2022-2023 Student Affairs Annual Report

2022–2023 STUDENT AFFAIRS

ANNUAL REPORT

2022–2023 STUDENT AFFAIRS

ANNUAL REPORT

On behalf of East Carolina University’s Division of Student Affairs, I am pleased to present the July 2022–June 2023 annual report. This document highlights some of the extraordinary work our team accomplished during the most recent review period.

I hope as you review this document you will gain a better understanding of the positive and broad impact the Division of Student Affairs has on our campus and the student experience.

Our division supports ECU’s mission through studentcentered programs, services, policies, facilities and environments that prepare students for the challenges of living in the global community. We celebrated many successes during this year and continue to navigate some of the choppy waters facing our pirate ship.

In fall 2022, we continued to navigate the “new normal” in higher education created by COVID-19 and worked to return to some semblance of normalcy on campus. We began with summer conferences and camps that aided in bringing life to campus. Of course, numerous face-to-face new student orientation sessions welcoming thousands of parents, families and new Pirates to Greenville were also refreshing!

In July, the division created a new Health and Well-Being unit, which creates a comprehensive, integrative behavioral health approach to address student care and well-being. Students with poor mental health are at risk of a lower GPA, discontinuous enrollment or dropping out. Dr. LaNika Wright was appointed associate vice chancellor for health and well-being and expanded her portfolio beyond Student Health Services to include Campus Recreation and Wellness and the Center for Counseling and Student Development.

We opened a new testing center on the Health Sciences Campus to provide more support for students with disabilities in key programs such as nursing, occupational therapy and others in health-related majors.

Pirate Nation also went robotic during the year. Through a partnership with Starship and Grubhub, ECU Dining Services provided thousands of meals on demand, ordered via mobile app, throughout Main

Campus from College Hill to West End.

Additionally, I want to thank our colleagues across campus and our partners in the Greenville/Pitt County community for helping us develop Pirates to become successful in and out of the classroom.

I am proud of our accomplishments and look forward to continuing our work to enhance student access and success in Student Affairs at ECU. Again, thanks to all who support the Division of Student Affairs and our students!

Go Pirates!

Dr. Brandon Frye

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs

East Carolina University STUDENTS

27,151 TOTAL ENROLLMENT 60% Female |

21,688 UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS 58%

We Are Student Affairs

8 UNITS

5,463 GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENTS

22 DEPARTMENTS

12 OFFICES

Mission

Maximize STUDENT SUCCESS

292 EMPLOYEES

Student Affairs provides programs and services that optimize student learning and leadership; builds a safe, supportive and welcoming campus community; fosters the emotional growth and personal development of students; and makes a positive contribution to the overall student experience.

Vision

Student Affairs fosters an environment where all students achieve their academic and personal goals.

Student engagement continues to grow on campus with 386 official student clubs and organizations.

The Division of Student Affairs transitioned away from Engage to a new platform with CampusGroups for managing student organizations and campus events called The Pirate Experience. About 70% of the top universities worldwide use CampusGroups as their campus community platform.

This website is an efficient, centralized hub for finding student organizations, programs and activities, and this allinclusive platform helps students get more from their experience outside the classroom.

Parent Participation

6,203 new users on Parent and Family Portal

531,848

users reached via newsletters sent throughout the academic year

Parent and Family Grant Program

Through generous donations from ECU parents and families to the Parents Fund, $9,638 was allocated by a committee of parent volunteers to six grants supporting multiple ECU offices/areas, student organizations and community endeavors.

The grant funding was dispersed to the following:

• Brody School of Medicine’s Interprofessional Clinical Simulation Program

•Department of Occupational Therapy’s student-run clinic

•Two student organizations

•Office of Undergraduate Admissions

•Laupus Health Sciences Library

A House Divided in Service Together was a joint effort between ECU’s Office of Parent and Family Programs and North Carolina State University’s Parents and Families Services to support the student emergency funds at each institution.

The House Divided in Service Together T-shirt campaign raised $2,623 for the ECU Student Emergency Fund.

Maximize STUDENT SUCCESS

Maximize STUDENT SUCCESS

The success of our students is the ultimate measure of our university. We will support excellence, expand opportunity and celebrate achievement.

The inaugural First-Gen Graduation Celebration for fall 2022 graduates was held in December with over 80 students attending along with almost 200 guests. Graduates were presented a stole by person(s) of their choice, who included family members and/or faculty/staff who had played a role in their success.

The spring First-Gen Graduation Celebration was then held in April 2023 with over 240 students and 600 guests in attendance.

