Minnesota State Residential Life Parent Podcast: Recent Episodes
Minnesota State University, Mankato
As parents, you want what’s best for your incoming college student. Join Residential Life Staff as they share their insights on how you can prepare your student to thrive in their new home. Whether this is your first time sending a student off to college or fourth, this is the podcast for you.
David Jones: Hello, and welcome to our next episode of Minnesota State University, Family and Parent Orientation Podcast. I'm David Jones, vice president, student affairs and enrollment. Here at Minnesota state university Mankato. We have another really good episode. I think that's going to, you're going to find very interesting in particular, cause we're going to focus on an area in a population that's continued to grow in our university.
We're excited to have as a part of our university, because it adds another really important thread to the fabric of our campus and everything. Today I'm joined by Jacy Fry, Jacy I'm gonna let you share your official title and everything here. But she is our campus expert on all things international students.
And so she's going to share a little bit more today in our conversation about how we support international students, the work we do to both recruit them and retain them and everything. And well, you'll see, as you listen to it more, so Jacy please share with us, uh, who you are, what you do here at the university.
Jacy Fry: Sure. Thanks. David I'm Jacy Fry and I'm the director of the Kearney International center at Minnesota State, Mankato, and our office was probably, I would say the most fun office to work on because we are always busy and always helping students we recruit international students from all over the world from our desks, you know, boots on the ground abroad.
And we also provide them support services. When they're here on campus. So we do programming, you know, retention activities, orientation put on huge events; singing, dancing, and food. And we also support our students, when they graduate and then stay in the US on their visa and look for employment, so we get to really build some deep connections with students as they're preparing to get here and all the way past graduation, which is pretty neat.
David Jones: I would think so. Gosh, so, international is one of those areas that, that you really get to be a specialist within it and such. So career-wise how did you find yourself working with international students?
Jacy Fry: Great question. I would say I've been fond of international students back to when I was in high school.
I'd befriended students all the time. And and then that carried on to college. When I started my graduate program at university of South Dakota back in the early 2000's, I had to do an internship. And at that point I was working in academic affairs and I was a study abroad advisor and yeah I liked that, but I really liked working with international students when I had to give them placement testing out of academic affairs.
And so I decided to do my internship by shadowing the international student advisor there, and what, the best way for me to learn the job to essentially make. How to be a international student advisor for dummies book, you know, just a survival guide, and it was a blast. I learned so much. And it was actually perfect timing because I graduated that year in August, and in October, the international student advisor had taken the job.
And so she had just spent that an entire semester training me on how to do her job. And I just walked right into this.
David Jones: Oh, that's excellent. Well, I count ourselves super lucky to have you in this role here at Minnesota state, it's just expertise in the energy and creativity you bring to it, it's just been phenomenal. So thanks, and I think our listeners will totally believe that as well as you share a little bit more about the work you've been doing this past year in particular, how impactful it's been. So if anything, um, your area's really been, one might easily make the argument, that has been the most impacted by the pandemic because of our relationship with both our international students who are in Minnesota, as well as those across the world that have wanted to come study here.
Know. So how has the pandemic changed the way you're doing your work?
Jacy Fry: Yeah, so, you know, we really had in the past three pandemic really thrived on that in-person connection with students.
Our office in terms becomes their home away from home. And we have a chance to really get to know our students. And if they're in the building we would swing by and buy a cup of coffee and, and chat with our front desk well, March 2020 that ended.
And so we had to quickly figure out how we could try and keep that connection to the students, but do it virtually and Our advisors quickly made all of their advising sessions online and started having more open sessions where students could pop in and ask questions as they needed to try and still make that easy access still there for students.
Um, recruiting. I mean, I, I send staff abroad 8 to 10 weeks a semester. And I had to call a staff person home she's in the Philippines and saying that it's time to come home, and you know, we stopped her recruitment trip one-third in. And so we had to figure out how we could still get our name out there, and tell our story with good students from our desks at our homes.
And so, we had to learn having to use technology a little differently, we paid more closer attention to time zones, and when we could reach those students, when they we're awake, not necessarily when we would be awake. And then we also had to figure out how we could still support our students who had enough time to return home right after the pandemic had started so that they could continue their studies online from home and be with their families during the global pandemic.
So it was always moving. I have a fantastic team that really took it on and I think we'll be successful maintaining those relationships with our students and then continuing to build new ones.
David Jones: It totally makes sense. Is your did you find as you're interacting with different with students from different parts of the world, did it require different solutions or.
