001okay good afternoon everyone i am kelly larschevec and i'm one of the school counselors here at arhs this panel is on diversity on campus ways to dig deep into the student experience on campus i'm going to let folks introduce themselves and i will leave the screen in just a moment i'll be moderating comments and if you have questions please don't hesitate to ask them we very much welcome you know a dialogue here all right thank you so much and thank you to the panelists for all being here we're really happy to see you all and actually um i'm gonna let whoever would like to go first um kind of jump in and introduce themselves and you can just go right through each one of you all right well i'm happy to get us started hi
002everyone welcome to our session my name is nikki chambers my pronouns are she and hers i am associate director of admission and coordinator of multicultural recruitment at smith college hi everyone my name's holly kiel i'm associate director of admissions at bennington college in vermont my pronouns are she hers and they theirs um i'm really excited to be here with you all hi everyone my name is uria and i'm an assistant director of admission at mount holyoke college as well as the coordinator for multicultural recruitment i used she and her and i'm very excited with you all this afternoon hi everyone good afternoon my name is elia mercer i'm one of the admissions counselors here at westfield state university a little fun fact i actually am an alum of westfield with the class of 2017 and
003i'm very happy to talk about it hi everyone i'm melissa tomkiewicz i'm an admission counselor at mcla mass college of liberal arts my pronouns are she her and i'm really excited to to join you all today welcome to everyone so each each panelist will give a short kind of discussion or a short description of things that they feel are important to know to start the conversation um once we do that then we will also open up to some questions okay um so i'm happy to get us started um so diversity at smith um we um really approach the conversation from thinking about diversity in all of its aspects as being kind of really necessary to the educational experience um we firmly believe that without having people from varying backgrounds and identities that no one can
004be in their optimal space for learning so i think it's that ethos that really drives um what we do while also trying to make sure we amplify marginalized voices um so starting with um i like to start by kind of talking about how students acclimate to campus um and so for students of color we have a bridge program which is our pre-orientation program for students of color um that's application based but fun fact everybody who applies gets in um and there are opportunities for students to really build community before we get before the rest of the students come on campus so we have opportunities for students to find mentors and friends and supports on campus and the student leader to student ratio was about um one to five so it's really just building small community
005um before you get to campus and really dive into the orientation experience on campus um i think that our bridge program really provides students with just this life um with this four years long appreciation for the things that we do um and for students to be able to build communities so students meet um students at bridge and we'll have those friends for all four years um for campus life something else we have on campus for our students is affinity housing so there are two houses on campus for students who want to opt into that um we have a house called park annex and park annex is for students of color um and then parsons annex which is for students who are black identifying both of those housing options are optional um and they are available
006to students who want to have the community of being surrounded in a living space with students who look like them and they identify with them racially we also have 11 cultural organizations we have um the asian students organization black students alliance the chinese students organization the south asian student organization indigenous students and allies organization international students organization um the korean students organization the latin american students organization the multi-ethnic interracial group at smith college um the south africa smith african and caribbean students organization and the vietnamese student organization and the reason i list all 11 of those organizations is because all 11 organizations come together under one umbrella called the unity orgs and our unity orgs are really created to um have each organization really have support systems in place so that they can put on
007programming and um and hold cultural space on campus we have uh two cultural physical spaces on campus we have our unity house which is really the hub for all of those student organizations that i just mentioned um and we also have the miwanki cultural center which was named after the first female physician in kenya in kenya dr moenke who's class of 1963. um the muwenki center was renovated in 2017 so it is a very new looking space we have a state-of-the-art kitchen we have spaces where students can really find community and build safe space on campus if there's they want to go relax with their friends or cook a meal with their friends or stay someplace and study late um the cultural center is open until midnight and it's really just the place that provides
008holistic programming um anywhere from you know support as you navigate an academic um space to learning how to wrap your hair um so it's a really affirming and beautiful community space on campus that we have for students um i think that was a smith as its identity as a women's college one of the biggest misconceptions that students have is that there isn't diversity on campus um because everybody might hold similar gender identities but i think that nothing could be further from the truth so that students come from 47 different states over 50 different countries about a third of our students identify as domestic students of color about 14 percent of our students identify as international students and eighteen percent of our students will be the first members of their families to attain a four-year degree
