Welcome to Spring 2016 everyone! Who is ready for another semester? I know I am ready and excited about this next semester with my student parent group Parent Mavericks. In my last post, I talked about some outreach initiatives and events for Spring. Right now, everything is going well, but students are not back yet and the weather here in Texas is getting cold, so we have to be cognizant of the fact that we may have snow and have to reschedule events. For now, though, we are just preparing for anything that could happen, but also waiting until we get to that bridge before we cross over.

When it comes to our outreach initiatives, our holiday card was sent out right before Christmas with everyone’s signature on it! I was so excited to be able to send out a little holiday cheer to our student parents that I hope my team continues this idea long after I graduate. As for our informational graphic that we are going to e-mail out to our list of student parents, that is well underway. We have an amazing marketing office for the Division of Student Affairs, and let me just say that the student graphic designers are very talented. (A huge shout out to Alicia and Laura for their patience and guidance!) All that is left is to correct are a few edits and then we are ready to e-mail our list of student parents.

Besides our outreach initiatives, I am stoked for our next event which will be a Valentine’s Day breakfast on February 13th. It is so much fun shopping for cool activities and decorations that I hope our student parents and their kiddos enjoy the event and that this event becomes a staple for our program. We are also thinking about doing some more cool activities such as Parent Mavericks Day in the MAC (our recreation center on campus) and some sort of movie event. We are looking into t-shirts, since everyone loves free t-shirts. For now though, our focus is mainly on sending out the e-mail graphic and having an amazing Valentine’s Day breakfast event.

So, as always, I am ending my post with an invitation to contact me if you have any questions, suggestions, and ideas! I love hearing what other people are doing to engage their student parent population. In the meantime, be on the lookout for another post in February about how our Valentine’s Day breakfast went and how our other ideas are coming together.
 

> BONUS <

Podcast With Dean Kenneth Elmore on Student Engagement Efforts