-: Well, good evening everyone,
and welcome to Husker Home 101.
My name is Kayla Tupper.
I am the Interim Director of Admissions,
and on behalf of the Office of Admissions
along with University Housing and Dining,
thank you for allowing us into your home tonight.
We hope that after tonight,
you'll be able to see yourself
in your new home this upcoming fall.
Now, before we get started, just a few items.
So this is a webinar format,
so if you do have questions tonight,
please use that Q&A function that you have on Zoom.
We have multiple staff members in the room here tonight
from Housing and Dining
who will be able to answer those questions.
Now, some of the questions
we'll wanna potentially answer in real time,
so we might not get to all of your questions right away
'cause we just wanna be able to answer those questions
for the whole entire room and not just you.
So we might take some questions here and there
as the presenters go through.
Now, as admitted students, hopefully all admitted,
we kinda wanna get an idea who's actually in room today.
So I'm about to release a poll,
and I just need to know where you all at
in this whole entire college decision process.
So you're gonna have three options submit.
The first option is just, I'm admitted to Nebraska, period.
So you've been admitted,
that's as far as you are in the process.
The other option could be,
I'm admitted and I've paid my deposit.
So you really strongly are considering Nebraska,
you've been admitted, you've paid that deposit.
And the third and final option is,
I've been admitted, I've paid my deposit,
and I've submitted my housing contract,
I just wanna know a little bit more
about what this whole entire process is like.
So I just started that status check poll,
so if you could all submit where you're at
in this whole entire decision process,
it will just allow us to get a better understanding
of where you're all at
and what questions we might be anticipating
to answer this poll on this evening.
Now I do wanna say that this session
will hopefully end around eight o'clock, one full hour.
We do have our last men's basketball game playing tonight
at the Bank, the Pinnacle Bank Arena.
So hopefully we'll get done at eight o'clock
so that way we could all enjoy another Husker win tonight.
But at this time, I'd like to introduce
our Executive Director of Housing and Dining Services.
Lucas Novotny, go ahead and kick us off.
-: Well, welcome everyone,
and let me add my welcome's and my thank you's
and gratitude to Kayla's.
I might not be as excited as Kayla is
'cause that's pretty hard to beat.
However, internally in my heart,
I am equally as excited to see and be with you tonight
to talk a little bit about your next part of your journey
and how you might see yourself as a Husker.
I'm looking at the poll here and it's super awesome for us
to understand where you are in this process,
and I think that myself and my esteemed colleague,
Dr. Matt Nelson, can take you where you need to be
and answer those questions.
We also, as Kayla suggested, have a ton of people,
experts in the background here
ready to answer questions for you,
and so it's sort of our commitment
that no question will go unanswered here tonight.
We'll come up with a way to get you,
those of the 239 people who are with us tonight,
we'll get you an answer.
But I always do this,
and Kayla, if you could turn the screen,
I always start talking before I formally introduce myself.
It's one of those things
that my grandma gets so mad at me for.
But I'm Lucas Novotny,
I serve as the Executive Director of Housing and Dining,
as Kayla said.
I'm super excited.
I, like you, am still new to the institution,
so you are exploring your part of this journey,
I just began my journey at the institution
and so I'm excited to welcome, in many ways,
my first class back to our residence halls.
And I'll let Matt Nelson, my esteemed colleague,
introduce himself
as he'll be part of this show with me tonight.
-: Thanks, Lucas. Welcome, everyone.
My name is Matt Nelson,
I serve as the Director of Residence Life,
and on behalf of all of Housing and Dining,
our full-time staff and our student staff too,
we're just so delighted
that you're choosing to spend your evening with us
and hopefully we'll convince you
of all the wonderful reasons
why Nebraska is where you want to be next year.
So Lucas, I'll kick it back to you. We can get rolling here.
-: Great. Kayla, if you could.
As any good student affairs professional would do,
educator by trade and by heart,
we want to, as Kayla suggested,
sort of outline what we're attempting to do tonight.
We're gonna scratch the surface
really of a lot of things about this residential experience.
We'll do our best to answer all the questions.
Basically when you leave, you'll know a little bit about,
hopefully you know more about the offerings
that we at the university offer to you,
and you'll know about your next steps.
Many of you, I think, 41% of you,
are sort of in that boat where you're just like,
I just wanna learn more.