009um and in closing we have additional resources all over campus that are helped that are available to serve students so um the office of multicultural affairs has emergency funding for students um so if you're studying one night really late and you fall asleep and you break your glasses there's funding for you to replace them um we have the jacobsen center and the spinelli center which is available for writing tutoring and also peer tutoring as well we have our wellness center that offers um bypoc support groups and free therapy sessions for all students our office of equity and inclusion is really the central hub on our campus that is responsible for holistic programming for faculty staff and students um to help us promote that mission that i was talking about earlier how do we attain diversity
010and inclusion at smith and the office of equity and inclusion is really charged with um ensuring that um all faculty all staff all students um really put inclusion at the forefront of everything that they do um they also hold affinity groups for faculty staff and students we also have liaisons for undocumented students students who are non-binary um or tran and or trans and for students who are first generation college students we also have the office of student engagement which also works to promote clubs and organizations and programming on campus for all students and we also have centers for leadership and community engagement honestly i could go on and on about all of the resources that are on our campus and i'm happy to discuss them further once we get into the q a but that's
011my overview thanks so much so i think i'm i'm next in our order is that right okay yeah so um so there are are really a couple of different ways that i want to talk about diversity uh at bennington the first is to think about uh or to talk about the institutional commitment to um dismantling structural racism um and examining the ways in which uh our institution may be upholding that and so um there uh are many efforts on campus um the two main ones are that we have an office of diversity equity and inclusion um that is specifically uh to address these questions about uh structural racism and we also have a president's working group that consists of current students staff faculty alumni and board members um so i think about 25 or 30
012people total um and and they are uh right now um have we just created this group and they're sort of meeting to talk about um how is bennington going to respond uh to structural racism um so so that's that's important to talk about but but the second thing to talk about when we talk about diversity at bennington um is the student experience um and diversity on campus so i'll run through a couple of like statistics and numbers um just so that you have a sense of uh the broad picture uh so bennington is very small we have um currently enrolled right now 733 undergrads um so uh in terms of uh gender diversity uh we have a population of students that are about 60 female identifying about 30 to 33 percent male identifying and about
013five to seven percent non-binary so we have um we have a really uh gender diverse campus um we at bennington uh about 19 of students identify as students of color um so that's a low number um and it's also much higher than it was 10 years ago and and there are a lot of ways in which bennington has really made an institutional priority out of um thinking about access to higher education and and specifically access to bennington uh so we have about uh 19 of our students are international students um and then we have um socioeconomic diversity which bennington has always uh had um had a lot of uh so we about 22 percent of bennington students identif are our first generation college students uh which means they're the first in their family to attend
014college that's a really high number for uh for small private liberal arts colleges in in new england um about 28 of our student body is pal eligible so basically what that means is about 28 percent are identified as high need financial aid students um and uh and about 10 percent of our student body qualifies for extended federal financial aid that's need-based which again is a really high number for a small private college so i want to talk a little bit about um some admission efforts that have been that we have made to make it easier for students to access um you know bennington and and to apply uh so bennington partners with raise me that organization partners with colleges to bring transparency to merit aid so when colleges say they award merit aid a lot
015of students are puzzled about what exactly that means um from college to college and so raise me helps students understand these are concrete steps that you can take to um to access uh merit merit aid at particular colleges um and it also gives students increased access to counseling resources that they might not be getting at their school because maybe they attend a huge school and their guidance counselors have a lot of students that they're working with um we have no application fee at bennington we did away with that i believe in 2016. and we've also got a holistic review process and have been test optional since 2006 and so a lot of schools are going test optional right now because it's uh because of the pandemic it's it's hard and scary to go and take
016a standardized test right now um but bennington has really been doing that for a long time as a as a way to show what our values are um and we really uh we really look more at a student's um whole high school experience to evaluate their readiness to be at a place like bennington um so now um i just want to talk a little bit about uh academic uh support and scaffolding that we have on campus um to ensure that students have what they need to be successful and then also student life so because bennington has increased its racial and ethnic diversity over the past 10 years so much we've also implemented a lot of new things to make sure that that students when they get to bennington have what they need we have a
017first year forum which is a class that every student takes and it's basically to get oriented to bennington to learn about how to use all of bennington's academic resources and to be paired with an academic advisor who you'll work really closely with throughout your time at bennington so much of bennington's academic process is highly individualized uh it it's already sort of set up to be um responsive to particular student needs and we also have a lot of uh financial and and structural support for students who uh are coming from low-income families um including help and support with traveling to and from campus um and just and helping afford the expenses that aren't covered in a financial aid package so then in terms of student life um students at bennington are always have always been and
