Division of Student Affairs Briefing
News for the Month of October 2019

What is the SA Briefing?

In partnership with University Communications, Student Affairs Marketing and Communications is launching the Student Affairs (SA) Briefing. Supporting division initiatives, the SA Briefing will allow for a recurring and focused channel of information to the division.

Initial release dates are October 16, November 15, December 15, and January 15 with a goal of twice a month (1st and 15th), starting on February 1, 2020.

As we roll out this new tool, Student Affairs Marketing and Communications is asking that all story submissions be submitted by the 1st of the month so they can be prepared for publishing.

We encourage departments to focus submissions on the impact that their stories have on students and staff. More than just dates and details, how will your story affect students and influence life on campus?

The SA Briefing will be a combination of journalistic stories and user submissions. Student Affairs Marketing and Communications may follow up with submissions for use in Feature Stories or to gather more information on your story.

Submit Stories using the link at the bottom of this briefing or on our website.

Website

Hello everyone and welcome to the EdTalk section of the Student Affairs Briefing.

For this first EdTalk, I want to follow-up on our division meeting last month. I am excited to announce that 50 new employees have joined us since July. Our hiring frenzy continues, and about 30 more new employees will join us this semester. As I mentioned, I want to focus a considerable amount of time and energy on staff development and retention. We will start with some all-division activities including our Homecoming Tailgate this Saturday. We will also have an all-division holiday party in December (details to come). In addition, we will be partnering with ABA and HR on a series of new professional development activities.

I have recently announced our Student Affairs Partnership First Initiative. Just as we keep students at the center of everything we do, we must make partnerships the core of all of our work. Effective partners invest their time and energy in each other’s mutual success. We must support each other, celebrate each other’s work, and take pride in our shared purpose and responsibilities.

With our focus on staff development, team building, and improved morale, we will also be including an AskEd mailbox. Drop me a line, ask a question, offer an idea, or simply share your thoughts about something in the division. I will address some of the emails in future EdTalks, why not start today? Use the link below.

Thank you for all you do for our students and each other. Now, let’s go help students achieve their dreams.

Sincerely,

Ed

Ask ED!

Mic’d Up Students Podcast: Providing a Voice to the Student Experience on Campus

The Division of Student Affairs is excited to introduce our new podcast, “Mic’d Up Students.” Hosted by Sacramento State sophomores, Nahom Semere and Malachi Powell, “Mic’d Up Students” is created by students for students and provides a voice to the student experience on campus.

Each episode will feature stories and discussions about everyday student life on campus, as well as music, sports and much more. The student-driven podcast will also feature special guests who will share their opinions, in the hope to spark conversations.

With this podcast, the Division of Student Affairs hopes to explore new mediums of communication, creating greater opportunities to share stories and daily developments that impact our Hornet family.

Be sure to tune in this spring to hear what's on their minds!

EOP 50th Gala: Celebrating 50 Years of Success and Innovation

This October, the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the program's establishment in 1969.

Sacramento State's EOP was launched in 1968 to overcome economic and social barriers that prevented minorities and underrepresented students from attaining a college education. As one of the first few pilot programs of its kind in the California State University system, EOP continues to pioneer higher education access for California residents from low-income, first-generation, and under-served populations. 36 students were part of the first class. Since then, the program has grown to serve approximately 1,500 students.

This event celebrates a theme of “Unprecedented Success and Innovation,” to commemorate the great body of work achieved by Sacramento State EOP at the University and throughout the CSU system. The primary goal of the EOP gala is to come together to celebrate this rich milestone in the heart of the EOP program among our students, faculty, staff, alumni and community partners. Support of this event will help set a tone of ongoing innovation and spur action for the next 50 years to provide access and assistance to low-income and first-generation college students.

50th Anniversary Gala
Saturday, November 9, 2019
5:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.
University Union Ballroom

To purchase a ticket or table, please contact EOP at 278- 6183 to find out how you can support the celebration.

Learn More about EOP

Flu Clinic

Be a Flu Fighter!

Kyle Williams

Soulful acoustic pop concert

Click here for more Sac State Events!

Student Health and Counseling is Taking Action

Mental health concerns account for 4 out of the top 5 reasons students cite for poor academic outcomes including receiving a lower grade on an important project or in a class, taking an incomplete, dropping a class, or experiencing significant disruption to a major project. Common mental health issues include stress, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and depression (Sac State National College Health Assessment, spring 2018).

Sacramento State Student Health and Counseling Services takes a holistic view on improving student health. The
7 Dimensions of Wellness; Intellectual, Emotional, Environmental, Physical, Career/Financial, Spiritual, and Social-Cultural, was introduced as a guide to support students in developing a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

Improving mental well-being is just one of the Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) goal areas.

Medical Clinics proactively screen all students for depression and alcohol misuse
Health & Wellness Promotion holds stress and stigma-reducing events and workshops
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offers individual/group counseling, mindfulness workshops, and suicide prevention training.

