-------- Original Message --------
Subject: campus visit days
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:59:35 -0700
From: Laura Huenneke <Laura.Huenneke@NAU.EDU>
TO: Dept Chairs
CC: jennifer Towell <Jennifer.Towell@NAU.EDU>

Hi, all -
You've heard previous descriptions of Admissions changing the OCID mechanism so that now we may be hosting campus visitors virtually any day of the school year. After much arranging and re-arranging, here is the setup for these sessions (which begin next week, Aug 28).

- Jennifer Towell will be hosting a general A&S information session every one of those mornings, 10 - 11 am, describing the services her office is able to provide, answering questions, and providing referrals to individual departments for later in the day. (Not all campus visitors will be doing these morning information sessions, though, so we need to prepare for those who arrive midday and have no morning prep.)

- from 1 - 2 pm, visitors may be dropping by departmental offices. We are listing the department office as the location to which visitors should go! (Unless you tell us *now* that you have an alternate room or location to which you want us to send them.) WHAT WE NEED FOR YOU TO DO: have a mechanism for handling those visitors that gives them a positive idea of your department, its offerings, its neat facilities and special opportunities, whatever you are most proud of. Your mechanism could be:

- a specific enthusiastic person to whom the office staff can refer any walk-in visitors
- a set of such people, from whom the office staff will select or call
- your office staff person, with some guidance/handouts/etc

Please note, this is NOT an advising session! These visitors are not yet decided on NAU, they are just exploring - and we want to sell them on applying, not scare them off by talking about freshmen course selection. So the contact person does not have to be a trained academic advisor.

- We are aiming for something that is not too complex logistically. You need not tell us (or Admissions) a specific person's name for each day, even if you have several different people taking turns. If you choose not to have people available for this kind of visit on every day (eg Biology has chosen to accept visitors on M-W-F only), then please make it a simple rule (so Admissions doesn't have to keep track of scores of different arrangements), and let Jennifer know she she can pass that on to Admissions for publication. And do recognize that you will be missing some prospects. Admissions keeps emphasizing that we need to be prepared to deal with drop-ins (those who have not made any prior arrangements or even come to the morning sessions) so we are doing our best to oblige without creating a huge bureaucracy. Again, you may choose to join forces with another department to provide total coverage for these visits!

We're well aware that we keep shifting more burdens on to departments as resources shrink elsewhere. Let's give this a try and we'll check back after a term to see what the impacts (good and bad) have been. Thanks!

Laura

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