018are uh continue to be active participants in building the culture at bennington um and the the current sort of culture building efforts that we have on campus uh this is just a selection but these are some really exciting ones we have as i mentioned the office of diversity equity and inclusion that office staffs two student interns who are uh who are both really amazing and they offer um what they call jedi sessions jedi stands for justice equity diversity and inclusion um and really they're just there to support students particularly students of color while they're at bennington whatever that looks like they're there to help connect them with the right resources we have a black student union um and they're their sort of mission uh is to uh hold space for black people for black culture
019on our campus um to uh create a safe space for students to discuss and celebrate issues of diversity and intersectionality we have a queer club with a mission to create a support group for queer identifying people a safe space where they can bring themselves uh without feeling like they have to erase uh the the aspects of them uh that are sometimes not accepted in other spaces um they focus on building trust and vulnerability and a sense of community we have an organization called flow first generation low-income and working-class students and they have all sorts of um all sorts of community events and run a food pantry for students on campus and just generally provide support to students who have a flow background there's a longer list um but i i want to be mindful of
020time um so i will sort of wrap it up here but i look forward to answering any questions that any of you have about uh what diversity looks like at bennington excellent thanks so much so i can go ahead and talk a little bit about mount holyoke um so hi everyone again my name is rhea and i use she her pronouns in addition to being an assist director at mount holyoke i'm also an alum um and so very fond of my mount holyoke experience and thinks so highly of women's colleges in general so i'm happy to share a little bit about us um and then also any questions that you all have in the q a at the very end um but as i mentioned mount holyoke is a gender diverse women's college and i
021actually before i even begin to talk about what we have on our campus now i do kind of want to unpack that history a little bit and and the reason why women's colleges still exist the reason why we consider ourselves gender diverse instead of just being a woman's college um it's because beyond just thinking of diversity and thinking about how to serve students on our campus we also have to think about how we can make them feel as if they belong and saying that we're just women's college right isn't actually inclusive of the trans and non-binary folks that we have on our campus um so mount holyoke being a gender diverse women's college has really made great strides in the past 183 years that we have existed um right in the beginning of in the
022early 1800s right there were really mostly just um white folks from new england white women from new england and now thinking about how many states are represented on our campus how many countries are represented how many first languages different faiths gender identities sexual orientations um it's really incredible to think that the community that we were in the 1800s has really shifted to not only kind of include these folks right because these folks have always existed trans and non-binary folks and folks with different faith identities have always existed on our next campus but to really shift the way that we we talk about identity and talk about belonging in a community has really made a difference in kind of who you see on campus and the events that happen on campus and the way that we
023celebrate each other um and i will say that it's been really powerful to see all of that in the kind of understanding of who we are as a community shift in this virtual space um so that we still are celebrating filipino history month which is in october and um lgbtq history month and day of visibility right all of these really important moments we're still celebrating them and finding ways to do that in the virtual space which i've really appreciated um as not only a staff member but also as an alum who cares deeply about kind of what it looks like to to belong in this community and so i'm talking a lot about our community right who who are we actually how many of us of us are there uh we are of course in
024western massachusetts um close to you all uh we have about 2 200 students on our campus um as i mentioned coming from 48 different states um and about 61 different countries and we actually have a high percentage of international students on our campus about a quarter of our students are international and a quarter of our students are identified as domestic students of color and then of course all of the intersections of those identities right so um folks who have sort of different faith identities intersecting with their racial um and gender identity and so it's really beautiful to see not only to be in this space where you can be like your diversity is not just your racial diversity or your your socioeconomic status diversity but also the intersections of all that you are which is
025really important and that kind of leads me to speak about how how you can belong in the community and similar to my colleagues who just spoke all of those resources that are either student-run or run by the institution so we do have of course our advising systems we have our staff advisors who support the student organizations on campus but really belonging is sort of initiated by students and we have our student organizations we do have about 110 or so student organizations that run the gamut of academically affiliated so our computer science side society physics society but then also identity based so we have um apau our association for paint after community we have um la unidad which is our association for our student group for latinx identifying folks we have familia which is for queer
