High Impact / First Contact SubCommittee
Meeting Minutes: April 14, 2000
Present: S. Byrne, S. Furlong (Co-Chair), C. Grosso, M. Kubsch, C. Matter, M. Reagan,
L. Sear, M. Stearney (Co-Chair), N. Suchomel, L. Toonen, G. Wilson-Doenges
Not Present: B. Amenson-Hill, A. Deprey, J. Gerow, L. Hansen, A. Haynie,
J. Jackson, S. Meredith
Guests: C. Young, D. Lamers
1. The meeting was called to order at 2:05 p.m.
2. The time and date for the next meeting was discussed. We decided to move the HIFC meeting to 1:00 on Friday, April 21 st
due to a conflict with the Planning Committee, which is meeting at 2:00
3. S. Furlong asked if there were any corrections that needed to be made to the minutes from March 31, 2000. C. Matter suggested that the Chairs wait two days until the minutes are sent to the Planning Committee in order to receive any HIFC response and corrections to the minutes. This was agreed to.
4. S. Furlong asked if we had received the various websites to review for the First-Year
Seminar Package. If anyone has any additional sites, they can be sent to S. Furlong and he will forward to the HIFC.
5. It was established that the main purpose of this meeting was to concentrate the current
SOAR program and what elements should be combined with the Intro to College program as stated in Recommendation I of the Task Force Report. Then to discuss what the SOAR program may look in the future.
6. C. Young, Coordinator of the 2000 SOAR program, provided a summary of the
SOAR program and handed out schedules and the purpose of the Student Orientation,
Advising and Registration program. C. Young stated that SOAR is sometimes the students and parents first look at the University. This is why much of the information and campus tours are included in the registration program. During SOAR, many issues like alcohol, rape and drugs are covered for the benefit of the students and parents. It is not a state policy that the University cover these topics in an orientation program, but the information does need to be provided by the University in some way. However, UW-
Green Bay and the Health and Counseling Center feel that these issues need to be talked about. C. Young stated that SOAR is 10 days long and runs this year from May 23rd through June 7th. Approximately 00 students register for each day. The cost is $35.00 for students and $15.00 for parents.
Throughout the last 10 years there has been a significant increase in the amount of families and parents that attend the SOAR program. This is UW-Green Bay's

opportunity to make the final sell and make the parents and students comfortable with their decisions.
7. The committee then began to ask specific questions of C. Young and also to discuss various options concerning changing the SOAR program. SOAR is not a required program, however students that do not sign up do not get to register for classes until the end of SOAR. The question was asked as to when other schools register. This varies from school to school. The committee believes that the current registration time during
SOAR works well for scheduling purposes and also for fall class configuration. Students like to know what they will be taking and should have the opportunity to become familiar with the University at this time.
The committee also discussed the lack of advising that truly goes on at SOAR. It was decided that there needs to be more faculty involvement and hopefully to begin the process of academic advising.
8. The main goal of SOAR for incoming students should be to get advising and to register for classes. The committee would like to see more faculty involved in SOAR days, thus sharing the advising responsibility among a number of faculty members. This would allow students to get some of the “high impact/first contact” that the Task Force suggested. All incoming freshman would meet with a faculty advisor to help plan their initial schedule . Advising and registration would take up most of the day. Voluntary sessions would be held (e.g., Campus tours, other information sessions) for those individuals who would like to hear the information. The University would still hold the current sessions for parents in order make them comfortable with the choice.
9. The idea would be to then make Intro to College mandatory and move many of the programmatic aspects of SOAR to Intro to College. Intro to College would then include most of their current activities plus the SOAR programs. Intro would likely have to be extended by a day or two. The committee then discussed a number of options regarding the amount of credit offered for these programs. For example, one possibility would be for 1 credit earned for attending Intro to College and then 2 credits for the Freshmen
Seminar component. Let it be noted that the majority of the committee felt that it was very important to give the information on alcohol, rape and drugs in a programmatic form to both the parents and students sometime throughout the various programs.
10. The committee also felt that we need to look at the transfer, commuter and returning student orientations also. Many times these students feel out of place and need to be orientated to the campus just as much as our incoming freshman.
11. S. Furlong volunteered to provide a plan/outline of what these two program would look like based on our discussions. The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 21st at 1:00. We will be finalizing the plans for SOAR/Intro to College and pushing ahead on the Freshman Seminar.
Minutes submitted by Shannon Byrne