What week is this?
September 10, 2020 |
A new commonplace: the COVID-19 pandemic has distorted our sense of time. One day — and one week — runs into the next.Really? It’s week four of the academic year. And our students are certainly experiencing the difference a week can make.
For first-year students in particular, they are well into a critical time period. That’s what the Student Success Integration Task Force learned last year by mapping the first-year student journey (excerpt pictured).
Will they thrive at Xavier? Or will they leave?
Much depends on how well new students navigate this stretch, and whether they find and engage the support they may need.
Many students will earn their first important grades in the days ahead, figure out their old time-management strategies aren’t adequate, and finally register for learning accommodations.
Some will learn about microagressions in Goa. Others, painfully familiar with the concept, will suffer them.
Meanwhile clubs have started meeting, residence halls are electing councils, and groups of friends are solidifying—or not, in some cases. Roommate agreements are being finalized, and the CFJ’s first off-campus retreat is approaching. For some, high-risk behaviors are becoming habitual.
On regular medication? Those prescriptions are running out about now. Parents are asking about the grades from those first exams. A new wave of homesickness kicks in.
And social media confirms that everyone’s high school friends at other universities seem to be having more fun. No surprise that the number of “potential transfers out” tracked by our Student Success staff will soon spike.
No coincidence that their second- and third-choice universities are about to start recruiting them again!
All that is happening this week, again this year.
And as the college’s Student Advisory Board just attested, 2020 has added a novel range of class modalities to master, pandemic-mandated brakes on healthy socializing, and the burden of keeping one another safe, and safely on campus. Not to mention an unplanned stint in quarantine, or even a positive COVID test.
Week four. Time isn’t standing still for our students.
Several of you report that our students seem to be doing remarkably well, despite it all. Notice one who might need a bit more support right about now? Take a moment and complete a student concern report.