026and trans students of color on our campus um and then all of those student organizations are actually affiliated with cultural houses and we have about seven on our campus we have our center for religious and spiritual faith or spiritual um diversity but we also have our unity center which supports our undocumented and our first generation and low-income students and we have our actually this is me our ben shabazz house which supports um our african-american african diaspora identifying students we have our eighth house for asian american and asian identifying um students as well as one for uh indigenous students one for our latinx students um and one for our queer and lgbtqia allies as well um and all these spaces i think nikki sort of smith simulator has something where we have kitchens there we also
027have libraries associated with the space so that you can go and read literature by and about people who look or kind of identify as you and all of those ways um really create a sense of um mattering on our campus right because we know that especially in this world it's not so much like seeing someone who looks like you but feeling like you both belong in that space and like there are resources that are there to not only get you to that campus um and certainly we kind of do this work so that we are engaging with folks um to to bring sort of differences to our campus but also that once you get here you feel like okay i actually have a space to really thrive and to be successful um and that's successful
028in the classroom but also successful outside of the classroom um and and helping students define what that means for them um so that's kind of a little bit about our community and i'm definitely happy to answer more specific questions about mount holyoke and more general questions about what does belonging look like on a diverse campus but thank you so much and i will turn it over to my next colleague great so i'm gonna go next um awesome hello so i'm gonna obviously be talking about westfield state um so we are a four-year public comprehensive liberal arts institution we are part of the nine state schools in massachusetts um and you know with the liberal arts piece you know we have our common core courses that you'll be taking on top of your major of studies
029our size is around 4 800 undergraduate students pairing that with our graduate program or probably around 5 000 in total so we're that solid medium-sized institution not too big to be overwhelming but also not too small to be underwhelming um and so when it comes to diversity equity and inclusion on our campus we have quite a few initiatives um to help not only you know support our students but to continue and expand in this field uh so first i want to talk about the student support services that we offer one of which that we're pretty well known for is our urban education program this is one of the longest running programs we had on our campus it's been about 53 years now and so basically what it is it provides support for first generation college
030students students who are pell grant eligible or students of color anyone in that kind of umbrella and basically it has the five year summer break or it has a five week summer bridge component and a four year experience so for the summer bridge program what it starts with is that you're going to be staying on campus with us for five weeks from sundays to thursdays you're going to be taking college level courses with our professors we also have workshops to help with time management self-advocacy skills being able to adapt to our campus we'll also be living in a dorm so you'll live with the roommate probably from across the state because they like to push you out of your comfort zone a little bit um and so that's kind of like a brief idea students
031have the opportunity to earn up to six credits during the summer bridge program and so what happens after that is once you successfully complete summer bridge you'll be admitted into westfield state as an urban ed student for your entire time there and so what that means is that you know all those workshops with your advisor and summer bridge that's your advisor for your time at westfield so you've already started to build a relationship with someone on the campus prior to you even coming in what's also nice is that you're coming in with a cohort of other students so the sizes vary each year um but they kind of on average stay around 50 to 60 students coming in so you already have a group of friends and you know the campus and a lot of
032our students think that our urban ed students are sophomores because they're so well acclimated so why this is such an important program as it helps with that transition but it also supports a demographic of students like first generation college students it really supports them it makes sure that students have access to someone when they are struggling or you know being a first gen student myself like i didn't know how to fill out the fafsa very well i wasn't sure you know who to go to for certain things um i didn't even know certain things existed on the campus and so i went to my ue advisor because i'm alone with the program as well uh and i would go to them and ask those questions and they were like my personal problem solver so basically
033urban ed is like a family um and even once you graduate once you become an alum you're still a part of that family and you get to network and meet the other 1500 alums that are there so you know ue has been a part of our campus for so long because it has made such incredible effective changes on our campus and it continues to allow us to grow and so another program that actually stems off of urban ed that supports another diverse population of students is our learning disabilities program and so what this is it's pretty similar to urban ed because it kind of grew off of it 10 years later and it supports students with a documented learning disability and or adhd so if you want something a little bit more than just the