ECU offered a wide range of mental health and well-being resources, and Campus Recreation and Wellness (CRW) raised awareness by connecting the campus community to those resources through the #YouMatterECU campaign. A student shares insight in this video.

The Center for Counseling and Student Development (CCSD) purchased Uwill, a teletherapy program, which increased access to therapy for all students (including distance-education students and those studying abroad) and decreased wait time for services, allowing CCSD to serve more students seeking therapy more broadly.

Uwill Teletherapy Program Participation

488 total students registered

951 total sessions

760 via video

148 on phone

43 via message/chat

9.36 out of 10 student rating of service

While most ECU students were seeking an appointment within one week, 17% desired an appointment on the same day. ECU students pursuing an appointment searched for the following focus areas of treatment:

• Self-esteem

•Social isolation/loneliness

•Trauma

•Academic concerns

•Body image

•Grief and loss

•Sleep

•Diet/eating disorders

•Gender/racial identity

•Bias/discrimination

•Substance use/abuse

Student Affairs departments provide support to our students in so many ways beyond programs and events.

17 living learning communities and 1 thematic community that include

667residential students

3,159 exams given by Disability Support Services

6,897 total sessions completed by 1,548 clients at the Counseling Center

Primary presenting problems:

Anxiety (32%)

Depression (19%)

Relationship issues (15%)

Adjustment (10%)

4,895 Dean of Students cases

1,049 ECU Cares cases

279 Behavioral Concerns Team cases

22,286 Student Health appointments (Main and Health Sciences Campuses)

83,640 job and internship opportunities posted by Career Services in Handshake

Student Workers Within the Division

1,237 students were paid $3,176,172 in compensation

Graduate Assistants

36 students were paid $313,573 in compensation

Scholarships

More than 63 individual Student Affairs Scholarships were offered in 2022–2023, which totaled over $122,600 in student aid distribution

Serve THE PUBLIC Serve THE PUBLIC

744 student volunteers served over 9,000 hours for 2022–2023 (recorded in GivePulse).

East Carolina University partnered with 200 local community partner organizations.

Over 170 faculty, staff and students served at Yam Jam, sorting 40,000 pounds of yams for a total of 176 impact hours.

Swipe Out Hunger is a collaboration among the Student Government Association, Purple Pantry and ECU Dining through which meal plan holders could donate up to two meals within the first two weeks of the spring 2023 semester. The Purple Pantry received 89 meals and distributed them to students (via an application) within 24 to 48 hours.

ECU’s Alternative Break Experiences (ABEs) create active citizens, leaders and advocates for lasting social change. New Intercultural Affairs experiences were added for spring break 2023, with approximately 30 ECU students serving four different communities. The summer 2023 ABE filled their experience with 10–12 students, faculty and staff serving in Jamaica.

The Truist Excellence in Student Leadership Award selection committee received 34 nominations for five $1,500 awards. Recipients were honored at the 2023 Chancellor’s Horizon Awards for Service.

Pirate Nation Gives — ECU’s annual day of giving — yielded financial donations to support the Purple Pantry and a bonus $10,000 for hunger initiatives.

Purple Pantry Week marked five years of pantry operations. Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement (CLCE) staff and Purple Pantry student staff led the celebration. The week also highlighted local community partners fighting food insecurity, a cooking demonstration and tabling efforts highlighting meal preparation.

In two Mystery Service Saturday events, up to 10 students served with Cry Freedom Missions (Goldsboro, North Carolina) and Interfaith Refugee Ministry (New Bern, North Carolina).

Over 150 volunteers served with ECU’s CLCE during the MLK Day of Service, providing a total of 364 impact hours.

Through ECU’s Club Sports, 147 members in eight clubs provided 250+ collective volunteer and community service hours.

Service has always been at the heart of this university. We will inspire the next generation of leaders to carry this spirit of service into their professional lives. We will demonstrate this commitment to service by being engaged with the needs of eastern North Carolina and beyond.

Campus Living partnered and collaborated with the Greenville Little Leagues of Greenville, North Carolina, to host the Little League Softball World Series by acquiring volunteers to assist with the event and to work with the hospitality team. In addition, ECU Transit provided transportation for the event to and from campus, where the teams were housed during the tournament.

The 10th annual Student Success Conference was held at the Main Campus Student Center on January 27. Over 140 participants heard from Dr. Robin Coger, ECU provost, who in her keynote address shared the importance of creating a sense of belonging for our students and ensuring that no student slips through the cracks. Nineteen workshops represented a wide variety of topics addressing the conference theme of Equity and Access. Attendees were able to network with colleagues during lunch. The Student Success Conference was a collaboration between the Divisions of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs.