I'm just excited to be here and I wanna learn more.
That's great.
And many of the other 59% collectively,
you are going to be in that part where you're like,
I need to get in there,
I need to take my next step
in the part of this application journey,
and we're gonna help you do that tonight.
So kind of the formal content, if you will,
from my point of view.
If you could, Kayla.
I wanna talk to you about why you might live on campus,
and first and foremost,
and kind of how we talk about it here, it's just what we do.
We believe in this residential experience.
All first year students live on campus with us
and we believe that we can provide an exemplary experience
for you or your students on campus.
I could talk to the parents in the room
until I'm blue in the face
about how your students would be more successful.
I could spout statistics about less likely to drop out,
I could talk about retention statistics,
I could talk to you about the fact
that you're gonna be more academically prepared
and you're gonna persist to graduation at higher rates.
I could talk to you about the fact
that we're gonna provide you leadership opportunities,
and those who live with us in the residence hall
are more engaged in those leadership opportunities.
I could talk to you until...
This is what I do.
We could talk and talk and talk
about how this idea of living on campus
is going to prepare you for your next step
in your educational journey.
But just sort of bottom line up front,
we know that if you live with us,
you'll be more successful than those who don't.
And again, it's just what we do,
we believe in this experience
and we're excited that you want to explore that with us.
So how you might explore that, you might think,
well, what does it look like to live on campus?
Where might I be?
And if I will show you a little bit
that's on our website about our housing options here,
the majority of our students will live
in a traditional style residence hall.
It's in many ways what you think about
when you think about a residence hall.
You and a roommate living on a vibrant community
down the halls,
a community restroom where you're gonna meet
all of your newest best friends in many ways.
The old student affairs professional here, right.
You see the gray in the beard,
a little bit grizzled and seasoned.
That professional here believes in this experience,
believes in this idea
that the traditional hall is where it's at.
It's where you are going to get the most
out of your college of experience.
Folks are going to know you,
you're gonna know your roommates,
you're gonna know you're community mates.
It's an great example of what college is in many ways.
But we also know that there are many students out there
who living on a community floor is,
whoa, I have never had a roommate before.
It's just me and my siblings at home
and we each have our own room, we understand that too.
And we understand that you might desire
a little bit more of a privacy and a private accommodation.
So we do offer a balance of suite style hall accommodations.
We offer two and four person suites,
or four person suites, excuse me,
two in four bedroom units.
Geezo Petes, I cannot talk.
I'm sad that this is being recorded.
So when you are thinking about a two bedroom suite,
it's you and a roommate, and you and another suite mate,
sharing a common area, a common bedroom,
a common living room with a kitchenette and a bathroom.
So that offers you a little bit more privacy,
but also as Matt will talk to you
kind of about the idea of living on campus
that does offer you or challenge you in different ways.
Potentials that you have to clean your own bathroom,
that you have to attend
to some of those suite style roommate configuration
and discussions that your traditional hall mates
might not have to.
Also, we know that we want students
to get outside of their rooms and get involved in our halls
and Matt will talk to you about that.
But we know that some folks in suite style accommodations
have to push themselves just more
to get outside of that suite community
and get to know folks in their hall and in their community.
I do want to call out here quickly that our students,
if you choose to live with us, you may do so,
you may continue to live with us,
and we would welcome that opportunity
to house you for two, three, four years
while you're at the university.
And students who come back will have the opportunity
to live in an apartment style hall
where we have two and four person apartments.
So I did wanna call that out
that that's an option that we provide
in our housing accommodations and our housing stock.
As Kayla just dropped in the chat, so you can click on it,
but it's on the bottom of the screen.
Our housing options can be...
We're gonna reference our webpage a lot tonight.
So just click on that link, tool around, scroll around,
hopefully we can answer any questions
about your hall on our webpage.
So I would direct you there.
But one of our learning outcomes is, what next?
As a lot of folks, right,
that idea of 41% is kind of in that admitted, paid,
submitted the housing contract.
Great. You are in that priority one bucket.
You're in that area, you're pre April 5th,
you're sitting there ready to...
You have nothing else to do other than to learn
and get excited about your next steps.
On April 5th, the roommate finder opens.
So that's a participatory process that we like to say
that you have to go in and do something.
You have to go in and say,
hey, my buddy Matt here on the screen,
he and I met through our admissions process,
we would like to room together.