Jacy Fry: Yeah that's notable questions for sure. You know, we have students in countries where, you know, Internet's not a problem. It works all the time, every time. And then we were working with students from other countries where they had blackouts for days. And so, you know, the university shifted to online delivery.
And if the student had gone home to be with her family and they were in blackout they could not even let the professor know that there was this blackout and that they weren't attending because it absolutely couldn't and it wasn't because they chose not to. I just think that time-zone thing is huge, because it's hard to ask the student to get up at two in the morning to meet you know? Who knows what they're doing at home, because. As economies and as community started closing down you know, they were experiencing what we were, but it was hitting them differently because maybe their parents owned a small shop, and that was their only income, and so there's suddenly wondering how are we going to pay our bills next month? And so to take on all of that stress, as well as from study online 14 hours I think we just had to pour a lot of advice out there.
David Jones: I just can't imagine that. I mean, I, I saw it. We both have kids, you know, at home or trying to study as well during, during this as well as we're trying to support them.
Um, I was somewhat fortunate, had a high school, senior and junior, and they're pretty self sufficient, you know, to do stuff. But I did have to up our bandwidth on our internet contract at home. All things being equal. That was a pretty easy thing to do. Right. And so knowing that we didn't have the massive time change and all these other things and, and both my kids took a college class actually last fall here at MSU.
So I know some of their professors were more comfortable with the technology as well. Um, you know, to varying degrees. And one of the things that's been intriguing is watching how. Our generation of students that were having college, definitely high school and such their comfort with the technology.
It makes it easier than ever to navigate higher education, go to university or whatever it might be. And so to that end, I think there'll be some things that actually might be positives coming out of the pandemic 'casue that greater acceleration of the use of some technologies, like the one we're using now, right.
This and another zoom, zoom opportunity. But those things will have a lasting impact. I think as we look at both their learning experience, but then their probably post learning experience in our ability to stay connected to some of our international students as they head home.
Jacy Fry: Yeah. I totally agree.
We've had the chance to, um, you know, we spend our budget a little differently because we aren't buying plane tickets, and going to all these countries. And so we have been able to reallocate things and invested in different programs, and different things our office. And we've also invested our time with them prior to the pandemic,
we did not do as much outreach to students who were in the pipeline, who had applied, or were still pending application and who had been admitted for the upcoming semester, where now we're having webinars frequently with them, talked about them, talked to them about what your options are how to prepare to come. And I think we put a lot of student's minds at ease by being available to them so much sooner than that week of orientation.
And so that's something I think we're all it's going to continue to do. And trying to just build that connection with those new students, but we're also connecting them to students who are already studying here, you know, to go to the networking and kind of a connection, so they recognize them when they get here in August.
David Jones: Yeah. No, that totally makes sense. So you mentioned August, so let me, let me share it. Let's um, let me provide our episode update.
Today's June 21st in which we're recording this podcast. And since the last couple of podcasts there's been no significant change in the state of Minnesota's approach to the pandemic and COVID-19 since May 28th, that was the most recent guidance. If you go to the Governor and the Minnesota department of health website, we're coming up closer, July 1st is the governor's target. Where the last of any restrictions is supposed to expire that it's either July 1st or when 70% of our state has received the vaccination.
And we're in the sixties. Low sixties right now as a state, I don't know if we'll hit 70 by July 1, but we're continuing to have momentum and are making concrete plans for the fall of what we're going to do, including that, of course, is international students and Jacy what are you and your team doing and helping prepare to for the arrival? And we know one of the big challenges I'm going to answer part of your question. I shouldn't, but the, the federal government continues to make different decisions that have huge impact whether it's opening or not opening certain countries travel to the United States, so what are you and your team spending time on right now and getting ready for the fall?
Jacy Fry: Yeah. Yeah. We are watching the the visa issuance dates really closely and watching how embassies are shifting and changing and opening and reducing the time that it's taking them to get to issuing visas, so. That, you know, India is going to open up July 1st for more visa appointments, or, you know, start taking visa appointments.
And, you know, with that knowledge and seeing some of the other timelines we've extended our application deadline to July 2nd so that we can accommodate those students. Might've just been, missing one application piece, didn't submit it cause they didn't think they'd have a chance of getting one, and we are working with them to get those applications complete.