034regular disability services that's what this program is you'll get another additional advisor with this program you would meet with your advisor to help with um you know study skills time management still as well as you know being able to navigate through your academics you'll also have that advisor to help get your extended time on exams access to our exam room readers and scribes assistive technologies like kurzweil and you know pretty much anything that your accommodations are you know what you need um and so these both these programs are you know in the same spot in our application and they are considered special admissions opportunities because this is you know a little bit more than the regular westfield state experience and then we have other programs like trio which supports both demographics of students who would
035be in urban ed or learning disabilities um and then out of the student support run a little bit and more into the student life you know we have our affinity groups like our multicultural student association which is one of the oldest running clubs we have on campus i think it started in the 80s we also have our black student union a latino association for empowerment our muslim student organization and a list of more um and so with them we also have our diversity equity and inclusion department who oversees all of these groups and our diversity generalist is the one who assists these groups with planning events on campus as well as planning her own events to you know support students allow for conversation dialogue and just have another person on campus to go to we
036also have our unity room which all of our affinity groups meet in where their group meetings and that's also a place where you can study and what's cool is like there's paintings all around the room of what you know we've had in past and things like that um and and kind of diving into the academic field too we also have our ethnic and gender studies major um and so you know this is kind of like a little bit far-fetched but it's a great way for you to kind of immerse yourself into something uh that you may not have learned in high school so you know you'll take a course load of classes that you know dive into a lot of different diverse experiences um and you know taking these classes and taking advantage of this
037is huge because like i said you may not have had that opportunity in high school and now you get to learn a whole new field um so i mean like those are some of the things that you know i wanted to highlight here at the university um you know we are still a predominantly white institution we are working on growing as a diverse campus community and that's why we have so many programs that we build off of um so that we can continue to grow but i'm excited to answer any of your questions all right um so i guess i'm gonna close out the presentations and then we'll be taking questions um so just to reintroduce myself i'm alyssa tomkowitz i work at mcla mass college of liberal arts and i use she her pronouns
038um so kind of to reiterate what a lot of every what everyone was saying um diversity we think is really important at mcla we're constantly striving to make sure that we're doing better in providing resources for our students who identify um as as some sort of minority whether that be racial um disability uh queer across the board um so our student body is um about 40 first generation students um and about 25 of our students identify as um some sort of racial minority um and our uh class of 2023 was actually our highest um class of of students identifying as a racial minority with 35 percent of the class so um ideally we would kind of get those numbers a little a little higher but we're really proud to keep growing and to keep making
039our campus diverse in that sense um about 50 percent of our students are pell eligible um and we've been named as a top performer in social mobility for the past few years with uh newest u.s news and world report and that means that we are providing opportunities for those students and making sure that they're graduating out um with strong career and grad school opportunities um so we have a chief diversity officer at our school who sort of heads up a lot of our initiatives on campus so recently we've been reevaluating a lot of the ways in which our departments function so um in the admission office we've been reviewing both our financial aid and scholarships as well as our tests blind um we're piloting a test blind policy for this incoming class we're hoping to
040make that um a universal policy that we'll be using moving forward um it is something we've been looking to do for a while and i think the pandemic sort of kick-started that but we also are are very clear on the fact that we want to be test blind because there's also a lot of inequity that that comes with standardized testing as far as financial aid initiatives we've sort of shifted from allocating a lot of our funds to scholarships for academic achievement and more making sure that we have funds for students who are demonstrating need um all of our students can qualify for for you know academic scholarships they're all academically excellent students but we want to make sure that we're able to provide opportunities for students who maybe can't afford to to come to school
041at mcla we have our women of color and men of color initiatives and each of those are headed up by students actually they were headed up by when she was there our director of admission she graduated in 2012 and then one of our other admission counselors he headed up the men of color initiative up until they graduated in 2018 and those are um initiatives that were put in place to make sure that we are supporting um our women of color and our men of color on campus uh so it's places where they can go for a supportive community it provides um specialized support it also provides a space for us to have complicated discussions and to make sure that we are really honing in on specific issues that that we need to work on um
042and that's another thing that we we like to do at mcla is really listen to our students so um we are are constantly looking for feedback from students um on course registration course um evaluations at the end we do ask you know if someone was uncomfortable with something if there's something we can change and we also have um surveys for different groups as the year goes on to say how can we better support you so through those initiatives and those surveys we have put together a number of spaces on campus for students and we have our multicultural education resource center our women's center and our identity and gender equality resource center so those are all spaces on campus where students can go for sort of a safe space to be with people that they identify
