S1 - E102 - Shifting the culture on campus in the eyes of the students (Culture)

ASCEND Podcast

In addition to helping shift the culture on campus in the eyes of our staff and faculty, we also found it important to shift the campus culture in the eyes of the students. Students need to know we care about them and their success. Students need to feel needed, appreciated, and wanted. Students need to feel at home on our campuses.
One of the things we have done on our campus to improve student perceptions of our campus was to do a complete facelift and rebranding within our student center. We moved student-facing and student services offices (e.g. Multicultural Center, International Student Services Office, Outdoors Office, Health & Wellness Office, Financial Aid, etc.) into more prominent locations so students would be more likely to interact and engage in their services. We also created more places for students to relax, hang out, and study. Finally, we changed the paint color throughout the student center, added fun student-centered branding elements, changed out the flooring tile and carpet, and added more lighting to areas of the building that needed to be brightened up. The result of this effort has been fantastic. The amount of student (and staff and faculty) traffic on a daily basis has increased exponentially and students often tell us that the student center is their favorite place on campus to hang out. They also tell us how much they love to show the building to their family and friends who come to campus for a visit.