Stony Brook Involvement Fair Woos Students into Campus Fold — Virtually

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 08/13/20

Stony Brook University in New York has introduced a virtual version of its "involvement fair," intended to help students on and off campus partake in club activities and meet other students, even if they can't do it in person.

Each club and organization is given video time to pitch its case and create meetings and events. Then students can browse the profiles of each.

For students who are unsure about what club to join, the university posted a quiz on BuzzFeed to help nudge the undecided one way or another. The quiz asks students questions about which school tradition is their favorite, how they like to spend their weekends, where they like to hang out on campus, what they're passionate about and which group during the involvement fair most piques their interest.

The university is also putting together other virtual events to help newbies and returning students build the campus bond. That includes plans for a virtual job and internship fair as well, to prepare students for next steps.

"We're planning lots of large virtual and small in-person events to keep our campus community connected and engaged," said Rick Gatteau, vice president of student affairs, in a statement.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • white clouds in the sky overlaid with glowing network nodes, circuits, and AI symbols

    AWS, Microsoft, Google, Others Make DeepSeek-R1 AI Model Available on Their Platforms

    Leading cloud service providers are now making the open source DeepSeek-R1 reasoning model available on their platforms, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

  • illustration with geometric shapes, digital circuitry, and subtle icons of an open book, graduation cap, and lightbulb

    University of Michigan Launches Agentic AI Virtual Teaching Assistant

    At the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business, a new Virtual Teaching Assistant pilot program is utilizing agentic AI to provide students with 24/7 access to support and self-directed learning.

  • robot waving

    Copilot Updates Aim to Make AI More Personal

    Microsoft has unveiled a range of updates to its Copilot platform, marking a new phase in its effort to deliver what it calls a "true AI companion" that adapts to individual users' needs, preferences and routines.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.