Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 58.68
Liaison Margaret Lo
Submission Date July 21, 2021

STARS v2.2

Ball State University
EN-2: Student Orientation

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.80 / 2.00 Lindsey Speer
Director of Undergraduate Admissions
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Are the following students provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability?:
Yes or No
First-year students Yes
Transfer students Yes
Entering graduate students No

Percentage of all entering students that are provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability:
90

A brief description of how sustainability is included prominently in new student orientation :

Programs for students starting in Summer and Fall 2020 were required to participate in a virtual orientation experience to accommodate restrictions put in place by Ball State University as a result of COVID-19. The following changes to the orientation program prominently highlighted sustainability:

All on-campus student affairs departments include information about and are able to answer questions about their sustainability initiatives for incoming students and their families. As part of all pre-recorded videos that were included with Summer and Fall 2020 orientation, presenters made note of where students could access additional resources electronically. Specific departments provided information about their sustainability initiatives students can participate in during their time as a student. Housing & Dining shared how students can recycle while on campus. Dining also expanded on sustainable on-campus dining, including using locally produced food and certified sustainable seafood, recycling waste oils, composting coffee grounds, distributing reusable bags, and donating about 25,000 pounds of wholesome leftovers to local charities each year. The Office of Student Life also presented on their 400+ student organizations, including several which promote sustainability initiatives.

Almost all information about orientation was sent electronically via email, texting, and phone application messaging. Each incoming student was only mailed a paper orientation handbook with campus resources and a paper advising handbook. Printing of materials was drastically cut down from previous years by: no longer mailing invitations and confirmation emails to incoming students, providing all campus resource flyers electronically, eliminating paper advertisement given to students from the Daily News, and eliminating the need for plastic bags to carry all of this printed information.

Virtual orientation included: ZeeMee with orientation leaders (phone app for incoming students), Canvas courses by academic colleges (for incoming students), virtual academic advising appointments (for incoming students), and a parent orientation resource website (for families of incoming students).

All information for orientation leader student staff training was done electronically, eliminating the need for resource binders and printed information. This is the first time we have ever completely eliminated the need for training supplies.

Submitted by Samantha Ray (saray2@bsu.edu) on 12/16/2020. Updates submitted by Samantha Ray (saray2@bsu.edu) on 8/26/2021.


Website URL where information about sustainability in student orientation is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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