It is Welcome Week on Campuses. Want to see what university and college campuses truly value and care about? Look at what programs and speakers they invest in for setting their students up for success during Welcome Week. Are they doing the bare minimum Title IX presentation or they bringing in thought-provoking and challenging speakers and experts to uplevel their incoming classes?
Almost every university and college campus I speak on during this time of the year is a repeat for me. Why? These campuses want their students and their community built on a consistent culture of skill building and healthy proactive mindsets.
The interesting result on the campuses we work with is even the Welcome Week Leaders (who already saw the program their 1st year on campus) are super excited about hearing the program AGAIN. They run up to us and say, “This is my 3rd Time hearing you. We are sooo excited!!”
Choose programs that are so engaging and packed with essential skills that students look forward to hearing it AGAIN year after year!! Students will take away new “Aha”s each year.
How does a campus do this?
- Dive deep into a speaker’s track record. Are they at the same schools every year (that tells you a lot about the consistency of their impact)?
- Have the speaker show you the post-event survey responses from speaking at other universities. Make sure what you are seeing is unfiltered (no editing out of negative or neutral comments). We are happy to share the survey responses from over 75,000 students with any campus looking at working with us.
- Ask to watch a full recording of the exact talk you are hiring them to present at your school (NOT just a 5-15 minute clip where they can pick their best stuff). The best way to know a speaker truly makes an impact is to experience the FULL talk.
When done well, Welcome Week is a special time for students and the campus. When done incredibly, the students remember the lessons for the rest of their life.
2 days ago, I was on a campus where an administrator was sharing that when they meet with the athletes to discuss healthy relationships, the Junior and Senior athletes brought up the “Can I Kiss You?” program from their Welcome Week years earlier and even cited specific parts of the program. When she shared that, she filled my soul with joy. Because that is why we do what we do and why Welcome Week is soooo important.
About Mike Domitrz
Mike Domitrz is a Hall-of-Fame Speaker, author, subject matter expert, and founder of The Center for Respect who helps organizations, schools, and the military build cultures rooted in consent, respect, honoring boundaries, bystander intervention, sexual assault prevention, and healthy relationships. For over 30 years, he has equipped audiences of all ages with practical, real-world tools. Known as one of the first pioneers on teaching consent in the early 1990s, his “Ask First & Respect the Answer” philosophy to consent has spread throughout the world. Mike transforms how people engage with each other, stand up for each other, and raise their own standards.
Why does Mike have such a deep passion? For Mike, this work is personal. In 1989, he received a phone call that the youngest of his sisters had been sexually assaulted. That moment would change their lives and a year later Mike discovered a way he could try to make a positive impact – by speaking in schools.