And then we hand them off to our our ambassadors in our office who are available to do the visa prep sessions with them. Get them to, you know, start making those plans of physically getting here we're having conversations with students where we outline what the choices are. The webinars I mentioned earlier we try and get as many students to join us and usually around 60 to 70 students, which hop on, but we record them, so it's available to others who weren't able to join at the time.
We talk about, you know, your options really are
one: get here, before the start of the semester and get registered for a full courseload.
Two: defer your immigration document, but start with us online part-time from home, take one or two classes, get your feet wet and then keep working on getting that visa appointment so you can join us in January.
Or if studying online just isn't an option for you. Maybe the internet could be a little bit iffy or it's just not your ideal way of starting, then defer both your admission and immigration document to January and start making plans to join us then.
So for the students that are, really determined to get here, or they already have their visa. We're starting to provide orientation information to them in early July so that they can be as prepared as possible when they actually get to campus.
You know, it's a big decision parents and families invest a ton of money in their students to come to the US to get their degree and make the families proud, and so we want to make sure that they do that successfully. And you know, when it, when it's the right time for them. So what, whatever that is, you know, we have advisors and we have students, like peer leaders who can also connect with these students to kind of hash that out. And see what's going to be the best choice for student and their family.
David Jones: That totally makes sense.
You mentioned timing, are you seeing some students who been there, their plans were interrupted by the pandemic, still staying in the pipeline or now trying to continue their education plans at this point?
Jacy Fry: Yeah, so in the fall we had about 65 students who started their programs online from home, and in the spring, a handful of them got to campus and are now full-fledged on-campus students.
Others continued studying online from home. And we're starting to see those students requesting immigration documents so that they can get their visa and come here.
So we have students literally all over the world at different points of their program, you know, did they start part-time? Did they return home in March, to be with their families?
The US Government relaxed a little bit on the regulations for a visa so that they can maintain their status, as long as they were registered for full-time credits, they could still keep their immigration status active if they were home.
And so we, you know, having to do our due diligence and tracking those students, who were advising them the best way that, that we can.
So the goal is always get students here when it, when it works for them. But we're going to have students studying online again this fall, for sure, and we've learned a lot over the last academic year.
And so we're putting some extra staff and extra time into supporting those students because it's hard.
I can't imagine. starting a program, we, my third language, 14 hours away online, and not really feeling connected to that school yet. So we're going to put a lot of focus on making that connection.
David Jones: Ahh, yeah and having a opportunity to see all the work that your team does in helping support them. It's I know it's important work, it's impressive work and super fun to watch that those dreams can be realized by our international students.
So as we're looking ahead to the fall, and as I shared the date earlier, we know we are planning for an in-person fall semester with the ability to have our classrooms and many of our outside classroom activities fully in person and the opportunity to be fully realized, I guess, and everything.
So we're excited about that. What advice do you have for any of our international students who. Are either definitely coming or are thinking about coming still and, and how MSU can help support them in making those plans?
Jacy Fry: Yeah, it would be, it would be helpful for the students to really try and make that decision as early as they can so that they are best positioned to be successful in which, you know, whatever their fall looks like.
Sometimes we don't know if the student is coming until we see them until we see them face to face at orientation. And that's when we want to be able to set them up for success.
So the sooner the students can let us know what thier plans are, I think the better opportunities they're going to have to get the support from our offices, from academic programs, and all the different areas that need to help support their success.
If they are coming to campus and you haven't made your housing decision, I would challenge the students to go back and look at what the on-campus options are, especially within communities is a great way to get connected to campus and go to a smaller tight-knit community. You'll have right your whole time here
I think being on campus is a huge benefit to just being successful and In quite a new spot on campus.
So the students who are going to start online, be really thoughtful about the classes that you choose.
You're going to connect with an academic advisor to select your courses, and they're going to try and talk you into taking one or two classes, because from our experience that that's that's enough.
That will be enough for you, and it will be challenging, but you'll start out, start out on a good, note.
Don't take a full course load from home. It's, it's gonna be a bit challenging and I don't want that to be the first experience as you know, your higher education career happens.
And if you can't study in the fall and it's just not gonna work for you, stay connected to us, follow us on social media.
Our students are doing some really cool stuff. We brag about them all the time. And we want you to see what's waiting for you here.
David Jones: Yeah, no doubt.
I'm so, so excited. I just happenstance, uh, around the corner from us right now. Our president elect Dr. Inch is recording some welcome videos on campus for, he starts here July 1st as well.
And so I'm just thrilled that. To kind of see both his arrival here and he and I had a moment to speak and we're thrilled.
