with your first year course registration advisor.

They will be looking for things like the placement test for math and for for your languages they will hopefully you have completed those again we understand that with standardized testing's and things for our graduating high school seniors that process is going to be different than it has been in other years but we again will work through that so you'll sit through the call with your first year course registration advisor so that when you do start classes in the fall that's all settled you'll know exactly what your courses are.

And you won't have to worry about trying to figure that out as you begin the semester.

We also have a common read program as part of our first year experience are common. Reed is administered by our office of institutional diversity and it really is designed to.

Cultivate and understanding not only of those qualities of the spine of our curriculum, the reading, writing, listening, critical thinking.

But also thinking together in community thinking about what it means to be a member of a shared community community in which we live together, in which we learn together in which we teach each other and we really are committed to that diversity, equity, inclusion piece. So the common Reed is designed to get students.

Thinking about that, we have faculty and staff reading group, so faculty and staff across campus are familiar with this text. This is a text that we used last year and we are decided to use it again this year. It's a collection of short pieces from nonfiction to fiction to poetry, to some graphic novel inserts. So it's a really great peace. And if you were here, if you were one of the fortunate ones who was able to be here for one of the admitted student days and unit deposited, you've already got your copy, but will be mailing these out to an R.

Director of institutional diversity are Dean of institutional diversity. Doctor Dukes will be sharing with you some questions to some guiding questions and there will be engagement with the common read beginning in August.

We very much hope to welcome you back to campus and get you moved into the residential community. When we are able to safely do that. It's a lot of fun. Welcome weekend, lots of fun activities. The president goes around and meets families and students. We help you move in, you get a chance again to do some community building as a class. Take your class picture so it's just really a lot of fun.

As a as a welcome and because of the current situation, we really imagine that welcome weekend will be very much still about our new students, but also about welcoming back. Our continuing students will all be so grateful to be back together in community.

Matriculation is a ceremony that is the bookend to graduation and commencement. Matriculation is the time in which the president welcomes you as a class. Together you process into the auditorium as a class, just as you'll process together as a class. At graduation, you'll get to give the honor code pledge together as a class, and it's just a really nice formal ceremony.

To welcome the new class, and as I said, it's book ended at the at the end of your career at Allegany. With commencement so, so that's a really special time.

And it's the official kickoff to your academic career at Allegany.

As I said, the first year experience continues beyond welcome weekend an movin. We've got all sorts of things that happen during your first year from your FS course, which is the chance that's kind of your group that you will see multiple times a week. Your first year course.

Professor is also your first year advisor, so you'll be doing both introduction to college, thinking about the adjustments to college with that group, as well as beginning to settle into your work as a student. We have amazing activities fair, so many student activities, groups so many clubs and organizations from the League about gaining gamers to the equestrian club to the Chess Club, to the clay club. You will find that there are your people here.

That that there are people who think like you like to do the kinds of things you do if you want to be part of Dumbledore's army and play quidditch with brooms and Whatnot. We have a club for that, so, so get a chance to get engaged in the clubs and organizations through the activities. Fair, we have multiple, both NCAA and team sports that are available to participate in and to cheer the teams on. We have something in the fall. We called Gator Day, which is a day without.

Classes it's a day with when you get to do open houses, you get to go visit the various departments to find out more about each of the departments. As you're starting to contemplate your major and minor, we bring a lot of alumni to campus. On Gator days you get a chance to find out what they're doing with their Allegany degrees and how they propel themselves into the world beyond Allegany. It's a chance for you to get some more engagement with the gateway where that's undergraduate research or this Inter for political participation.

This is an election year, so there's lots of lots of things in the fall that are going to be focused on voting and Whatnot.

So again, we really have more chances to talk about the common read and engage in events, activities, both academic and Social. Curricular Co curricular extracurricular. So we just really look forward to you all being here and with that will move into questions and answers.

Well, I'm not seeing any questions at this time, although we can. Oh here we go.

Offensive club

Is there anything? I think so.

I think that.

If there's not, you can start one.

I I, I'm certain I've seen fencing equipment in the White Center. I know we have a couple of faculty that participate in in in in in fencing.

Uhm, the first day of the semester.

Is.

Question see how quickly can I find it? Is it is it is it is on our academic calendar which you can always find if you go to website. But let's have a look at.

Four 2020 so, um?

Moving weekend currently scheduled for the weekend of August 22nd. Uhm, and uh, the first day of classes is currently scheduled for Tuesday, August 25th.

