UPDATE: Plans for Eighth Annual Advisor week and upcoming OAD activities.

Hello everyone,

We want to provide you with an update about our Eighth Annual Advisor Week activities and some plans we're developing to support advising community members through OAD.

Advisor Week has over time become one of the hallmark activities of our year in advising, and it is a time of year we are inspired by and truly enjoy – the learning together, enjoying time together, and growing together.

Because our events are mostly over 50 attendees, are concentrated over a short time, and often put attendees in crowded situations, we are modifying our plans for Advisor Week. We will be hosting some drop-in open house days and some online activities; however, we will postpone our larger events including Advisor Conference (Poster without the Poster, Sessions), our Advisor Common Readings, SSI Lecture, West Side Amazing Race, and other featured sessions.

We are mindful of the guidance we have received nationally, system-wide, and for our campus. To that end, I want to just give a quick update:

• Open House Days: We will be securing a conference room for drop-in relaxation, craft, and self-care activities where we will provide snacks and food (using the highest safety precautions possible), crafts (many of you know how much I love shrinky-dinks), and simply an open time for a break and camaraderie while maintaining appropriate social distance to maintain everyone’s health.

• • East Side Open House Days – Tuesday, March 24^th and Wednesday, March 25^th and West Side Open House Days – Thursday, March 26^th
    • Open House Special Topics Drop-In Chats:
      • Discuss a Reading - One of our east side open house mornings, we will also provide a time where a host will be available to have a drop-in chat about a common reading. Learning together is something we enjoy so we want to continue to provide that opportunity for anyone who wants to drop in.
      • Learn About Best Practices for Moving Advising Activities Online – We’ll be hosting this chat on our West Side Open House day. Advisors have expressed a desire to learn more about best practices for online activities with our students, we’re envisioning this activity as a conversation about some of the practicalities of video meetings, sharing documents and screens, webinars for information dissemination, etc. but also the best practices of maintaining relationships with our students, supporting students through this and decision making. Since our effort is to get this online, we’re going to do it as a webinar too (that doesn’t mean east siders have to stay east if they want to join on site)!
• Small Events:
  • Crafting Together – Flower Power – Tuesday, March 24^th 4:00 p.m.
    • We’re going to exercise our flower power. Still under development, we are planning to use our green thumbs and make some bouquets or terrariums. We’ll keep you posted on details and we will have an RSVP if you intend to come.
  • Creativita Pottery Painting and Mosaics – Wednesday, March 25^th 3:30 p.m.
    • We’ve done this event for a number of years and we will continue to exercise our creativity and enjoy a piece of pottery we painted. We’ve added mosaics to this year’s slate of activities. We will need you to RSVP if you intend to come (you can always update it).
    • *There is a fee for this class. Fees will range from $15 - 25 depending on the pottery piece you pick to paint. All pottery and painting supplies are provided.
• Advisor Gift and Advisor T-Shirt Distribution:
  • Advisor gifts and t-shirts will be delivered to offices over the week. We are currently fine tuning the delivery schedule, and will provide more information once available.

As we learn more and circumstances evolve regarding COVID-19, we will keep you updated on our plans. We will be working on online professional development activities beyond Advisor Week, and will keep you updated on those activities.

We are a community, and the Office for Advising Development and our dedicated event planning volunteers are committed to supporting all of us as experience each day together.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions at jvolpe@uic.edu.

All my best,

Joey

Office for Advising Development
2722 UH and 2710 UH
advising.uic.edu
oad@uic.edu