Early connections

Though the month of September is a time when colleges and universities are welcoming new and returning students to campus, in Indiana, it also serves as College GO! Month. For universities, including USI, this is a chance to reach out to high school students thinking about applying to college and where their education will take them.

Every year, beginning in mid to late August, the USI Undergraduate Admissions team is inundated with emails from teachers in kindergarten through high school senior classrooms asking for items to share with students during College GO! Month and Week (the last week of September). This year, in addition to encouraging high school students to enroll with USI, Admissions staff took steps to engage more meaningfully with elementary students.

“We started thinking about what we can do to reach elementary students,” says Koryn Parsons, Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions. “And one of the first things we knew we needed to do was resurrect our activity book.”

In years past, Undergraduate Admissions had worked with University Creative and Print Services to make a fun, engaging activity book, intended to introduce younger students to USI. Knowing how valuable a tool it could be, Parsons and two of her staff members set about updating the workbook.

Ashley Hills, Senior Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions, and Kaitlyn Schrank, Undergraduate Admissions Counselor, both brought past experience working in Indiana schools to the table for the project—Hills is a former middle school teacher and college readiness counselor, and Schrank taught at Perry County Elementary School and worked for the YMCA, planning camps for students. As they evaluated the activity book, the group felt confident they could craft five days’ worth of lesson plans for elementary students.

Hills and Schrank referred to the Indiana state requirements for teaching as they lesson planned, so they were able to connect each page of the activity book to an Indiana Core Competency teachers are required to teach. Along with this book, they also created a Google document broken into two sections—kindergarten through third grade and fourth through sixth grades—using the self-guided tour and The College Tour videos to expand on those lesson plans in the activity book, asking the students thoughtful questions related to the topics.

“One of my favorites is the math lessons on shapes,” says Parsons. “We have a branded worksheet that essentially teaches what a cylinder is, what a cone is, etc. in mathematical terms. Then, we provide them with pictures of buildings on our campus and ask them to find the shapes described. Essentially, there’s things like that in each day’s lesson to connect to campus.”

Along with the activity books for each student, the kits also included coloring sheet templates, USI pennants to hang in key places in the school, T-shirts for participating teachers, pencils for each student and USI attendance at an assembly with Archie present if available.

In total, more than 3,000 elementary school students are being reached through this initiative. The response has been fantastic—teachers and administrators at the elementary schools have been expressed excitement and gratitude for the level of support we have been willing to provide.

“During a time when parents and students are asking themselves if higher education is worth the investment, creating connections like these with students throughout their educational journey can prove to be effective in helping them visualize themselves at college when they are older. The activity books and toolkits are the seeds that can grow and develop a connection with USI early,” says Parsons, “Not just with students, but with school administrators and teachers, families and the Evansville community at large, which showcases how USI is willing to go above and beyond to serve the region.”

“We can never underestimate the influence we can have in any given moment. As employees, if we can keep our University mission in mind and know our influence, we can make a connection every day,” she adds.

Visit https://www.usi.edu/admissions/ to get more acquainted with Undergraduate Admissions and to find information about USI you can share with those interested in enrolling! If you know an elementary teacher interested in the activity books and toolkits, reach out to Undergraduate Admissions at 812-464-1765.