043with as well as to have educational resources for them to use um moving forward we also have um our lavender fund which is used to elevate queer life on campus so um that is a place where money is allocated to bring in lecturers to have our lavender reception to really make sure that our queer students are feeling supported on campus many of our buildings including our dorm buildings have all gender bathrooms so if a student doesn't feel comfortable in a single gender bathroom or they want that space um that's available to them we have a day of dialogue which was actually yesterday and what that is is where we don't have classes for the day and instead students will go to lectures and seminars that focus in on uh diversity issues and questions to sort
044of spark discussion um and that was started i believe in 2007 so it's relatively new but um it's gotten very great reception and it's something that students and faculty and staff really look forward to um we've recently been awarded a trio program grant so what that is going to be used for is student support services um specifically for students who are coming from low-income areas um who are first generation and who are coming in with some sort of disability so we are still working on kind of how we're going to use that that grant money um it was very recently awarded so we don't have anything specific just yet but we're going to make sure that we're supporting those students um better than we we ever have um we have a safe zone training which
045is for faculty and staff to sort of learn about um the best ways to assist uh queer students so in those uh trainings we talk about the different gender um sexual and romantic identities that people will have the best ways to um address people to make sure that you're not um you know making it an uncomfortable space for anybody and we also have a number of clubs and organizations um so i'll just kind of really quickly go through so we have our african student association our asian and american union our association for neurodivergent awareness our black student union our latin american society and our queer student union and students are encouraged to present new clubs and organization ideas as they have them so if there is a group on campus that feels that they want
046more representation we very much welcome them to uh to bring forth those ideas so um yeah that's just a lot of a lot of our initiatives and our our kind of goals at mcla um and i guess we're gonna jump into questions now so i'll so i think there was a question in the chat about the westfield bridge program all right and not see that thank you um yes so yeah i'll say a little bit more about the summer bridge program there are some things that i actually forgot to include so thank you for asking uh so yeah a i talked about the five-week summer bridge program as well as the four-year experience something to note about the summer bridge program actually the program as a whole is that it is completely free uh students
047don't pay for summer bridge they don't pay for the credits that they'll be earning over the summer um actually we have a one thousand dollar completion grant so when you successfully complete the summer bridge program you will get one thousand dollars in a grant money uh and that money can be used towards your books or towards pretty much anything um we know that the population of students who participate in urban ed especially within the past five years uh one of the biggest uh conflicts we've gotten from students was you know i have to work or i have to earn money and things like that so that's why the completion grant came in so that we can kind of close that gap a little bit or the time you had to take off for work you
048get a thousand dollars at the end so that is one of the newer initiatives we actually put into place um so more about that four-year experience so you get your own academic advisor on top of an advisor you already have within your major so you actually have two advisors here uh if you're part of the program you'll also have the opportunity to register for classes before other students uh so it's a nice little perk to kind of you know ease the registration stress um and then we also have opportunities for students to earn scholarships that are exclusive to us urban ed students um so those are a couple things that i did not catch the first time trying to think if there's anything else i'm missing oh actually if you want to learn a lot
049more about the program they're having their last info session this evening at six so i'll just drop in the link for you to register if you really are interested in this program absolutely attend the session i will be there um i'm actually the admissions counselor who reviews for the urban ed program as well so you absolutely are more than welcome to attend this it's really informative um it's a you know great program like i said as a family my advisor who used to be my advisor at the school is going to be running it it's cool thank you so much i also wanted to invite other folks if they have similar programs that they want to talk about a little bit more or things that you think may be helpful to add about your institutions
050um with this question around kind of bridge programs or similar programs just as a general piece about bridge programs for any students who are considering them if you are eligible i definitely recommend attending um for um the smith bridge program it's more of a pre-orientation program so it is not meant to substitute um the large-scale orientation program that smith holds on its campus but rather it is a smaller community where students get to find mentors that are upper-class folks right like their sophomores their juniors they're seniors um so you get to kind of get away of the land before you know you have this you know huge rush of students return to campus and you get caught up in the flurry of everything that's going on these pre-orientation programs really give you an opportunity to
051kind of take in um what you're saying um what you know um what resources are available on campus they give you a true opportunity to acclimate to campus before you have to meet your roommate or um you know register for classes um many of our institutions have so many resources at their disposal that it would be near impossible to sit here and talk to you extensively about everything we offer i know that i would be here all day and i'm sure my colleagues would say the same thing but um i would just say that that bridge program gives you an opportunity to start to take some of that in you start to learn how to navigate these campuses that might be unfamiliar to you so if you get invited to apply to a bridge program
