| Title | SpringBoard: Imagine Two – Academic Student Development Initiative |
|---|---|
| Faculty/College/Unit | VP Students |
| Status | Completed |
| Duration | 1 Year |
| Initiation | 04/01/2004 |
| Completion | 03/31/2005 |
| Project Summary | SpringBoard: “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter how fast you’re moving.” – Chad Trytten. In accordance with the Trek 2000 vision to attract and retain outstanding students, Imagine UBC has strived in recent years to be the most inclusive orientation program of any university in Canada, and has more than exceeded this aim. The largest area of expansion for this program, however, is one of extending the Imagine Day and community structure throughout the year. Many successful programs have addressed the issues of creating a unity among (though not exclusively) first year students, including the Imagine Day, Student Workshop Series, Student Leadership Conference, and Reading Week Community Service projects. Research by Ohio University in 1992 has shown that students more involved in campus life continually achieve higher GPAs, are more likely to be retained in later years, and achieve greater excellence after graduation. Addressing this idea, these existing gatherings of students aim to create a forum for students to meet, network, and learn; the students who attend these activities provide some of the most promising feedback that described exactly why many students chose UBC to be their university. However, there exist no cohesive force or common goal to keep the MUGs (Imagine My Undergraduate Groups) together after Imagine and as such many students drift away from a campus community that, in their perspective, is not reaching out to them. “There are as many prospects at a university as there are students, unfortunately, [such] opportunity [is often] lost to apathy, fear, and intimidation” (Jana Danielson, University of Sask). SpringBoard promises to fill this void as well as to help maintain the stability of the MUG, to help streamline and reinforce the process of campus involvement, and – most importantly – to help students gain peer suggested skills, as discussed below. |
| Funding Details | |
| Year 1: Project Year | Year 1 |
| Year 1: Funding Year | 2004/2005 |
| Year 1: Project Type | Small TLEF |
| Year 1: Principal Investigator | Chad Trytten |
| Year 1: Funded Amount | 11,500 |
| Year 1: Team Members | Chad Trytten, Imagine UBC Coordinator, Science Peer Program, SCI Team |