Lead TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE

Lead TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE

The past, present and future of this university are closely aligned with the region it calls home. We see the challenges of eastern North Carolina and accept them as our own. Through partnership, leadership and discovery, we will be a force for progress and growth.

Over $650,000 was raised in pledges, cash, sponsorships and estate gifts for the Division of Student Affairs in 2022–2023.

Pirate Nation Gives Day

• Division brought in $45,438 •175 individual donors

Engagement Numbers in Student Affairs Facilities/Buses (2022–2023)

481,484 Campus Recreation and Wellness indoor facility usage (Eakin Student Recreation Center and Health Sciences Campus Recreation Center)

164,374 Health Sciences Campus Student Center visitors

1,354,699

Main Campus Student Center visitors

937,919

ECU Transit passengers

The first-ever Love One Another symposium — organized by the Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center with a regional committee of 18 representatives from ECU, faith leaders and community members — was held on February 25 in the Main Campus Student Center.

With over 200 people in attendance, the event exceeded expectations, and the survey results following the event were overwhelmingly positive. Keynote addresses were delivered by the Rev. Dr. Charlie Dupree (ECU ’93) of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, and the Rev. Dr. Nancy Petty of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh. Seven workshops, counseling support and a creative expression space were offered. Attendees traveled from cities across the region including Raleigh, Wilson, Wilmington, Atlantic Beach and Morehead City, as well as Greenville and Winterville.

Artist Alliyah Bonnette (ECU ’21) created a work entitled Come With Me and We Will Go Singing, a tribute to the life and work of the Rev. Pauli Murray, a groundbreaking activist, lawyer, theologian and writer whose work influenced Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Murray was raised in Durham, North Carolina, where their home is now the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.

The Women and Gender Office partnered with the Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center to provide a joint Alternative Break Experience (ABE) for students to Durham, North Carolina, to learn about gender equity while volunteering at the Durham Diaper Bank. As part of this experience, students completed 15 hours of volunteering, toured Pauli Murray’s childhood home, and helped wrap over 7,000 diapers on their first day to help 140 babies during a one-month period.

SUSTAINABILITY and RESOURCE STEWARDSHIP

DIVERSITY and INCLUSION

Residence Life has continued the Give and Go initiative as they close the halls, working with Goodwill and the Purple Pantry. In addition, Campus Living partnered with Pirate Swap, a sustainability-centered group that began in fall 2021 as an Honors College project. The organization’s main goal is to reduce the environmental impact of fast fashion waste in the Greenville area through the exchange of gently used clothing that would otherwise be thrown away or unworn. The Pirate Swap program distributed donation bins in West End neighborhood residence halls to collect clothes to be used in their sustainability fair.

The Impact Leadership Living Learning Community hosted a Paws for a Cause event during which residents donated food using leftover Pirate Bucks and made blankets for the local Humane Society. The event was a collaboration between the Purple Pantry and the Humane Society, and students who attended the event went on to register to volunteer with both the Purple Pantry and the Humane Society in the future.

Starship delivery (aka “the Robots”) and Grubhub delivery service began in January. ECU was the seventh campus in the nation to offer this service through the partnership with Starship-Grubhub and was the second campus in the University of North Carolina System to bring robot delivery to its campus. ECU deliveries average 250 per day. The Starship Robots completed over 15,000 successful deliveries by the end of May.

ECU Dining Services invested $48,000 in a reusable to-go container system called Ozzi. Students have the option to make a one-time purchase of the reusable box and are allowed to take up to three meals per week to go. Paper costs for to-go containers in fiscal year 2022 were $123,000. By implementing the Ozzi program, there was a significant paper cost savings, but even more importantly, 164,000 to-go containers will not be going into a landfill.

Campus Recreation and Wellness (CRW) opened the Eakin Student Recreation Center and the Health Sciences Campus Recreation Center to offer programming to all ECU faculty/staff for Faculty/Staff Appreciation Week

Various programs were offered during the week at both locations, including Yoga, Mindful Coffee, Introduction to Pickleball and Introduction to Climbing, as well as the Herbalicious workshop, an introduction to using culinary herbs.

Disability Support Services (DSS) opened a testing site on the Health Sciences Campus to serve students with accommodations. The number of registered students on campus needing accommodations has continuously grown each year, and the need for a secondary testing center to connect the two campuses has been overwhelming. The center opened on March 20, 2023, and in the first two weeks, over 80 exams were scheduled.

