A-team members help new students learn about university life
The A-team is not an 1980s television show, rather a group of remarkable students on campus who go out of their way to work with students and make them feel comfortable at USU.
Student coordinator Kevin Crouch said the A-Team, consisting of 30 students, works with freshman and transfer students to help them transition over to life at USU. The two key things that they do are Student Orientation, Advising and Registration, or SOAR, and the connections class.
Crouch said everyone who is new to USU is required to attend SOAR, during which all of the students are split into groups and assigned an A-team member. The A-team member then goes through policies and procedures, student services and many other things pertinent to life at the university.
Currently, applications are being taken for a new student orientation staff. The applications can be picked up in the SOAR office in the Taggart Student Center, room 310. The process includes the application and an interview with Lisa Hancock, the A-team program administraton, and a student coordinator.
“The hardest part about being a student coordinator for the SOAR program is trying to pick the best candidates for the A-team,” said Brian Watts, current student coordinator in the SOAR office. “There are so many qualified students to choose from that it becomes difficult to narrow down the list.”
The students chosen for the A-team must spend spring semester being trained to facilitate SOAR. This involves taking a two-credit leadership class, taught by the student coordinators once a week.
“The class is fun and I learned a lot about the university that benefited myself as well as prepared me to help new students transition to college at USU,” said Deborah Teuscher, a current member of the A-team.
The connections class is a highly recommended class open to all incoming freshman. There, A-team members work as peer mentors for the new students here at USU.
“I loved working with the new students during connections week,” said Alyssa Craig, current A-team member. “I get to work with a group of students coming to Utah State and help them make an easy transition to college.”
However, Crouch said the A-team isn’t a small job.
“As peer mentors, the A-Team assists class instructors in presenting information, creating fun activities and answer students’ questions about Utah State,” Crouch said.
But connections and SOAR are not the only important things that members of the A-Team do. Throughout the school year, the peer mentors send out e-mails to each student that was in their respective connections class, updating the new freshman with information about activities on campus, community events and important deadlines.
New this year, the A-team members have been in charge of the USU Passport. Crouch said they run the activities and stamp the passports. The passports are given to freshman, and there are certain amounts and kinds of activities that each freshman must do to earn prizes. He said it was designed as a way to try and make students interested and more comfortable with campus life.
“It’s a big job, that’s one thing,” Crouch said about his experience with the A-team. “The A-team is just known for its knowledge about campus and university history, you know, just about anything that would deal with registration, knowing where to go on campus. So it’s good to have that personal knowledge and learn how to share that knowledge with others. So that’s been a good personal benefit.”
-jill.bowers@usu.edu