So question about English comp one is part of dual enrollment. Will you still have to take? Yes? Actually because our FS courses as I mentioned and as documenting to mention, our FS courses are writing and speaking intensive there. Also the FS 101 adviser breakfast one professor is your academic advisor and again we're building in that FS 101 course. We're building and preparing you for your your seminar in your senior project.

So you will likely get credit. The registrar can speak to that. You likely get credit, but for the dual enrollment course, but you will still need to enroll in FS101.

So what type of support programs do you offer if I'm going down the list we have, as you can imagine, based on what I said about this being a residential liberal arts college, we have a number of different programs depend on various.

Student needs we have a learning Commons academic support center that provides professional assistance from our staff with time management. With scheduling with a whole host of other activities, they run our access Allegany program are navigators program. They also participate along with doctor Hart and the director of college speaking without writing and speaking consultants. They run some of our tutoring programs and they offer some college success type classes. We have an office of student disability services for those students that.

Receive accommodations through that office. We have a students of concern team and we have a variety of different religious and spiritual life support opportunities. Athletics is a significant support for those students, so it really does. It really depends on where in the ecosystem a student is entering. There are numerous different support systems and it just depends on what the students particular interests and needs would be.

Yes.

Yeah, and I would just echo. We also have a counseling personal development center. We have a Health Center on campus again were residential college so the residence life staff your are a another residential life professionals are there to support you. We have an inclusion diversity, equity, access and social justice are ideacentre. So that's our diversity organization that offers support. So lots of different support.

Um?

Caitlyn asks how do you request roommate so there will be a form that comes out if you go to the Allegany bound website, you'll see that there is information about that. I think it needs to be completed sometime in July. We know that you all will connect with each other through social media and things like that. You may find someone who you decide that you would like to request to be your roommate, but all first year students do typically live with a roommate. Again, we think it's important for you to learn to.

Liv and communicate and.

And negotiate life with people beyond your comfort zone, so we do have our first year residence halls. Most of the rooms are double rooms, so but you also in the formula so fill out things like are you a morning person in do you like things neat or not so neat? Do you like to listen to music while you study your so the residence life team has a really great way of looking at the forms that our students admit and then pairing the.

Students with their roommates. So there really really skillful in that process.

And this this relates also to caseys question a little bit further down the list. Students can also select their own roommates. This this happens pretty frequently during the orientation process, students get to know each other, and we've had plenty of times that students who have met met in students have never met each other. But who made it orientation ended up as being roommates, so there certainly is a fair amount of flexibility in the system, so Jack asks, what is Meadville like?

But right now it's pretty quiet.

Um, which hopefully is, is true for many of your hometowns. Meadville, in many ways, is the best of multiple worlds. It is a relatively small community, about 15,000 people, but it's centrally located on a major freeway system and it's within easy driving distance. A couple of hours of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo. So easy access to the cultural events and shopping and other things of larger cities, but with the advantages of a smaller town, and I think, as I said before.

Many of our students find some level of service. They find some level of home. They find some level of commitment in Meadville and we have where there are a number of students. In fact, two of them live just a couple of 100 yards from me. There are students who come to Meadville for college and never leave. That is, that is not unheard of. It's certainly not the typical. It's not the usual, but there are students who come to me will never leave so.

Absolutely.

Well, he's retired now, but one of the biggest employers in town. Actually, he and his wife, Allegany alarms, went off into the world and came back. So there is certainly a lot of that that's going on. The anchor asks about dates changing due to the pandemic.

Art city manager is a Allegany Alumni, one of our one of our council members on City Council. The Allegany graduate.

We have no plans at this point to change our semester dates. I would be lying to you an any college or university at this point in time would be lying to you if they told you that they knew for certain what's going to happen in August. We don't, but we anticipate instruction continuing in August as scheduled, we saw the news today. I think Boston University is talking about major revisions to their fall calendar. We are not currently contemplating that, but I do want to be honest with you. I don't know what's going to happen over the summer.

But we are anticipating we are expecting we are planning for classes to start in August as they were scheduled to do. You will have seen as doctor hard already said that we have taken the decision to move our orientations online and that was mostly because of the lockdown orders. But also because we thought it wasn't fair to have some orientations virtually in some in person. So because we had to make the decision to make the first one virtual, we took the decision to make all of the virtual.

And I think a lot of colleges and universities are moving in that direction. Health and safety, preservation of life. That is our paramount responsibility right now. And we we will follow as doctor Hart said at the top of the call, we will follow the advice of health professionals in the governor, whatever that may be.

So you want to take the major minor declaration question.