Since the opening of the Disability Support Office back in the 1970s, the goals have continuously changed to align with the needs of the populations they serve. The recent installation of the ClockWork (CW) system creates a more efficient way of contacting students as well as faculty and keeping testing information more organized and safeguarded. The confidential CW portal created a more integrated, accessible and organized way to track testing across the university. It also allows DSS to better understand the numbers of students they serve and where ECU’s focus is needed. With faculty input and cooperation, this transition will be a successful next step in moving forward to meet our students’ evolving needs.

COLLABORATIONS and SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY

LOOKING AHEAD — NEW INITIATIVES

During the year, Student Affairs staff participated in 76 in-person scholarly presentations and/or publications with external professional organizations. These activities were completed at the state, regional, national and international levels.

Campus Recreation and Wellness (CRW) partnered with the Humane Society of Eastern Carolina to host a Puppies and Poses yoga class. The Humane Society brought dogs to the event to interact with those participating in the yoga class. CRW collected donations from participants to benefit the Humane Society. Held on the Main Campus Student Center lawn, the class drew 150 participants.

An apartment fire at Treybrooke Apartments affected nine students from the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, the Brody School of Medicine and the School of Dental Medicine. The students were directly impacted and immediately displaced from their homes, losing everything except what they grabbed on the way out. The students lost computers, phones, furniture, clothing, and even vital equipment they purchased to use in medical and dental settings. Within an hour, the Office of the Dean of Students (DOS) staff working side by side with the American Red Cross and the Treybrooke staff contacted the student residents to ensure them that Pirate Nation was there to support them during the crisis.

DOS and divisional staff also connected with faculty and staff in the academic units to better understand the students’ needs both inside and outside the classroom. In the days to follow, ECU staff from Campus Living, Disability Support Services, the Counseling Center, the Purple Pantry and Laupus Library IT, along with other areas of support, rallied together to provide basic needs such as food and housing options. They also worked with the American Red Cross to give the students gift cards to buy clothes, toiletries and other personal items.

Multiple student organizations such as Religious Life and the Student Government Association (SGA) joined in to assist these students with financial support as well as technology, food and clothing needs.

Campus Living and Career Services initiated a partnership to create and onboard the Pirate Explorers Living Learning Community (LLC) for the fall 2023 semester. The Pirate Explorers LLC will serve students with an undecided major by providing programmatic resources and support that will help these students identify a major and career that they are passionate about.

As a new initiative, the Campus Living First Aboard Scholars — a group of first-generation residential students who receive a two-year scholarship from Campus Living — are being transitioned into a formal living learning community for the 2023–2024 academic year. The First Aboard Scholars will be the 19th living learning community on campus next year.

The Center for Student Success (CSS) was conceptually created in 2022–2023 to coordinate programming that serves students and provides support and resources. In the next couple of years, CSS will utilize the Student Success Hubs focusing on career readiness, health and well-being, and financial wellness. Themed weeks coinciding with the academic calendar will be offered. These collaborative events will highlight connection points with university partners and provide informational sessions that support the natural synergy between the represented areas. This center will also focus on alignment and collaborations with Academic Affairs in key areas related to student retention and persistence.

In June, Chancellor Philip Rogers formally rolled out ECU’s refreshed strategic plan. Future focused. Innovation driven. will extend through 2028. This plan is a new beginning for ECU and is expected to serve as a guide to advance student success over the next five years. Student Affairs has also begun its strategic planning process and will work during fall 2023 and spring 2024 to identify our values, develop our mission and vision, and establish our goals divisionally.

DIVISION OF STUDENT AFFAIRS

• Assessment, Research and Planning

• Campus Living (Housing Operations/Residence Life)

• Campus Recreation and Wellness

• Career Services

• Center for Counseling and Student Development

• Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement

• Central Reservations Office

• Collegiate Recovery Community

• Dean of Students Office

• Dining Services

• Disability Support Services

• Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center

• ECU Transit

• Financial Wellness Hub

• First Year Programs

• Fraternity and Sorority Life

• Health and Well-Being

• Intercultural Affairs

• Ledonia Wright Cultural Center

• Military & Veterans Resource Center

• Off-Campus Student Services

• Office of the Vice Chancellor

• Parent and Family Programs

• Pirate Media 1 (formerly Student Media)

• Student Affairs Business Administration

• Student Affairs Communications

• Student Affairs Development

• Student Centers

• Student Engagement

• Student Government Association

• Student Health Services

• Student Involvement and Leadership

• Student Rights and Responsibilities

• Student Transitions

• Technology Services

• Victim Advocate Services

• Women and Gender Office

• Youth Programs and Camps Office