The campus has been so empty, we're ready for people back some livelihood and everything. That's true, probably across society for lots and lots of stuff, but college campus ours in particular was definitely built for people to be here.
And so to have that is a, is a real possibility moving ahead this fall's going to be pretty exciting.
Jacy Fry: Yeah I can't wait to, we haven't had an event with we have not had an event since fall of '19, and that's weird. We normally pack the ballroom two or three times a semester and have amazing costumes and beautiful music and delicious food.
And we are patiently waiting that to begin.
David Jones: Absolutely, Jacy I can't thank you enough for your time. And again, the work that you're doing and the leadership you provide, anything else that you'd want to you want to share? Or I should've asked about that. I didn't?
Jacy Fry: I don't think so. I just hope, you know, whoever's listening, if you haven't made your decision, I hope that you decided to join us when it works for you at at Minnesota State Mankato, we're ready for ya.
David Jones: Excellent, with that, Jacy again, thank you so much.
For those listening, stay tuned. We'll have another podcast out shortly and if you have any questions about what our campus plans are for the fall, go to our university website, look for the header, or do a search called"return to campus"
and that starts to outline all of our fall plans. So we're excited to see everybody back here and and receive those new members of our community as well. So with that again, thanks for carving out some time to spend with us today.
Let's talk about roommates. Having a roommate can be a really fun and memorable part of college, but it can also be tough.
Each student is raised differently and at times this can cause friction. Now keep in mind that college is a time for learning and growth. So it's normal for roommates to change during their time together, as they grow into independent adults.
To begin let's talk about the moment your son or daughter receives a roommate assignment. I have one do for you and I have one don't so let's just go ahead. We'll start with the don't. All right. So when your student gets a roommate assignment, there's one thing I don't want you or your student to do. I don't want you guys to immediately swarm the roommates social media profiles.
Okay. Or Google them. The reason I'm asking you not to do this is because it can lead to incorrect assumptions which could potentially ruin a [00:01:00] chance for a successful roommate relationship. If you think about what you see you see on a social media profile what you're seeing is just a highlight, not the whole picture.
Okay. You can think about your son or daughter's social media presence. Do they share all the good and all the bad? Probably not. Right. Right. So we're going to ask you not to make those assumptions and not to jump to conclusions on the character of the student based on what you just see online. Okay. We're going to ask you to give that student a chance.
Now in terms of the one thing I do want you to do when your student gets the roommate assignment, is this okay? I want you to strongly encourage your student to call their roommate, to introduce themselves and begin the process of getting to know each other. Now I know cool calling a stranger, maybe hard to [00:02:00] do, and it might seem old fashioned, especially for this generation.
But they're going to get a better feel for their roommate doing this instead of sending a text message. In fact, 60% of our students who lived with us this school year, they told us that they had their first meaningful conversation with their roommate regarding shared expectations and what they needed from each other.
They have that conversation before they moved in. Or on their first day living together. So here's my advice to do have your student skip the text and have them make the call.
Next. Let's talk about roommate concerns. Now. Unfortunately, your student's roommate is not going to be able to read your son or daughter's mind. Problems will arise in that's to be expected.
What's [00:03:00] important is that roommates openly discuss these small conflicts as they come up, instead of letting it bottle up. Now, when it comes to roommate conflicts that I know we can usually trace it back to you is a lack of communication. So learning how to work through a conflict. We know that takes some courage and it takes some practice as well.
But most of all, it takes both roommates working together to fix the problem. Now we can tell you from firsthand experience that students avoiding those little small conflicts avoiding it is not going to make it go away. All right. Oftentimes that can only make the situation worse. So what I want you to know as a parent is that our staff are willing to help coach your student through those difficult roommate conversations in the event that they need some reinforcement or support.
Now after students move [00:04:00] in, we will provide each roommate pair some conversation topics for them to talk about. And then also during the fourth week of class, we will have students sit down together with a roommate and complete a roommate agreement. So these are great tools for students to really sit down and to have that conversation about what's okay to share when's it okay.
To have guests who's going to clean up the space, et cetera. So those are some tools that we'll put in place once your student arrives. Now, a lot of times parents want to know about They want to know how many students have roommate conflicts or roommate problems. What I want to tell you is from 2020, the academic year 85% of residents reported either they didn't have any roommate conflicts or when they did have conflicts, they talked with the roommate about the issue.