052or you get invited to attend diverge program please take advantage of it because it is a wonderful way to acclimate to campus before other students kind of come to campus and you get kind of inundated with the flurry of activity that happens before school starts all right that is a thank you it's quite wonderful to hear about different opportunities um i wanted to invite any other anyone else who's watching or has questions or comments to chime in um you know i also want to invite each of the panelists if if something has jumped out that somebody else has talked about um if there's anything else that you're thinking i'd love to just share a little bit more information um that would be outstanding and you know i'm happy to throw a question out there as
053well um and so i'll i'll do that to just provide a little bit more one of the questions that i often encounter as a school counselor is how do i connect with supports or programs how do how do i make that that connection with the folks at schools i can start off by answering this and that's such a good question um because i think we all spoke about a lot of similar resources but we all had really unique resources on our campuses and sometimes it can be hard to figure out like wow there is so much out there i don't even know what to take advantage of when and i think just kind of like start by asking and and that's why you're in residence halls with people who are older than you or that's
054why you're um we have orientation right so there are orientation leaders who are older than you who have been around the block a few times and and can speak to resources that would be really valuable or faculty that would be really great resources to you and so i think um it's just about asking and sometimes you don't mean or at all or all the time you don't necessarily need to know like this is the resource i'm looking for do you have it sometimes all you can just say is um i know that like producing a really good final draft is hard for me like is there a place i can go to on campus and then maybe someone's gonna say oh like you need some writing support like here come to our speaking arguing and
055writing center come to our our peer support center um and so it's just been about asking like what are what are the things that you struggle with or what are the spaces that you need for yourself whether that's a space for queer students or a space for someone who um eats kosher and you need to have like kosher kosher food right what are those things that you need so it might not be even you know like oh where's this building on campus because it might just be asking yourself what are the resource resources that you need and asking the right folks so i would just kind of figure out what um sort of what parts of yourself are most salient and what you might need to be supported on um on campus and then going
056from there so uh yeah i i agree it's really important to reach out and sort of identify what you're going to need assistance with and at mcla we um our admission office as i mentioned two of our members in the office headed up our women of color and men of color initiatives um and then uh myself and another counselor are uh identify as queer so we are resources that are more than happy to help students um because coming in you might not really know anybody else but the people that you've worked with and the people that you're familiar with so um we are always there to to direct you in the places to go even if i wasn't your counselor um i'm more than happy to to help with finding places for queer students on
057campus um during our welcome week we also have a what we call our president's ice cream social so um it's a time when students can have ice cream and um all of our clubs and organizations will table there it was virtual this year but um it's a place where you can kind of interact with all of our clubs and organizations so if you're unsure about um what some of our clubs are what organizations exist for um any diversity initiatives um that's that's a great place to go um it's really casual they love talking to students and sort of explaining what their um goals are so um and then also within the admissions department when we're working with students um we work closely with disability resources if a student indicates to us that they would like
058to have accommodations or have that support on campus so we can get you connected with our disability resources department kind of right during the application process to sort of help with that transition as you're coming in your first year and continue on moving forward so i would say i mean our admission department i think is a great resource to start with because we we really do we are involved in a lot of areas of campus and we know kind of the best places for you to to get started and to find what you're looking for i would just say i think another common theme that has emerged in this conversation is the role of the self-advocate especially when you're thinking about um off if you are someone who needs a special accommodation due to a
059um learning disability or anything like that in high school um you know the state requires by law that you get these supports that you need um whether it's in the form of a 504 plan or whatever the case may be in college those same stipulations do not apply um as and the case is still the same for any other resource that you're going to need on campus um so i think the biggest adjustment for students is being able to vocalize their needs and figuring out what that need might be and sometimes it's a challenge because you're acclimating to a different campus so you don't really know what's available you don't know how to ask for help but i think it is a key skill that students develop throughout their time at college is learning how
