On Friday, Sept. 25, Oklahoma Christian University hosted a resource fair during family weekend and eagle for a day to provide face-to-face access to important departments on campus to answer questions and bring awareness to the opportunities that Oklahoma Christian offers its students. In the McIntosh Conservatory located inside the Garvey center, a representative from every major department at the university made themselves readily available to students and families to ensure that everyone received the resources they needed.
Olivia Gonce, director of events and creative services organized the resource fair.
“So this is a part of family weekend, so where we invite parents of current students to come back to campus, spend the weekend here on campus. We plan a bunch of different events for them, the resource fair being one of them. We figured a lot of parents would be driving in on this day, and so we kind of planned some smaller, more low-key events for Friday. And this we just figured would be good to have important offices available for parents while they’re already making the drive up to campus, maybe from far off, that we would just have these people ready to answer any questions they had about their student account or the registrar about their credits, student life about activities they’re involved in. So it was really just to have a resource available for parents while they’re already making the trip to campus, and it’s just easier to solve issues in person,” said Gonce.
The following faculty members were present at the fair:
Claire Hathaway
Administrative assistant for alumni relations
“We’re here to talk about our legacy program. So parents that were alumni and if their children come here, we’re trying to set up a program where they have some perks for being a legacy student, whether it’s shirts or free move-in, or we’re going to start doing legacy events throughout the year for them, so we’re just telling the parents and the students about our program.”
Amy Schlup
Director of student financial services
“We are just sharing financial information of incoming students that may need to know what their scholarships are going to be, or when to fill out the FAFSA, where they can look for other scholarships, and then current families that are here for Family Weekend, checking on their students’ account. We’re looking at the accounts, making sure scholarships have been put on, and that everything is in tip top shape.”
Abby Lowry
Resident director of Gunn Henderson hall
“We answer questions about housing placements, about the events that we put on. How to contact your RAs, roommates. Community is everything. We’re trying to foster a really good community on campus in the dorms and apartments.”
Colleen Decker
Associate registrar
“Here to answer any questions about how courses transfer, AP scores, more about credits.”
Molly Burke
Director of freshman experience.
“So I’m here talking about things going on in student life, specifically freshman experience. So many of the parents that come to this are freshmen parents, and so I want to make sure they know what their kid has a chance to get involved in, and also handing out other things to the kids themselves. Particularly right now, next week is fish week for the freshmen, and so the fish week calendar has been a big thing I’m handing out, as well as information about homecoming and build times, and then intramural involvement. On top of just making sure their student has all the resources and support they need, and knowing where my office is, so we can help their student out, is really what I’m doing here.”
Eli McCoy
International Program Specialist
“We’re telling families about their students’ opportunities to study abroad, to get out of here and study abroad in Vienna or in Asia or in Africa. Family weekend is a great opportunity for students and their families just to be reminded of how awesome OC is, and study abroad is kind of the epitome of that. It’s one of the biggest privileges and awesome aspects that the university has to offer.”
Rick Odell
Associate director of church relations, admissions
“We are here to just share information about what incoming freshmen would need to know to become students here, in hopes that we might find some prospective students among some of the families that are coming through, because we want to share the message about OC with everybody we can.”
David Taylor
Manager of Support Central
“We are engaging with parents and new students, letting them know that we’re here to help with any of their IT support needs. And the big thing that we’re encouraging folks with is that we can’t fix problems that we don’t know about. So let us know. You can call us at 405-425-5555, or you can email us at supportcentral@oc.edu, or you can come see us at Cogswell-Alexander Hall, or eventually you’ll be able to come see us over at the hub in the Mabee Learning Center. So come and see us. We want to help.”
Rielyn Williams
Career services counselor
“Yeah, I’m here to help the families. If their students don’t have a major, they can get our guide to help them figure out their major. Just have some different resources and some different steps and questions to work through that can help them decide on a major, and then also share the resources that Career Services has available to them, like the Eagle Flight Plan, the Clothing Closet, Handshake, and all other resources.”
Fady Zakaria
Graduate admissions counselor for college of business
“We just want to raise awareness about our graduate programs, because a lot of the students and families that come to OC don’t even know that we have graduate programs. We just want to let them know that, because a lot of the families that come here are freshmen, so they might not necessarily be looking to do a master’s degree right now, but later on, just letting them know that down the road, if you need a master’s degree, we do offer master’s degrees at OC.”
Sarah Bailey
Spiritual life mentor
“We’re here to provide any answers, I’ve been asked about what kind of devotional opportunities students have, so I’m trying to make them aware of what the students have access to.”
Oklahoma Christian University takes the time to be intentional with their prospective students and current students to ensure that they have a smooth transition into university life. All offices strive to work for the welfare of their students.
Be First to Comment