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Muskingum University’s incoming class of 2024 has been ushered into the “Long Magenta Line” through virtual Muskie Preview days.

In previous years, Muskie Preview gave incoming students another chance to visit Muskingum’s campus in person. Students finalized their fall class schedules and met with student leaders, faculty and staff members.

However, due to current social distancing guidelines put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic, students were unable to experience the environment on campus.

Marcy Ritzert, Muskingum University Director of Admission

Muskingum’s Director of Admission Marcy Ritzert said the virtual setup goal was to create an engaging experience for students.

“One of the things the planning committee wanted to make sure to do was to allow students to feel as interactive as possible,” said Ritzert.

Muskie Preview days were held May 27-29 and June 10-12. The challenge this year was to keep students engaged for as long as possible after they joined the online sessions.

“You can’t have a six-hour online event. We had to think ‘alright, how do we make it so that people stay logged in? How do we make it so that people don’t get bored?’ So, those were some of the challenges for us,” said Ritzert.

Ritzert said they tried to maintain as much of the structure of the event as possible.

“The incoming students were broken up into groups, just like as if we were in person, with a current Muskingum student, a leader, to get to know them. So, we really tried to keep some of the components the same,” said Ritzert.

The most challenging aspect of the Muskie Preview to recreate was the one-on-one interactions between faculty and students.

“It was the actual seeing people face to face and having them on campus that we had to try to replicate, and that was hard,” said Ritzert.

Six days of Muskie Preview sessions during 2020 were held in May and June. #Muskies2024 attended virtual informational sessions via Microsoft Teams.

Prioritizing which aspects of the Muskie Preview were the most pivotal in preparing incoming students for the fall was challenging.

“We determined that the scheduling piece was most important, and meeting the Muskie Preview leaders was most important,” said Ritzert.

Much of the information students received during these previews had to be compiled into video presentations.

“Student Life did an amazing job of putting together a video series. So, all the presentations that were normally happening in person, many of them had videos created,” said Ritzert.

Faculty members from various departments were able to interact with incoming students to discuss major and minor opportunities and talk with them about their fields of interest.

“The Academic Affairs office scheduled one-on-one [Microsoft] Teams meetings through Office 365 with every student that came to a Muskie Preview and a faculty member. So, every student that attended got a one-on-one with a faculty member, mostly in their major but sometimes not,” said Ritzert.

The planning committee felt students needed to converse with different faculty during these virtual Muskie Previews.

“The faculty interaction piece is one of the most important parts of this event. So, we knew we had to have that component. And we got great feedback from faculty that it went very smoothly,” said Ritzert.

The Muskingum Admission Office is primarily responsible for promoting the Muskie Preview and getting students to register, but this year, they had to be much more careful about how to publicize it.

“I think what was different for us this year was to make sure we were clear in our messaging about it being virtual,” said Ritzert.

Student Life and Academic Affairs captained the Muskie Previews with immense help from Admission, Strategic Communication & Marketing, Student Financial Services, and Computer and Network Services (CNS).

Recruiting future Muskies to Muskingum has gone positively, given the circumstances posed by the coronavirus over the last several months.

Muskingum University Admission Staff | Photo: Muskingum University

“It’s gone really well. We are still communicating constantly with students. We are using text messaging. We have a lot of success with that,” said Ritzert.

Recruiting new students and promoting virtual events during these times has been a positive learning experience for the Admission office.

“I am so proud of the Admission counseling team and the Admission office team because we are finding new ways to communicate with kids. We’ve learned technology that we didn’t have to learn before. I think we will continue to do some of these virtual things and communicate with students differently in the future,” said Ritzert.

As times continue to change and evolve, Ritzert believes these experiences will allow the Admission Office to communicate with students better and perform their job more creatively and effectively.

“I think these challenges will make us be better Admission professionals because we have to think differently, and we have to meet the students where they are,” said Ritzert.

The class of 2024, along with all other Muskingum students, plan to resume campus instruction in the fall, beginning on Tuesday, Aug. 18.