Today's Update: Wednesday, June 26, 2024

June 26, 2024

Dear Student Life team, 

While the last academic year can already feel like a distant memory as we focus our time and attention on preparing for autumn, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate our successes from over the past year. As you may recall, at our September Scarlet and Great Gathering, I outlined the State of the Division, including our ambitious goals for the academic year. Today, I want to share our progress toward those goals.

·         Monda Student Resource Center. After a record-breaking donation and a lot of very hard work, Student Life is well on our way to opening the Monda Student Resource Center in the Younkin Success Center. This center, which will open in the coming academic year, will serve as a one-stop shop for students to access essential needs support, like food and professional clothing, resources and connect with campus and community services.

·         Student Employment Experience.  This year, Student Life worked collaboratively with partners across our campuses to expand the Student Employment Experience (SEE) program. We set an ambitious goal to increase the number of student participants by 25%. At last count, 6,663 students were in SEE, which is a 45% increase over where we started last autumn, and we now have students participating in SEE across all of our campuses. This expansion will provide more high-quality student employment experiences and bolster students’ overall learning while preparing them for future internships and careers while also supporting recruiting efforts for student employment positions.

·         Student Life Facilities Master Plan. In recent years, Student Life created a vision for our spaces on campus that will guide the next thirty years. To work toward that goal, Student Life has been developing concrete plans for the next several years of our facilities master plan, with a strong focus on deferred maintenance.

·         Staff and Student Employee Compensation.  None of the great work of Student Life can be done without all of you and our student employees. Student Life’s Human Resources partners recently completed a comprehensive study to outline a proposal to address salary and equity compression issues among staff. We are currently working toward a plan of action, which may take some time, but I am committed to continuing this work.  In January, Student Life was pleased to raise the undergraduate student minimum wage to $13 an hour.

·         Innovation in Revenue Generation. All the exciting accomplishments I shared above would not be possible if we did not have ways to pay for them. The Student Life Events and Conferences department is up and running, and I mean running! The team assisted with 26,574 event bookings this year, a 39% increase from the previous year. Over 5,800 events were planned with an event planner. The summer has not slowed them down either. More than 130 conferences and 4,650 guests will visit campus to experience the overnight and dining accommodations this summer.

Whew! That is a lot of progress in one year, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I am currently receiving end-of-year updates from departments on their annual goals and successes, and it is truly remarkable the amount of innovative, thoughtful and important work happening across Student Life.

While I wish I could highlight all the accomplishments, it would take a novel. But a sincere High Five to everyone in Student Life for taking our goals so seriously and making them happen. I am excited to see what we can do together in the coming year.

I am Scarlet and Grateful to each of you and all the ways you help students and staff engage, learn and thrive at Ohio State, and beyond.

 

Melissa S. Shivers, PhD    
Senior Vice President for Student Life     
The Ohio State University