Virtual Welcome Center and Enrollment Content Strategy Guide

The purpose of your Virtual Welcome Center and Enrollment site is to expose students to the vibrant culture and activities of your campus community. There are dozens of ways to use discussions and events in Wisr to gather your prospective students virtually to participate in fun social activities that will keep incoming students engaged week after week.

A few key components should be included when building out content for Virtual Welcome Centers or Enrollment sites:

1. Content should focus on extending the sense of community that exists on campus to your Wisr site.
2. Prioritize balancing academic programming with social programming. Wisr sites that provide more opportunities for social interaction between students throughout the site often see greater engagement from their student populations.
3. Current student voices should be prioritized in sharing their personal experiences, as current students can speak to specific experiences that relate to their decision to choose your institution and to the nuances of campus culture that make your institution special.
4. Create content that shares information about the day-to-day life of a college student. Prospective and admitted students might not be able to visit campus in person to witness for themselves how college students operate, so current student ambassadors that are also community leaders can take this opportunity to speak to their own experiences of being a student on campus.

Content created on the site should utilize several mediums available on Wisr. Posting discussions, holding regular events, and connecting directly are all important forms of interaction that can create connections between prospective students and your institution, faculty/staff, student ambassadors, and their peers. 

Student Ambassador-Led Small Groups

Creating communities moderated by student leaders allow incoming students to connect, share information about activities specific to them, and participate in private threads and conversations. These communities should replicate Tour Guide groups that would meet traditionally during on-campus visits. These small groups will make up the bulk of your communities and should be a space where incoming students have the most authentic experience and feel comfortable asking their student ambassador questions. Discussion topics in these communities should focus on creating opportunities for prospective students to learn more about campus life from the perspective of a current student.

Discussion topic ideas: Answer the following prompts to create engaging discussion posts. 

• What makes the [region/city/town that your institution is located in] special? What are some things that you wouldn't know about the location if you didn't live there on campus?
• Where can incoming students find the best food on campus?
• What items are must-haves for new students moving onto campus into the dorms?
• How do you organize your class and study schedule?
• Where do most people hang out on campus?
• How did you meet people when you first started classes?
• What types of clubs and organizations are you involved in?
• What are the dorms like?
• What attractions are available in [region/city/town that your institution is located in]? 
• What do you like about your major/minor?
• What activities take place on campus during free time?

Pro-tip: Always end your discussion posts with a question to give students something to respond to, and add pictures or videos to your posts to give students a firsthand look into what you're referring to!

Social Events: Host Zoom events to give students a live opportunity to engage in activities with current students and peers. 

Movie Nights

The new Chrome plugin Netflix Party allows people across the world to watch the same movie at the same time. A Netflix account holder should visit the Netflix Party website to install the Chrome extension link. Once installed, select a movie (create a poll through your survey tool for students to vote on which movie to watch) and click the “NP” button on your browser to the right of the address bar. Start your party to generate a specific Netflix Party URL to share. Everyone will be able to view the movie simultaneously and the host has the ability to pause if an intermission is needed. There is a chat function for what used to be annoying theater whispers. Netflix has set high a 500,000 viewer limit on streams so there is plenty of room to accommodate your whole incoming class as well as your student staff. 

Trivia contests

Use a user-friendly platform like Kahoot! or Mentimeter to develop your own questions and build a trivia game. Many institutions already have accounts with Kahoot! and Mentimeter (or the free versions should suffice for your game). As you write your trivia questions, focusing on campus traditions or institutional history is a fun way for students to learn more about your school. You can even host multiple trivia nights and theme them, for example: Campus Traditions, College History, Famous Faces at WisrU, College Sports, etc. There are also several free trivia question generators available online if you want a more traditional trivia game with questions covering various topics. 

To host the trivia game and share it with your members, use Zoom Webinar and post the link in a Wisr event. Events can be for all your members or limited to certain communities (remember that Zoom Webinar has limits on the number of participants, so if you intend to have more than 100 participants, you’ll need to upgrade your account). Students can log into play or just watch and use the chat functions to communicate with their peers during the game. Participants will need to be logged into both the Zoom Event as well as the trivia management system to play. We suggest using two devices if possible. 

At the event time, start the Zoom a few minutes earlier than the game, have a slide ready with instructions on how to get into the game’s site with the code to play. Students will see the questions through the Zoom Webinar and can answer questions on their second device, most easily their phone. At the start of the game, the moderator should share their screen and might want to play some Jeopardy-like music. For an hour-long game, we suggest having about 50 - 60 questions ready. Provide students about 20 seconds to answer each question; after results are in, the moderator can provide more details or background about that tradition or provide a personal anecdote. Be sure to tell students up front what they are competing for: Prizes? Fame and glory? Bragging rights? All of the above?

Fitness Classes

Online fitness classes can offer students classes taught by your own athletics and physical education coaches, faculty, staff, and students. Classes can be offered live in a Webinar format and recorded and posted for later viewing. Use these classes as an opportunity to introduce a healthy start to college for students showcasing the normal offerings from your institution, and perhaps consider throwing in some special opportunities and works outs – how do your athletes stay fit year-round?

Group Outings

Student ambassadors can schedule live Zoom meetings to include prospective students in activities that they as college students would already be doing. Community leaders can live-stream shopping for items for their dorms; sharing tips on how to organize their study schedule; planning for how to study for midterms/final; and exploring the city/town/region that the campus is located in. 

Game Nights

Multiple services are offer virtual game nights for little to no cost that can accommodate group games. Here are just a few examples that we found. 

• Scattergories via Zoom through a free app
• Heads up via the free House Party app
• Join a Zoom to play cards and other favorites via the free Playing Cards app
• Jackbox games offers a more irreverent set of game options right from web browsers
• The App Store and Google Play offer a variety of long-standing family-favorite games that can be multi-player including Scrabble, Uno, Yahtzee, and Boggle. Students can download the app on their device and join a Zoom call with a small group to compete in a synched game while chatting live
• Low-cost Virtual Bingo 

There is one thing that motivates participation – PRIZES! Consider scheduling tournaments where students can collect participation points towards prizes or rewarding winners with institutional swag.