So again Talking with the [00:05:00] roomate is going to solve a lot of the issues along the way. There are very few students that decide to pursue a room change as a result of a roommate situation gone bad. So just keep that in mind, most of these can be resolved with a little bit of work from both parties.
So you may be wondering when your student will receive their roommate assignment and the answer is it depends. If your student applied for housing. By the April 2nd priority deadline, your student will be eligible to choose their own roommate, April 5th, through the 26 in the housing and dining portal.
Through a process that we call roommate matching. If your student is eligible for this process, information will be emailed to them about how it works so that they can pick their own roommate. If your [00:06:00] student applied for housing after April 2nd. They will be assigned to a room in a roommate and they can expect to receive the room and roommate assignment in June and July.
So as soon as our department makes an assignment for students, it's going to show up right away in the housing and dining portal. So if your son or daughter is ever wondering if an assignment was made. That's where I would redirect them to check first. Additionally, when we make those assignments in the summer, we will also send an email to the student so that they're notified that way as well.
Lastly, let's talk about room changes. Now, if your student is interested in making a change to their room assignment, or their roommate assignment, before they move in the process that they're going to want to utilize for that is called the wishlist request form.
Yes. [00:07:00] I said wishlist. In a nutshell, what this process does is that it allows students to tell us what they're hoping to change their room or said wishlist. In a we're able to make that happen, we will information about the wishlist process will be available on our website beginning in may.
So you can check there for the forum and for any other relevant information. Now after your student moves in the first chance I'll have to change rooms is during room change days. And so room change days takes place after the second week of class. And during this time, students can basically select any available space at that time.
And when we approve the room change, they can start moving in a matter of days. Okay. Um, after room change days is over. We still allow students to change rooms. They can continue to do that. Until about the [00:08:00] end of the fall semester, we do have a deadline generally three weeks before the end of the semester is kind of when we'll cut off the ability for students to change rooms.
But so there's gonna be many weeks. In both the fall semester. And the spring semester to change the room assignment. If that is something that your student is looking to do now, for students who are interested in a single room, what I can tell you is that we have very limited single rooms on our main campus.
You'll probably find the highest percentage of single rooms at stadium Heights due to our. Reduced occupancy due to COVID. So that may be something that you consider checking out for. Students who are looking for their own space. Students during the school year can always add their name to this single room waitlist.
So in the event, they didn't get the single room that they wanted. Once classes start. In the fall, we will open up a single room, wait list, [00:09:00] and students can start adding their name to that list. And when a space comes open and it's, we've reached their name on the list, we will offer it out to them to see if that is a space they would like to take advantage of.
We have a number of resources on campus. Our student health services have a psychiatric nurse on staff and they take your, they will take student insurance. Our counseling center offers free services to students. They will do an intake where they triage what's a student's needs are, and they will refer a student to the appropriate source.
And so that might be a group therapy. It might be an education class. It might be individual counseling, or it might be an agency here in our community. Our accessibility resources office supports students with disabilities and works with documenting those disabilities and getting the correct accommodations in place, both in the residence halls and in students' coursework.
Our university security office is. Available 24 seven. They always have staff here on campus. They're a close partner for residential life. There are a number which I would encourage you to put in your cell phone and I would encourage you to have your student put in their cell phone. The university security phone number is 507-389-2111 if you're looking for the number later, please go to MNSU university security and their webpage will pop up and you'll see the number and you can put it in your phone then and have your student put it in their phone prior to making that phone call to us. I'm going to ask you to do something that might be difficult.
I'm going to ask you to take a couple deep breaths and be aware of the emotions that you're bringing to the conversation. If you can hold onto this thought that your son or daughter intentionally, or perhaps unintentionally might not be telling you the whole story that might serve you well in that conversation.
And if the first things that you're sharing with us, when you call our, my lawyer and some F-bombs. We've now created a new conflict. And so we're going to have to work through that new conflict before we can actually get to the point of why you call what we're going to do though. When you call, even if it's emotionally charged, is we're going to listen to what your concerns are about your students or other's behavior, and we'll help create a plan for addressing the concern.
We'll give you a good idea in general of what's going on, but we can't always give you specifics based on data privacy. But my style is to give you enough information and you can connect the dots between what normally happens or what might not be, what might be experiencing. You will know our next steps.
Okay, we might provide you some thoughts on what. You're doing next. But we might also provide we will also share with you what our next steps are and our next steps might be letting your student know that you contacted us to share a concern. Some of the options that we can offer to a student is it might be a conversation with your students.
