Student_Affairs_Annual_Assessment_Report_2021

18 NEW STUDENT PROGRAMS (HOWL & WOLF PACK WELCOME): New Student Programs consists of HOWL (Helping Our Wolves Learn) new student orientation and Wolf Pack Welcome in August. These programs help new Northern students transition to college and to campus and offer the first critical retention program experienced by students. HOWL and Wolf Pack Welcome are campus-wide partnerships with Admissions, the Registrar, Financial Aid, Residence Life and Dining Services, Student Affairs, and Athletics. Table 17 Summer 2020 HOWL Registration and Yield Review Type of HOWL Accepted Registered Census Date Yield Census Date Percent Lost Both in-person and virtual HOWL 53 53 51 100% 96% 3.8% In-person HOWL only 34 34 33 100% 97% 2.9% Virtual HOWL only 235 225 216 96% 92% 4.0% No HOWL 485 47 40 10% 8% 14.9% TOTAL 807 359 340 44% 42% 5.3% Note: The final headcount was actually 341 for Fall 2020 First-time Undergrads. There was one student who was in our census date headcount but never appeared in the spreadsheet used by Admissions for tracking HOWL attendance and fall registrations. Conducted by Institutional Research using Student Affairs data. Student Information System data was not used for this level of review. EVALUATION: This was the first year a Virtual HOWL was offered in the early part of the 2020 pandemic. Immediately after the launch of Virtual HOWL, an in-person HOWL was then reinstituted. By July 2020, students who were not progressing in Virtual HOWL were then allowed to register without an orientation experience risking their retention and persistence to graduation. Students were not accurately coded between the two experiences with some (at least 47) receiving no orientation program at all. New Student Orientation serves as a critical transition and retention program. It is therefore mission critical that we know the impact of both HOWL offerings (virtual and in-person) and no orientation. Great care is being taken to better code each student’s experience so that additional review may be conducted in partnership with Institutional Research for summer 2021 HOWL.