Leadership Summit Focus Group Report: Supporting Student Success
In order to provide feedback to the ad hoc committee on strategic planning, a series of topical focus groups were conducted with alumni and parents who participated in the Leadership Summit Weekend. Approximately 80 individuals dedicated the morning on Saturday, September 21 to learning about the overall goals of the strategic planning process and then participating in a series of hour-long focus groups. The student-support group was reviewed by Mela Kunitz ’87.
This was a smaller group each session (15 or so participants), but there was a great deal of passion about the broad range of issues related to supporting students.
A major discussion occurred about problems with mental health and lack of support from H&C (health and counseling) back at Olde Reed. Alumni were quite frustrated by not getting the services that they needed during their time at Reed and were happy to learn that a stronger network of support from Student Services exists now to keep students from slipping through the cracks. Here are a few of the ideas that came out of this discussion:
–More SEEDS exposure during Orientation
–More external community service, a whole day out in the community
–Alumni writing letters for students in the sophomore slump
–Alumni cheerleaders to provide support and act as big sisters/brothers. The idea being that there could be a kiosk with letters that alumni write, students grab one and then it is their choice if they want to initiate a conversation with the alumna/us, as kind of a pen pal/mentoring relationship that might develop.
The notes don’t capture the true love of Reed that came out in the discussion. Through the complaints that folks aired, it is evident that there is a strong desire to help students at Reed today to have a better experience, and alumni want to help with that process.
For those desiring additional information:
The group received an advance copy of a white paper entitled “Filling the table: supporting student, well-being, and learning“: Table Whitepaper_Final_MT
Here are the full notes and facilitator review for the sessions as a PDF: Leadership Summit-table
