The transition symposium is designed for professionals who facilitate the ongoing integration, reflection, and education for students across a variety of functional areas and experiences.
2024 Dates:
June 4, 13, 18, and 27, 2024 (virtual)
2024 Symposium Topics:
Week 1: June 4, 2024
Topic: Current Landscape of Higher Education
Explore the landscape of higher ed and individual campuses and how transitions impact the student experience. This session is designed to share how students navigate their educational experiences and how transition experiences range across a variety of topics and pathways that institutions must understand to ultimately support student success.
Week 2: June 13, 2024
Topic: Student Wellbeing
How a student feels – physically, emotionally, mentally, and beyond – sets the foundation for student success. This session centers on how to cultivate community and sense of belonging for students while offering support for community, engagement, and overall well-being needs of students.
Week 3: June 18, 2024
Topic: Leveraging Policies in Your Role to Support Students in Transition
The student journey to an academic credential has twists and turns while institutions report persistence, retention, completion, and other key performance indicators. This session will focus on academic experiences, support offerings, and learning environments that impact student success.
Week 4: June 27, 2024
Topic: Solution- and Resource-Based Approaches to Current Challenges
This session will dive deeper into the challenges discussed in weeks 1-3, and we will explore how to put takeaways from the symposium into practice to drive student success on your campus.
Being mindful of orientation as a component of a student’s overall transition to an institution with the goal of year-to-year retention and degree completion; the transition symposium will focus on trends and topics of emergent student needs that are foundationally important to overall student success.
The transition symposium is ideal for professionals in blended roles and responsibilities or a team of colleagues and key partners from your institution or system. The transition symposium will highlight current student needs during and beyond the pandemic, provide examples which have been successful at other institutions, and strategies which can be used to build collaborative partnerships at your institution to support your student transitions as they pursue their personal educational objectives.
Participation in the Transition Symposium is done by staff teams. Each institution participating pays a flat fee for all participants. Registration is unlimited and cross-functional (advising, orientation, career services, TRIO, etc) teams are highly encouraged.
Read the NODA cancellation policy.
As a result of participating in this learning experience, participants will be able to:
- Collaborate, engage, and network with NODA orientation, transition, and retention professionals who are dedicated to leading a vibrant, diverse, global, and socially just higher education environment.
- Further develop the core competencies, knowledge, skills, experiences, and abilities that are critical to functioning effectively as NODA orientation, transition, and retention professional with professional integrity and collegiality.
- Explore student needs and functional trends to address and support student transitions in higher education institutions.
- Build a broader view of transition and student success experiences beyond orientation programs and services that support overall student retention and completion.
- Intentional time with your campus partners and higher education colleagues from other offices/departments discuss transition experiences
- Reflection moments and guides to assist with campus planning or future opportunities
- Presenters from beyond the scope of orientation that sustain ongoing transitions and retention efforts
- Team pricing with NODA membership
Faculty
Shawn Smee
Lead Faculty, Director, Office of Recruitment
Murray State University
Phillip Campbell
Senior Assistant Dean for Student Progress and Academic Success
Washington University St. Louis
Carrie Zimmerman
Faculty, Uncommon Programs and Consulting