Saturday, June 21, 2008

Prospects on campus

The first day of summer was also one of those Open House days for prospective students and often their parents to get a feel for the campus. It was fun for me to get the opportunity to talk with the group and discuss how exciting the campus is as a true "learning community." The goal of this talk last Friday was to make the students (and the parents) aware that though Coker is small the opportunities are limitless -- especially when it comes to interaction with faculty. My role was to reiterate the point that Coker is a teaching institution with faculty who focus on the students and the classroom. Several specific examples like the trip students take to Mexico or to Europe or to NYC or the research they do in the biology lab put some specifics on the concept of student/faculty interaction. The Admissions staff, as usual, had it all well organized and it was easy to tell during conversations at lunch that students and parents were impressed with Coker and were getting their questions answered.

It was sort of a busy day for admissions because they were also hosting a bus load of high school counselors who were visiting campuses across South Carolina to get a first-hand view for when they have the opportunity to talk colleges with their advisees.

And, the campus is a bit more alive with students this weekend as a cadre of student volunteers are here to put on the Coker Connection. This summer there are about 66 members of this year's incoming class taking part in Coker Connection on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

In the classroom, the Term V summer night class will be presenting the persuasive speeches on Monday. We used a short clip from THE GREAT DEBATERS to highlight some of the persuasive speaking impact and that is a film the Coker Connection students will be discussing this weekend.

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