Key mental health activities this fall include:

Group Counseling and Wellness Groups: The Body Project helps female-identified students learn body self-acceptance; KORU Mindfulness is an evidence-based workshop series for young adults to learn mindfulness skills. Group Counseling offerings include Anxiety Management, Coping with Loss, Queer Connect, Surviving Your Family, and many others. Group counseling opportunities for fall may be found here.
The Substance Misuse Prevention Summit will be held at 9 am-3 pm on Friday, October 25, in the Riverview Hall Multipurpose Room. Topics covered will include Adderall, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, sleep hygiene, and consent. This event is open to all members of the Sac State community.

To find how you can partner with Student Health & Counseling, contact Associate Director for Campus Wellness, Reva Wittenberg or visit them in the WELL.

The Career Center: Helping Students Translate Degrees into Dreams

Talk to the staff in the Career Center and you’ll hear that your major does not equal your career.

Career development plays a critical role in helping students stay motivated on their paths to graduation. Students are more likely to perform at a higher level and graduate in a timely manner when they have a vision for their future.

Director, Dr. Melissa Repa attributes recent growth to an increased emphasis on career readiness when students begin their journey at Sacramento State; the message that they should start the career planning and exploration process early in their college career to smoothly navigate the transition into a career or graduate-level education.

Growth in the fall of 2019

Currently seeing a 28% increase in student drop-in appointments compared to fall 2018
Career Center has 93 requests for classroom presentations, compared to 72 requests in fall 2018.
The Job and Internship Fair and LinkedIn photo booth had more than 2,000 students and 200 employers in attendance.
Handshake, a new online job board and career management system, has tripled the number of available job/internship postings to nearly 3,000 opportunities.

Repa says, “We’re here to help! We look forward to partnering with our campus and regional partners in supporting our career ecosystem and promoting students’ and alumni to career success.”

To find how you can partner with the Career Center, email Director, Dr. Melissa Repa or visit the Faculty/Staff page on the Career Center website. And be sure to connect on social media @sacstatecareer, for the latest on Career Center events and programs.

Faculty and Staff

Financial Wellness: Changing Students’
Perception of Money

Financial worries are repeatedly found to be a common source of stress and anxiety for college students, impacting health, engagement, and academic performance. A survey of Sac State students indicates that 75% are concerned about their finances, with 50% concerned about paying their current month’s bills.

Recognizing this problem, Sacramento State has invested in students by opening the Financial Wellness Office, providing a safe place for them to gather and learn about personal finance, with one-on-one financial coaching, interactive events and workshops, and iGrad, a personalized online finance and budgeting tool. All services are FREE for students and staff.

Assistant Director Julie Carroll, sees partnerships as key to successfully delivering the message of financial wellness to students, saying “we all share a common goal of setting students up for success.”

In partnership with:

ASI Food Pantry: Financial Wellness has received nearly 300 requests for resources
CARES office: Financial Wellness provides resources to students in crisis
First Year-Experience: Financial Wellness has more than 28 in-class workshops scheduled, this year.

Join them on October 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for How to Win at Life, and get a fun look at life after graduation.

To find how you can partner with Financial Wellness, email green2gold@csus.edu or visit their new location, Library 1529A.

New Service within SA Marketing and Communications | EMMA

EMMA is a new and innovative email platform providing an easier and faster method of sending and receiving important emails. EMMA is available to departments within the division.
With this new platform in place, we are able to advance our goal of consolidating emails in the division; elevating quality and decreasing quantity. Emails sent through EMMA will be on University approved email templates and be in-line with ADA guidelines.

EMMA provides details on email bounces, delivery rate, open-rate, click-through-rate, devices used for viewing and much more. This information is available on all emails sent and will be provided to each department that requests email communications. Student Affairs Marketing and Communications will also be monitoring these analytics and using data to evolve communication practices and recommendations.

Requests for email communications will be submitted through Qualtrics Forms on the Student Affairs Marketing and Communications page.

Important notes about EMMA:

Emails requested sent to ALL students will need the approval of Vice President, Dr. Ed Mills.

All emails sent through EMMA are restricted to @csus.edu emails. Non-Sac State email addresses such as gmail.com and hotmail.com cannot be sent through EMMA and platforms such as EAB will be utilized.

Contact SA-Communications@csus.edu for questions regarding email platforms.

Website

Student Affairs Information Technology (SA-IT): Making Partnerships through Technology

Our department consists of four major areas:

The Help Desk team is responsible for the technical support of devices, equipment, and software throughout our division.
The Imaging team helps with scanning, uploading and indexing all incoming and current student documents into OnBase. They are also in charge of receiving all external transcripts and entering the information into CMS.
The OnBase team analyzes current Student Affairs business processes that are heavily paper-based and creates innovative and efficient electronic solutions using OnBase.
The Web team is in charge of designing and maintaining Student Affairs websites to provide the best student experience by ensuring the websites are accessible and up-to-date.