I don't know why Matt would wanna do that with me,
I'm a pretty tough roommate.
But we'd have to have mutual match.
So I would say I'd like to live with Matt,
and Matt would say he'd like to live with me,
and that match happens in the portal.
A lot of our students would do that type of scenario
in the roommate finder.
Another way is that students might say,
hey, I don't know anybody,
and I'd like to take the edge off the roommate experience,
is what I like to say.
I'd like to meet somebody,
I'd like to maybe meet somebody with similar interests,
I'd like to search for folks.
That's where you do that as well,
where you can establish your profile,
ask and search for folks
who have also participated in roommate search,
and then maybe start to ask them
if they would like to live with you
and have that mutual match process.
Or you might say, hey, that's not for me.
I sort of want the system match.
I don't love to say, hey, go random.
But the system matches what we like to say,
you know, the system is going to match you
based on those profile questions
and find you a mutual a close match.
It's not perfect,
but it is a great way to start the conversation
of a roommate relationship.
And then on your screen,
you see roommate finder will close on May 10th,
and then the room selection process will open on June 1st
and that's when you actually go in and select your room.
I see some questions already sort of on the chat
about like the process and when do I select certain things.
During this phase three
is when you would select your bed height,
is when you would select your meal plan,
that's what happens in that final stage of our process.
I do like to throw out here, just so that we're transparent,
there is an exemption process to live off campus.
Even though we know that we are a residential campus
and all of our students live on campus,
there are a few considerations
in which we would allow you to not live with us on campus,
and that can be found on our website as well.
And there's a process that outlines that exemption process
and we would encourage you to go there.
Kayla just dropped it in the chat for you.
I get talking really, really fast about the process
and I know that we get a lot of procedural questions
in the chat.
Kate and Keith are going to do their best
to answer some of those questions for you.
They'll tag the ones that we wanna answer live
and we'll come back to those.
Matt's gonna talk to you a little bit more
about some of that stuff that you don't always hear about,
you hear about the process,
but talk about life in the residence halls
and all that other community
that currently creates these halls into homes.
Matt, if you could.
-: Yeah, you bet. Thank you, Lucas.
I am excited to share more
about what you can expect after you move-in.
So I'd like to tell you first
that living on campus in one of our residence halls,
it's more than just a roof over your head.
It's a place that hopefully you come to call home
or at least a home away from home
where you'll be surrounded with folks
of similar interests and goals
and you'll find supportive staff and resources
to help you thrive.
You know, this experience is one
where I believe you'll find a sense of community.
I was recently sitting with some students having dinner
and we were talking about
how this might be the only time in your life
that you'll be in this position,
that you have an opportunity to live near
and interact with folks
who are going through what you're going through.
They're at the same stage in life,
have similar interests and goals
and, you know, that is really rang true for me.
The folks who I live near or around
are at different points in their life.
So I do think that this opportunity
presents a unique opportunity for you to explore,
and really on campus housing is a natural place
for you to meet others and find friends.
You're close to the resources, the events, activities,
and really, I guess,
all of that to say building a support network around you
is key to your success in college.
Sometimes words speak not quite as loud as the images
or the things that you actually see.
And so we presented a couple different pictures up here
for you to kind of see what life is like in our halls.
Each community is a bit different,
kind of based on the building style and layout
that Lucas was mentioning a little bit before.
So when he was talking about traditional versus suite,
certainly each of those communities
feels a little different.
In a suite style accommodation,
you might find really close connections
with the other three individuals who share your suite
and you might not know the folks three doors down as well.
Inversely, if you're living in say, Abel Hall,
where it's more traditional style layout,
you might know a good chunk of your floormates
because you choose to leave your door open
and you kinda walk down the hall
and see who you can catch before you go to dinner
and see if they wanna join you.
So if you were to ask Lucas and I, you know, gosh,
I think that traditional style the first year
would really be a good kind of entry,
a good way to meet folks.
But the suite style is also a perfectly fine option
and you might just have to work a little bit harder.
Despite all of that,
there are many constants across the communities.
You can count on educational and social opportunities,
whether that be experiences or events.
You're gonna have chances to have fun,
but hopefully also explore some topics
to expand your understanding outside of the classroom.