Perhaps you're calling us to share that your student isn't connecting well with others in the floor, in the hall. In that scenario, we're not going to run up and go meet with your kid and say, Hey, your mom just called us and said, you're not connecting well with people. So we're going to try to connect you with people.
We're not going to operate that way, but if you could provide us with some insight into what your student is interested in and how they like to spend your time. We can indirectly coordinate some of those exercises and activities to try to get your student connected. Perhaps your student is in a conflict with someone, and that might be the roommate or somebody else on the floor.
Our staff can help mediate those conversations and our staff can also help your student practice what they might share with the individual that they have a concern with. Changing rooms is also a possibility. Um, and we can talk with that student about options to change rooms. Now, oftentimes a student thinks the other person should always move a never them.
And that frame is one way to look at it. Another frame to look at it as if there's a space to change rooms, we can make that happen in a day or two. And then your student is in a different they're in a different environment that can contribute to their success. Finally, sometimes the behavior might or could result in student conduct charges for us to move forward in the student conduct process and individual who observed the behavior needs to be willing to put in writing what they observed.
Oftentimes that's our staff, but sometimes that might be a student reporting information about another student. We're not able to follow up and conduct from a third party phone call. And while that might be frustrating for you, if your student is experiencing that, it's also a benefit for your student as well, because a parent who calls us about a concern about your student doesn't automatically trigger us into a conduct process.
Throughout all of the conduct process piece, we do everything in writing. There's a hearing notification letter that goes to the student's email address. And there's also a decision letter that goes to their email address. So students have access to information. If they ever tell you that they don't know what happened, or there was never a decision, or they're not sure what really unfolded.
They might not be telling you the full story, because we always provide that documentation in writing throughout all of these pieces, data, privacy is important and our goal is to work within the law. In addition to working within the law, though, we respect your student's growing independence and self responsibility.
And so we're going to continue to refer you to your student for follow up. We're not going to contact you again to say, Hey, we met with your student. Here's what we all told them. Here's what they all told us. Here's what we agreed to do. We'll refer you to your student for follow-up. If. The situation doesn't seem to resolve itself where it doesn't appear to be moving as quickly as you had hoped or they had hoped it is okay to give us a call back, share with you what share with us, what you know, what you've learned and insights you might have and that might help us develop a different strategy.
Moving forward, successful experience at start of our podcast, we shared a little bit about the goals of student success. In closing, there are a couple elements that I'd like to highlight. Conflicts can be more successfully addressed when they are addressed early. You all know that based on your lived experience, but students who are in this phase of emerging adulthood may not always see it that way.
So anything that you can do to help them take on some conflicts that they are experiencing more early in their experience will help them overall, both academically on our campus and also in the connection and relationship building second, as your student encounters and successfully resolved challenges ahead of them.
They become more competent as adults if I jumped forward. And I think about job search interviews and what individuals are looking for in that workforce, in terms of employees, conflict resolution skills consistently are a skillset. Employers are looking for. And finally students have a lot of resources to draw on and parents and guardians can also utilize those resources as well.
We have well over a hundred student and professional staff members in residential life who are then well connected to hundreds of other professionals on our campus, who all support students in their role of development related to identity, independence, and intimacy.
Violations of our alcohol policy include possessing or consuming alcohol on or off campus when students are off campus, there's still students at the university. And so they're still under the same state and federal laws and they're still under our expectations. Another violation is possessing empty alcohol containers and in the student's room, I would say that no matter how environmentally conscious a student is.
There's no student who goes out and rounds up 12 matching cans of beer. So there are some things that we have come to know over time. And if a student has empty alcohol containers in their room, it is most likely they've consumed that alcohol there. So that's one of our violations hosting other people in a student's room with alcohol present because the person who is hosting is.
Creating an environment where they're helping other people violate a policy or encouraging others to violate a policy. And then another example is being in a room where alcohol or containers are present. University responses include. Alcohol education programs. Um, and these, these have a price and the price is not intended as a fine, it is the price that it costs to deliver the alcohol education program.
Um, but as a parent, um, I'm always interested in what's the worst case scenario. So I'm going to share that with you now, a worst case scenario for a student is housing contract termination. So this is where we say. Hey student, we had a contract with you and that contract has behavioral expectations and you've broken your end of the contract.
