For many employees in the Center for Student Engagement, the last college dorm room they’ve been in was their own.
 
This month, the two dozen-member team visited nearly 1,000 students in their residence halls as part of the first University-wide housing tour. Now more than half complete, the team has made it to 17 out of 32 residence halls across campus.
 
In past years, the Dean of Freshmen office, which dissolved into the CSE this fall, hosted building-wide meetings to connect with new students. Associate Dean of Students Tim Miller said going door-to-door to meet students living on campus helps publicize the new entity while identifying student needs.
 
“So many students still don’t know we exist,” Miller said of the CSE.
 
The umbrella organization, which launched this fall, is responsible for student life and housing in the new dean of students consortium model. Its staff is organized into five teams focusing on either first-year, second-year, third- and fourth-year, or graduate, professional and distance students.
 
During the hall tours, students have shared everything from construction complaints to study abroad plans to midterm stress, Miller said, adding that the CSE will use the feedback to shape its future plans for student services, resources and programs.
 
Miller said the teams spent the summer and fall researching ways to provide specialized support and services for each class year, a mission aided by the housing tours.
 
Each of the class teams are already functioning in their roles – the Second Year Experience coordinators held a sophomore welcome back event in September – but there will be a “full roll out” in the spring after each team finalizes their priorities this fall.
 
Because the University has not offered support specifically for sophomores and juniors in the past, Miller said feedback from the tours would help identify what these “middle year” students need.
 
Director of the Second Year Experience Grace Henry said the sophomore team will use student feedback to build on her summer research, which looked at the national data about the needs of college sophomores.
 
Henry said 75 percent of sophomores in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences had not yet declared their majors by the start of this year, echoing a sophomore trend across the country. She hopes programming inspired by student input will encourage students to declare earlier.
 
“College is about experience and developments, but ultimately it’s about graduating,” Henry said. “One of my main focuses is navigating the path to graduation.”
 
Henry’s sophomore model is based on four pillars: academic development and career services; experiential learning, including study abroad; residential experience; and personal growth.
 
“As a university, we address classes when they come in for CI, but we never truly address them as that afterward,” Henry said.