So as you kind of look at the pictures on the screen,
if you're looking at kind of the bottom left,
you're seeing one of our big red welcome events,
one of our block parties.
This was one of the indoor activities.
This is grocery bingo,
as you can see lots of folks buying
for that coveted ramen pack.
But we also do large scale events like comedians.
Our Residence Hall Association is bringing in a comedian
to entertain residential students here in the coming months.
But those are really large events.
Some of those big events are a little overwhelming.
So we also do a lot of small floor based opportunities,
whether that's a hangout like a board game night
or a movie night, dinner as a floor in the dining hall,
it might involve some snow day fun.
The picture at the bottom right is of some of our students.
Gosh, it wasn't last week, the week before,
we had a good amount of snow in Lincoln,
so classes went remote or were canceled,
and so the students had fun out in their communities.
Beyond just fun stuff though, right.
We also do things like upper class students
are working on their CliftonStrengths,
which we find really valuable and meaningful
beyond just what happens in the halls.
We also offer tutoring in our buildings.
You can see some of the pictures on the screen here.
We have both kind of individual study rooms
and group study rooms,
some other kind of amenities
that you might find a bit interest.
You can see we have,
one of our game rooms is pictured playing pool.
Some of our buildings have fitness rooms.
One image of one of our students doing laundry.
Free laundry, so parents, family members,
if your student returns home with a full laundry basket
and says, you know, gosh, I really need some help.
I can't afford to do my laundry.
Well, you know, actually, laundry's included.
What else do I wanna highlight?
Our front desk operations,
our hall front desk staff work diligently
to make sure this place feels like home,
and that if you have questions
about really anything about campus,
if you need help getting your mail or a package delivered,
or if you tragically get locked out of your room,
our front desk staff is ready to assist.
But beyond all of that, I hope that you find personal
and professional development experiences.
Yes, probably some adulting things, independent living.
It is not uncommon for us to show
how to do maybe a load of laundry or two,
but beyond that we believe
that you'll have opportunities to engage your community.
Whether you might be interested in hall government,
we have hall government leadership opportunities.
If you're interested in our Residents Hall Association,
they do kind of a blend of, you know, planning fun events,
but also providing feedback to folks like Lucas and I
on how we can improve the experience in housing.
And maybe you wanna go one step further
and you wanna work for housing.
We have plenty of student employment opportunities,
whether that's at our front desks or in our dining centers,
and we believe, you know, that's really convenient,
and we happen to be a pretty good employer,
I'd say Lucas, actually so. -: I agree.
-: You agree, thank you.
Kayla, the next slide actually has another thing
I wanna make sure I highlight,
another experience you might consider
would be our learning communities.
So as you can see on our screen here,
the learning communities are groups of students
who live together and share an academic major
or interest or identity.
These students live together on a specific floor community
and they're also able to take shared classes together.
In addition, they have some special connections
with faculty and staff sponsors,
mentors and professionals in the field,
that they might be interested in.
So we have 25 plus learning communities.
Our full list is online.
But kind of a few to highlight,
we have, you know, a pre-vet or pre-law.
We have an Exploring Health and Medicine.
If you're interested in more of the hard sciences,
we have a few that are chemistry or bio related,
one that's sort of forensic science.
So lots of options.
They're a great way really
to kind of shrink the size of a large campus.
They're geared toward first year students like you
and can really help with the transition to college.
A great way to get connected to campus and meet new people.
You know, that concept of living and learning together,
taking that shared course,
and then also being able to study together
back in the residence hall is pretty powerful.
And all of that to say you also have access
to a specific learning community peer mentor
who's an upper class student,
and each learning community has a sponsor,
a current faculty or staff member
in that particular interest area or identity.
So if that wasn't enough,
learning communities also offer exclusive events and trips
only offered to students in the learning community.
Again, pictures speak louder than words.
Couple pictures on your screen.
Our top picture here is our pre-vet learning community.
They are at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha
getting a facility of the vet,
a facility tour of the vet clinic.
That middle pictures are Discover the Healthy Human LC,
they're taking a tour of the UNL training table
and athletic training facilities.
And that bottom one, Exploring Health and Medicine,
they're at the Munroe-Meyer Institute at the UNMC campus,
University of Nebraska Medical Center,
and they're on a facility tour
but also doing some technology stuff too.
If any of what I have said has moved you,
the easiest way to get involved in a learning community
is to apply within the housing application.