Sure, from Catherine, when are you required to announce your major and minor so when you are required is generally for most students around about there 4th semester. Some do it earlier, some do it later, but that's the. That's the sweet spot for most students. We do not encourage students to come with a pre declared major and we do that for a couple of very very good reasons.

We know because we've done this for a number of years, that, with the best of intentions, alot of students are going to change their minds.

They're going to change their minds because they come across classes, professors, experiences that they didn't know they were going to come across, or because the experiences that they want. It didn't turn out the way that they thought they would, and so most of our students, once they've declared a major and minor, don't change their minds, they can. There's certainly nothing that stops you from changing your mind, but we want you to be sure and have those relationships built up in advance before you declare that major, so you can declare a major as early as the end of your first semester. That's very rare. Most students are declaring their major sometime in the second year, and if.

We are requiring them to declare their major in most cases by the end of their fourth semester.

Placement test, so again information about placement test is on the alligator website and they will be available at different times, but I think starting mid may will be they'll you'll begin to see some information about being able to take the placement exams, so math placement we recommend that everyone take the math placement even if you're not completely certain that you're going to.

Pursue a course of study that requires math placement. Similarly, the foreign languages placement exam, it's if you've had a foreign language, even if they're not certain, you're going to continue to pursue it. It's worth going ahead and taking, and again you can. That will also help.

With your conversations with your first year course registration advisors, so yeah, about mid may you'll start to see more information about that and that's all going to be done electronically.

So Sidney asks the question about sports and classes working together. Are there many conflicts with the two we so I can't say enough good things about the positive working relationships that I have and that many folks on the academic side of the house have with the coaches. They are amazing partners for us in student support and in the sort of advising relationships that I talked about earlier. Are there conflicts sometimes? Can they be negotiated always?

Uhm, you know if if you're if you're a player on a sport that generally has Tuesday afternoon games, and those are those every week.

I'll take a Tuesday afternoon class, but we do our level best to work around those. This is a Division Three school, as you know. So athletics takes 1st place, but we understand the central importance of the athletic experience to those students who are student athletes. And so we work very hard with the coaches and with the faculty athletic representative to minimize the conflicts. We have protected time for student practices both early in the morning and later in the afternoon when we try very hard not to hold classes.

To give students multiple opportunities, the reality is that the more commitments are student has and this is actually true for any sort of club or organization. The more commitments the student has, the more conflicts they have to workout. This is true for all of us, but we do our level best to not put students in a situation of having to make conflict make terrible choices between the sport that they love in the classes that they need, that that's that's not what we're about.

So Caroline asked, how do you work with students who might not have the best confidence when presenting again? We as doctor Benton said earlier, we're really proud of the work we do with our students with regard to speaking across the curriculum. An oral presentation, but we also recognize that oral presentation is one of the things that many, many, many people fear even more than many, many things, spiders, snakes, whatever. So In addition to having.

Uh, speaking enriched curriculum so you saw you'll be doing speaking intensive courses every year while you're at Allegany. We also have the student support we have peer speaking consultants in our learning comments. You can go see if you're speaking consultant as soon as you start to imagine your presentation, you're doing an outline. You can go and practice with them. They will fill me in so you can watch yourself so you can go. We always say it come early, come off and for those who who lack a little confidence or need a little extra practice.

And also your professors. Your professors will work with you.

You to get you to a point where you're feeling more confident we hope.

So Sammy asks about majors, double minors and the number of classes that first year student should expect in their first semester. So one of the things I didn't talk about early in the call, but I think it is really, really important is the transition between high school and college.

College for many students tends to be a lot less structured than high school was. You are not under the view of your parents anymore. The way that you were in high school. You may or may not I don't know how independent you are in your last couple of years. There's a spectrum, but this is transition. There's a social. There's an academic transition, so our recommendation is that for most students, his doctor heart mentioned earlier in this web. And are you take 16 to 18 credits are classes a four credits each, so that would be.

2 or 4 credits in most cases, so that would be 4 four credit classes and perhaps a music ensemble dance class independent study. Something of that nature. My advice to my first year students is demonstrate to me that you can be successful in 16 credits and then we can talk about more. It is entirely possible to do a major and a double minor or a double major in the space of four years. Students do it all the time. It does require a little bit of extra planning in some cases, and that's true of a lot of the good stuff. This question later on.

About study abroad programs, for example or internships or undergraduate research. All of those things require a little bit of extra planning, but they absolutely pay off. There is no wrong class that you can take in your first semester. That is absolutely the message that we give to students during 1st year course registration. There is nothing you can do in terms of taking classes that is wrong in your first semester, right? We generally recommend the students that obviously they have to take this isn't a recommendation. They have to take their FS 101. We absolutely do.