So you don't get to live with us anymore. In that case, a student owes us 50% of the remaining room balance. When, when might this happen? Well, it would be, um, typically not a first offense, but if it's a first offense, that's threatening personal safety of others in the residence halls, then it could happen at that point.
Um, if a student is hosting, um, parties in their own room, then the second hosting offense would be the time that we would say we met with you the first time we advised you not to do this again. So now you may no longer do this after, after a second offense or, or repeated lesser offenses. Now I want to share with you that we communicate with students in writing.
And we do that through a website where all of the letters we've sent them. They have access to, we send letters that say, Hey, we're going to have a meeting with you. And this is what the meeting is about. After the meeting, we send a letter that says, We had the meeting and here's the outcome and you have an opportunity to appeal.
So a student can appeal, a parent may join a student and an appeal meeting if the student invites them. So as a parent, what I would encourage you to do is to talk with your student about what your hopes and expectations are for them and share with them that you have made mistakes as well and ask them.
Would they be willing to let you know when they make a mistake? Not so you can yell at them, but so that you can help them. Because of course this time of going away to college as a time of trying new things and you want to support them as they do that experimentation, you are more likely to hear from them.
If you approach it that way, if you tell your student, if you get in trouble, so help me, this is what I'll do to you. Um, they will be fearful of you and they will not want to tell you. And so they may reach a, uh, an outcome like a housing contract termination, uh, without informing you. So I encourage you to ask them, would you be willing to share with me if you get in trouble so that I may assist you?
Other drugs. When I talk about other drugs, I'm most specifically talking about the use of marijuana and marijuana has certainly had a growing acceptance in our, in our society currently though on our campus use of marijuana or drug paraphernalia is a violation of our policy smelling of pot. Because they used it someplace else, whether on campus or off campus is also a violation of our policy for individuals who become involved in dealing drugs on our campus, through our conduct process, they can minimally expect to no longer have the opportunity to live on campus.
We partner with the stadium, heights security, university security, the Mankato police and the Minnesota river drug task force in enforcement of drug related issues. Another Area of conflict that sometimes emerges is sexual relationship. And I'd like to talk just a little bit about how those unfold, a sexual relationship might unfold because a person sharing a room is uniquely impacted when a sexual relationship is occurring and residential life is often the last person to know about it.
Currently every floor gets to vote at the start of the year about visitation. And in my 20 some years on our campus, every floor, every year that's voted for 24 hour visitation. I recognize that if we asked parents to vote, that might look a little different than what our students are voting, but every year, every floor votes for 24 hour visitation currently overnight, guests are allowed for up to three consecutive nights.
With the approval of the roommate. So that is why res life is the last to know we aren't approving the overnight guest. The roommate is. And so you might be frustrated that your student is describing that's a roommate continues to have someone in their space. And you're wondering why residential life is not doing anything about it.
We might not know because we're assuming that approval has been granted. And so if that approval hasn't been granted, encourage your student to ask the roommate to stop the behavior or have your student contact our staff. And we will work with them on solutions to address the issue I'd like to add an adendum to this section about guests in light of COVID.
Currently overnight guests are not allowed to the COVID safety measures and students are limited to one guests in their room between the hours of 8:00 AM and midnight. Now, if this changes prior to move in, we will share that information with students, mental health. We are living in an age when, um, a student can have a mental health diagnosis and a treatment plan.
They can come to college, they can get a degree, they can pursue a profession, marry, have children and be successful in life. This is fantastic. Um, So we have students, many students who come to college with a preexisting diagnosis of a mental health concern, maybe depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or any other thing.
I encourage you to plan for continuation of care. We have resources on the campus and in the community we have student health services. We have a counseling center. We have an accessibility resources office. Um, Let's talk about that student identity thing that I brought up a while ago, where a student is deciding who they are for students who have had a mental health diagnosis in high school, they may feel like they want to reinvent themselves in college and no longer be the person who has depression or no longer be the person who has bipolar disorder.
And they may feel like, okay, I'm going to stop taking my medication and I'm going to stop seeing my therapist. And I'm just going to change my mind. For mental health concerns. Um, our behavioral health concerns, the mind and the body are connected. It's not that simple. I think we would all agree that you can't just decide you're going to stop taking your insulin for your diabetes and hope that that's going to work out.
Okay. Um, so when students come to college, a lot of things. That affects their basic health change. They typically have a different sleeping schedule, a different eating pattern. They now have a new boss. They have new friends, um, all of the things about how they're. Body works in space and time are different.