060to advocate for yourself learning how to ask for help um going to a professor to say hey this 10 page paper is not going to get done tomorrow i need an extension and spoiler alert nine times out of ten you will get the request i wish that was something i knew earlier in college instead of finding out like my junior year second semester um so i think learning how to be a self-advocate is a huge skill that students hone in on once you get to college but i think you have to get comfortable asking for help what i like to tell students is if you need a resource or you're even seeking an opportunity go to your faculty advisor many schools have faculty advisors um at smith our student faculty ratio is nine to one
061um count um advisors are going to have more than 20 to 25 students on a caseload and i think many students think oh i go to my advisor when i'm like really struggling and failing a class don't let it get there start utilizing your advisor earlier um when you're seeking an opportunity if you're looking for a research opportunity start with your professor because if they can't find the resource for you you guys can figure out where the resources are together so we are coming down the home stretch we've got just a few more minutes together um i want to express appreciation again for those that have taken the time to sit in with us and view and of course the five of you who have come and shared information this has been really incredible and
062as a school counselor i'm really happy to be here and just talking and hearing and thinking about the things that i will be able to share with students as well um i do want to take the opportunity if anybody has the final things that they want to share or final questions that they want to type into the box um the comments box i'm i'm happy to keep an eye out for those and want to let people kind of give final final thoughts from from each of you yeah i can start um so i guess some like send off thoughts for me is uh make sure that you are getting involved uh you build your own experience when it comes to college it's so customizable and that's great i mean it can be a little intimidating
063at first you're like oh i have all these options try them try everything you want go for it don't be shy just go like get out there it's scary at first but it's going to be so worth it um you know and ask questions i really like i like the self-advocacy topic really do that please do that i made that mistake my first year here at westfield i failed really bad because i refused to ask for help then finally figured out how to ask for help and i started to do better so don't do what i did start that from the beginning so get involved ask for help and build your experience i'll yeah i'll i'll echo that um and also just say uh [Music] you know you can also really own the admissions process
064um and i know i can't speak for larger universities but i am sure i can speak for all of us here working at uh small liberal arts colleges that we as counselors really really want to help you get to the right place um and and we're here to support you um and any questions that you have please always feel free to reach out um our goal is to really help you kind of start thinking about the kind of education that you want to have now um and so yeah we're here as a resource i think my piece of advice kind of blends what a liam holly said um but i it's really thinking about asking admission officers the tough questions right like so if you have questions about racial climate on campus ask us if
065you have questions about where the resources are for non-binary queer and trans students ask us if you want to know what the resources are on campus for students of color who want to engage in stem fields ask us um and when you're asking these questions really take note of the answers and whether or not an admission officer is giving you a direct answer um if they're giving you an honest answer um and notice that they're uncomfortable because sometimes their level of discomfort might speak to where the institution might be um when talking about these issues and being transparent about these issues and how they serve students too so it's never too early to ask about resources and you want to make sure that you're asking admission offices the tough questions because they should have answers
066for you and if they don't then that might be something that you might want to sit and think about yeah we we want to ensure that you're getting the level of support and and guidance that you really need to succeed um and on top of that we are looking to improve all the time so if you are finding that there's something that is an issue we want to know about it whether that's during the admission process while you're at school um you know our our goal is to make sure that everybody is feeling like they are receiving the best level of education and that goes beyond the classroom that goes into your entire life on campus so um you know self-advocacy i think is a really excellent point um to bring up because we we
067are going to help you as much as you ask us to help you so as long as you are reaching out letting us know what you need from us we're going to do our best to make sure we're providing you that those resources awesome and i'll just kind of round us out and i think my piece of advice kind of in this moment would really be to own your power um and to realize how valuable you are to us and to these campuses that you'll one day step foot on because um you guys right i even think about the history of mount holyoke and so much change that has happened on our campus um has been because the students have held our feet to the fire and have forced us to change and have forces
068to sort of be accountable to the words that we that we say and so i think um even as you're finishing your applications or thinking about what college fit looks right for you and where you belong um know that you um you are enough and you matter and as you're writing those personal essays make sure that you shine through because that's what we're going to be looking for when we're reviewing um and what we're going to be looking for when you get on our campuses and start to become the leaders that you're supposed to be so don't doubt yourself in this process and know that you will end up in a great place and uh likely change us for the better the same ways that our current students have so what an amazing way to
069end so this is kind of the conclusion of our session um one final great big thank you to each of you um and we appreciate you spending your afternoon with us thanks so much and have a good night everyone