Require that you take any other class other than those specific majors. Have specific requirements if you're going into the natural Sciences, you're probably going to be taking mathematics and chemistry, which is a requirement for those disciplines. But we are, we do not require that you take specific classes in your first year, but it is not that hard at all to pick up a major in two minors or even two majors. Some of them worked very, very well together, others of them it can be more complicated in terms of numbers of credits, but absolutely possible.

That's a conversation to have with your first year course registration advisor and then your FS advisor very early on to get you connected with those departments to get you connected with other people who can help you. But absolutely, as I said, I was doing senior project today with a student who is a history English double. There is zero overlap between those two disciplines. There isn't a single credit accounts for both of them. That student managed it without any difficulty. So I mean, I think it's perfectly possible.

Yeah, I also have a an advisor who is a English history double major and she actually did two separate comps an in her last semester classes. She's taking yoga and a martial arts class In addition to her English comp and a political science class. So and she did not excessively overload or I don't even think she overloaded in any semester, although she did do an experience again. Experiential learning and some and some music ensembles. So she picked up some.

Extra credits there, but yeah, very possible placement test again if you look at the.

Allegany bound website. We've got a math placement and math placement exam. Foreign languages chemistry doesn't have placement, but they want you to take the math placement exam and then there's a music music diagnostic. So those are the placement exams. To answer Bernards Question, Annalise asks about fraternities and sororities. Neither Doctor Bennington Nora are experts in this. We do have sororities and fraternities on campus.

Check.

It's a significant problem.

Our our fraternity sorority life population is maybe 30% of our student body are engaged in a fraternity, sorority life.

Yeah.

But I wonder if we should leave that for the student life panel so that we don't. We don't misinform.

Yeah.

So, uh, Adela asks about support for study abroad programs. So our international education office is amazing and we have found out just how amazing in the past month as they have worked tirelessly with both are international students and students who were studying abroad to help them make the right choices about their programs. You can integrate, study away, study abroad into every single major and minor combination that we have.

You can integrate it with sports. You can integrate it with any sort of activity. There are always choices to be made. You know if you do X, you can't necessarily always do Y, but you could integrate study away into absolutely every single program that we have. We have a rich number of study away partnerships in Australia in England, in Senegal, in Ecuador, in Spain and France and Germany in a number of other places that I'm not remembering right now. We have a number.

Good number students to go abroad every semester and students who come here on exchange and we have a good population of international students. That is also something to be thinking about and planning for early on.

The other thing that you might wish to consider if you're thinking that a whole semester away is not necessarily in your future and it isn't for everybody. But if you're thinking about the benefits of international education, we do have in the early months of the summer, right after commencement every year. So in the last three weeks of May into the first week of June, a series of travel seminars. This year, I'm afraid none of them are going this year. But this year they would have gone to Vietnam. They would have gone to Germany. They would have gone to France and Norway. They would have gone to a number of other locations and those.

Off groups of probably 10 to 20 students with a couple of faculty members and they're intensive travel seminars. They wonderful experiences there, greatly enriching experiences, and it's a way for a student who doesn't necessarily want for a variety of reasons to study away for an entire semester to get an international education. We also have a series of international internships in Moldova in India, so there are lots and lots of opportunities for students who want to study away.

And we are increasingly offering experience experiential learning classes in other academic breaks. So we had one during winter break this year. We've had some in during spring breaks in the past couple years, so so those are opportunities as well.

So uh I'm seeing Connors question about relating and connecting major and minor yes that's part of our that's part of our interdisciplinary and.

Experience. That's why we require you to have a major or minor and just start to think about how they inform each other. An connect to each other. So we we absolutely hope that you are engaged in that process and our curriculum is built to help you think about how the things you're learning, whether you're a dance minor, Anna biology major, how those things connect in terms of Health and Wellness, or you're an economics major with the communications minor.

And you're thinking about how the how to communicate numbers and use marketing and so yes we very much expect you to connect the understanding and ways of learning in your major and minor.

So Sarah or Sasha ask some study abroad programs happen in the junior the full semester study abroad programs do typically take place in in the in the junior year, but those experiential learning seminars that happen in the brakes, the academic, your brakes, those you can do as early as a first year student. So so those are shorter.

In length, but and may not be worth as many credits, but those happen throughout the academic gear.

Thank you everyone.

That will be my role.