A day to ‘Think Arts’

For many graduating high school students, their leap into university life is only a few months away. As an opportunity for these potential students to explore the various arts programs offered by Wilfrid Laurier University, the faculty of arts and student recruitment office organized the first ever “Think Arts” event on Saturday, May 7.

The event — which was spearheaded by dean of arts Michael Carroll — invited those who applied to an arts program at Laurier to the Waterloo campus for a day full of info-sessions, mini-lectures and discussions.

“Laurier has always had a fall preview day in October and a winter preview day in March, but we’ve never had a special day dedicated to arts in this period,” said Carroll. “So we decided this would be good to do for us as well.”

According to the student recruitment office, approximately 400 guests attended the event, with more than hundred of those being students.

Carroll noted that this was an effective way to show the academic side of Laurier to students — especially to those who have yet to decide where they want to spend their next four years.

“This is simply to get the message out about the nature of the faculty of arts and what’s available to students here,” added Carroll.

Glennice Snyder, the manager of student recruitment, felt similarly to Carroll saying that this was a valuable opportunity for students because the last day to accept an offer from a university is June 2nd.

“You can’t really pick a place without going to see it,” said Snyder. “It’s like buying a car, you get in it and you take it for a test drive.”

As well, Carroll hopes that the event will help improve the conversion rate of those who receive an offer from Laurier to those who actually accept it.

“One of the things that we’ve found is that if you can get students to actually visit the campus they are more likely to come,” Carroll explained.

The day began with a talk by Carroll and an enthusiastic presentation made by the O-week team. Following the morning presentation, the students had the time to attend three of a possible twelve mini-lectures made by first-year professors and various information sessions.

“It’s an opportunity to come to campus and to see if this is a good fit for them,” added Snyder.

Recruitment officer Stephanie D’Lima, recruitment officer, stated that the mini-lectures also aided the students in the registration for classes.

“It’s also an opportunity to meet their future classmates,” said D’Lima. “It’s a pretty unique opportunity I think.”

Student recruitment expressed interest in doing similar events in the future for the business, music and science faculties.

“It’s something we want to continue to do with every faculty in the coming years,” said Snyder. “It was a good little pilot project this year.”