And so not only is it good to plan for continuation of care, they may need a medication adjustment because of the changes they're going through. Um, if this is your student, the continuation of care is really important. If this is a student that your student is connected to. Um, your student may have concerns.
If mental health issues have not touched your family, this may feel really unfamiliar and it might be frightening to hear that your student has a roommate on apartment mate, um, now, or in the years to come. That has one of these concerns. I'll tell you what I pay attention to. Um, if I hear that a student has a pre-existing diagnosis and a treatment plan, I say, good.
You know, what's going on? You have a plan for working with it. Uh, the thing that that can concern me is when I observe behavior, where a person is. Not taking their medication, selling their medication, stealing medication from someone else, um, or making threats to harm themself, making threats, to harm other people, not going to class, um, doing dangerous behaviors.
Those are the kinds of things that I want to intervene in so that that student can be more successful and all of the students around them. Are not being pulled down by, by their desire to support that student in their struggle. If you have, uh, if you're aware of a concerning behavior immediately, maybe your student calls and says, Hey, I just saw on social media that, um, this person has threatened to kill themselves.
Please call university security. And that number is available on our website. It's (507) 389-2111. But I'll just tell you also that you can Google M N S U university security to find the number, call them and tell them we get calls from other campuses that, you know, a friend on a different campus has seen something about one of our students.
And likewise, we contact other campuses to say, Hey, our students told us they're concerned about another student in Nebraska. Um, so this is something that's common university security expects these kinds of phone calls, and we'll take it very seriously and follow up immediately. We have a number of resources on campus.
Our student health services have a psychiatric nurse on staff, uh, and they take your, they will take student insurance. Our counseling center offers free services to students. They will do. Um, an intake where they triage what's a student's needs are, and they will refer a student to the appropriate source.
And so that might be, um, uh, a group therapy. Um, it might be an education class. It might be individual counseling, or it might be an agency here in our community. Um, our accessibility resources office supports students with disabilities and works with documenting those disabilities and getting the, um, correct accommodations in place, both in the residence halls and in students' coursework.
Our university security office is. Available 24 seven. They always have staff here on campus. They're a close partner for residential life. There are a number which I would encourage you to put in your cell phone and I would encourage you to have your student put in their cell phone. The university security phone number is 507-389-2111. If you're looking for the number later, please go to MNSU university security and their webpage will pop up and you'll see the number and you can put it in your phone then and have your student put it in their phone.
Later in the presentation, we'll comment on problems that are going to come up this year and we invite you to call us if you need to. Now, if you'd like to call, we'd like for you to call one of two places, you can call our residential life main office, or you can reach out to one of our assistant directors of residential education.
Our assistant directors are seasoned master's level professionals who oversee our residents communities. We have two assistant directors of residential education, one who oversees Julia Sears and Crawford and another who oversees McElroy Presca and stadium Heights. Contact information can be found on our website homepage under the staff directory.
We ask that you please don't call our hall directors or our community advisors. Our policies are in the residential life student guide. You can find this on our website right now. And we also put printed copies in student rooms, um, that your student will find there when they move in and our policies apply to every residence community, including our apartment community stadium Heights, our students have rights and responsibilities.
Their responsibilities include. Following our policies just as you and I can't say to a highway patrol person, I didn't know what the speed limit was. Therefore, I'm not responsible. A student, a student is responsible to know and to follow our policies. We expect students to leave situations where university policies are being violated.
Oftentimes a student will say, Oh, I just got there. And our rooms are about 170 square feet. So if a student walks into a room and other students are drinking alcohol, or if there are drugs in the room, it's not hard to figure it out. So we ask students to leave those situations immediately for our staff approach, the situation and your students in the room.
Our staff will document that student. And in the meeting that the student has later, they can discuss their role. We, uh, we expect students to cooperate with university staff. We also expect students to educate their guests. Students are responsible for their guests behaviors. So if your student is inviting friends from home or friends from another campus to come down for a weekend, and if that student comes and thinks they have carte blanche to be really crazy, the student, your student is who will be held accountable for that behavior.
We also ask students to report suspicious behavior. This is really hard for first year students because. You know, there's a spree decor that students don't want to be the person who tells on somebody else. So this may be a role that you play sometimes if you're hearing from the, from your student, that there's a problem on the floor, and you're wondering why we haven't done anything to respond.
It's possible that we don't know about it. And so we would welcome you to call us, let us know, give us as much information as you have. Who, what, when, where, and we'll approach the behavior.