UNG LEADS Day - August 10, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged faculty, staff, & students, but not always in the same way. Come learn about the student experience as UNG transitioned to remote operations in Spring. Topics for discussion include the challenges students faced with access to technology, changing demands in and out of class, unexpected experiences, front-line expectations and reflections on being a student during a public health crisis.

Register for Being Student-Focused in Times of Crisis; What We Learned About UNG Students

The rapid shift from face-to-face classes to remote instruction, followed by a fully online summer schedule, caught many offguard. Not surprisingly, our students struggled to adjust. As we look to the upcoming year, remote instruction will remain necessary. This session is specifically designed to help instructors identify strategies to promote an academic mindset, resiliency, and student self-efficacy even in virtual environments.

Register for Best Practices in Remote Instruction - Mindset

Teleworking can be an effective alternative to on-site work and supports social distancing. This session will provide strategies to help employees successfully telework by providing telework "do's" and "don'ts" and helpful tips in maintaining communication with colleagues, supervisors, students, etc.

Register for Best Practices in Teleworking

Although the COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone, this public health crisis has disproportionately affected low income families, communities of color, and other underrepresented groups. This session examines some of the ways public health crises affect (impact) UNG's commitment to increasing diversity and explores ways to mitigate the negative impact.

Register for COVID & Diversity

COVID-19 is not the first public health crisis in United States history and likely will not be the last. In this session attendees will learn from UNG Assistant Professor Supriya Reddy, a specialist in Public Health, about pandemics and their effect on society.

Register for COVID-19 & How Pandemics Play Out

Even among individuals who have not previously struggled with anxiety, the COVID-19 crisis has elevated fears and anxieties surrounding social distancing, wearing masks, and sheltering in place. These feelings of fear and concern are likely to impact behaviors of our colleagues and our students, resulting in increased agoraphobia. This session will teach attendees coping strategies to manage responses to fear, anxiety, and agoraphobia and how to encourage and help others.

Register for Fear, Anxiety & Agoraphobia

UNG continues to move forward with a new Strategic Plan. Come learn about the status of the new plan and how you can contribute to its implementation in your daily work. In this session, presenters will provide a broad overview of the plan, next steps in implementation, and answer audience questions.

Register for the Strategic Plan Update

Did it seem like there were more challenges with academic integrity after UNG transitioned to remote learning? This session will provide discussion on strategies to both encourage and enforce Academic Integrity within the virtual environment and discuss how Academic Integrity is addressed at UNG.

Philanthropy’s role in public higher education continues to grow in importance as dollars from state appropriations shrink as a percentage of overall budgets and increases in tuition stretch the ability for many families to play. At UNG, all employees play a role in creating a culture of philanthropy, yet many are not aware of the opportunities that exist or how to get involved. Working with the UNG Foundation, UNG Alumni Association, as well as advisory boards within the colleges, the Corps of Cadets and Athletics, there are many ways that employees can help create a culture that embraces the importance and impact of philanthropy on the present, and future, of UNG.

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged faculty, staff, & students, but not always in the same way. This panel session explores the impact of the crisis on faculty and staff at UNG. Discussion topics include adjusting to teleworking, remote instruction, access issues, new ways to collaborate, frontline responsibilities and reflections on the experience of sustaining university operations in a public health crisis.

Register only for Faculty/Staff Experiences Through the Pandemic

The transition to remote learning challenged students and faculty in spring 2020. Student engagement is a specific challenge in online instruction, yet with remote instruction, faculty find themselves on the front line for student needs. Attend this session to learn strategies for promoting meaningful connections for students in virtual environments. The use of social media as a vehicle for student engagement will be discussed.

As our nation struggles to reconcile perspectives surrounding CDC guidelines and individual rights. COVID-19 has created political lines and created political rifts. This session will cultivate an understanding of different perspectives related to COVID-19 response and discuss strategies for faculty and staff to help our students to navigate these differences.

Register for To Mask or Not To Mask

The COVID-19 pandemic quickly and radically impacted state budgets. This session will provide attendees with information about UNG's budget and answer questions about the longer term effects of a reduced state appropriation in fulfilling UNG's mission.

Wellness is important even when things are "normal." But what happens in times of extreme stress, such as during a pandemic? This session focuses on wellness, self-care and mindfulness and will include some strategies and resources that faculty and staff can use to "stay well" while teleworking and in times of extreme stress.

Register for Staying Well

Assessment of student learning is important in every environment. However, assessment strategies need to be adapted for the mode of instruction. This session will provide an overview of best practices for assessment in virtual environments. Attendees will then identify practices that might work best for their courses.

Register for Best Practices in Remote Assessment

How has UNG’s overall enrollment changed over the last few years? By campus? By degree level? By academic major? By race and ethnicity? These questions (among many others) are frequent across such a large and unique institution like UNG. However, what if I told you that the answers to not only these questions but many more were readily available with only a few clicks of your computer mouse? In this session, you will be exposed to Institutional Research’s new data-driven dashboards as well as provided a brief tutorial on how to efficiently navigate these visually-appealing resources.

Register for Employing IR Resources and Dashboards for Decision-Making

Times of crisis can be financially devastating to anyone while some may be newly recognizing the needs for financial planning. In the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the rules governing retirement accounts were relaxed to help ease financial burdens, but is it a good idea to use retirement funds during this crisis or future crises? This session provides information about rules for accessing retirement funds early and tips on making wise decisions for financial planning and retirement.

Register for Financial Planning Through Crisis

This presentation addresses the forms of systemic oppression that impact minoritized populations due to racial bias and discrimination. In our current context of ongoing global uprisings and national debates on racism, this session explores the role of higher education institutions in confronting racial inequality.

Register for Racism, Social Injustice, and the Role of Higher Education

In April/May, 140 faculty and staff were assembled in workgroups to create plans for how to return employees, and eventually students, to campus safely. This session will discuss some of the considerations for these plans and will outline some new safety protocols in place at UNG as well as outline some contingency plans if we need to move to remote operations again.

Register for Returning to Campus; What You Need to Know

In 2019, university leadership worked with enrollment consultant agency Huron, to develop an undergraduate Strategic Enrollment Management(SEM) Plan for 2020-2025 to compliment the universities overall strategic plan.

The opening lines of the SEM vision statement reads: “The University of North Georgia aspires to develop a student focused model to cultivate leadership-oriented, academically capable students to enroll in UNG’s undergraduate education pathways. UNG wishes to attract, enroll and retain the following audiences - first-time students, cadets, transfer students, adult learners and veterans - that reflect the diversity/demographics of our region.” During this session Dr. James F. Conneely, the Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management will explain the current national higher education landscape that drives enrollment considerations.

Register for the Strategic Enrollment Plan Presentation

COVID-19 has made our usual way of working with students obsolete for now. With UNG Connect, you can create a check-in process for your department or individual office that keeps you and students organized and safe. In this presentation I will show you how to utilize UNG Connect forms to create a check-in system for when students come to your department or office. This process encourages students to wait somewhere safe until their turn so that your waiting room and the hallways are kept clear.

Register for the UNG Connect Session