If you haven't done that,
you can just kind of mentally
add that note to your checklist
when you go to do that housing application.
If you have already done that part, good for you.
And if I've moved you to be interested,
you can just email us directly and say, hey, you know what?
I looked at the learning community list,
and I'm really interested in that Psyched Up!
Psychology based learning community.
And we'd be glad to help you.
Gosh, I think I have one more slide
before I get to turn it over to Lucas again.
And the last one,
and I've hinted at this throughout the time,
but when you're on campus,
you have a built-in network of support
and many people on campus who are cheering for you.
And these are just some of the people.
Again, some pictures to kind of paint that image
in your head.
The top pictures, few of our resident assistants,
these are peer upper class students,
upper division students who are on every floor
who help our students navigate college,
connect with resources and advice and counsel,
and occasionally we have some roommate disagreements
and they are easily able to assist there too.
We also have, like I said in our learning communities,
learning community peer mentor,
that's one of our staff here on the third image down.
Our desk staff as well,
front desk operations, you know,
help you with mail and packages, equipment checkout,
if you happen to lock yourself outta your room,
or just have a question, so plenty of staff.
That second picture is a group of our professional staff
who live on campus.
We have staff who live in the building,
every building, folks like me,
and those individuals serve in an on-call rotation.
They're available 24/7 365
for emergency situations and crisis,
and so want you to know that
hopefully that brings you comfort
as you send maybe your student to college,
and knowing that some folks are there
willing to help at any hour.
I mentioned briefly earlier,
but we have in-house counseling staff
just to provide support and assistance
right in the building.
And really not to go overlooked,
some of our unsung heroes,
our maintenance staff and our dining staff
provide after hour support,
help with things that maybe go awry in the room,
that 24/7 support here.
Our dining staff helping you navigate the dining centers,
how to use your meal plan,
maybe you have a special dietary restriction
and those folks can help you too.
So the bottom line,
lots of folks around who wanna help you
and help see you be successful really.
Lucas, I think I'm gonna turn it back over to you,
and Lucas is gonna talk about one of my favorite pieces,
which is food.
Lucas.
-: I was gonna say our favorite thing.
I knew you were going there.
Matt and I eat downstairs regularly together.
And so we vote with our feet in many ways
that our campus dining program
is something that we are very proud of.
And I told you sort of in the intro
that I'm new to the institution relatively
and having an experience
leading the dining program at another institution,
I can tell you firsthand how proud I am of this program.
What I like to say all the time
is that I've never seen a more flexible meal plan offering
than the one at this institution.
We have a meal plan program
that meets every student's needs.
I like to say that our meal plan road
rises to meet you where you are
and we're really, really proud of it.
And I see that there's a lot of questions already
in the chat about meals,
and so hopefully through this section of the presentation
I'm able to answer those for you.
I know that our staff just dropped
a helpful link into the chat about dining,
and it drives you to our dining webpage
where you can dig a little bit deeper, if you will.
But we say that our meal plans
meet your lifestyle and your routine.
We got the three squared eaters,
and we got the no breakfast folks,
we got the intermediate fasting individuals,
and the folks who couldn't get enough food,
and we think that we have a dining program
that would fit all of those lifestyles,
and we'll talk about that when we get to the next slide.
But our meal plans are really portable and they're flexible,
and so they are able to be used
in a variety of locations on campus,
and that's what I want to talk about.
We have dining halls.
Was this is what you think about
when you think about a cafeteria?
We don't call them that,
we call them dining centers or dining halls.
These are all you care to eat places on campus
where with one meal swipe you're in through door,
you can have food from the grill,
you can have food from a world fair concept.
You could go to our allergen station,
you could come back and eat a dessert.
Heck you could take a second around with the pizza
and then the pasta.
All you care to eat for that one swipe
while you're in the dining center is what you think about
when you think about those dining halls or those meal,
that's the primary way that our meal swipes are used.
But there are many other ways that meal swipes can be used.
They can also be used as a part of our Husker Heroes,
which is a sandwich shop.
Those through our mobile app,
which we'll talk about in a little more depth,
you can go on to one of our sandwich shops on campus,
customize that order, call ahead,
get a ping on your phone that your sandwich is ready,
walk up with one meal swipe, bada bing bada boom.
Also, we offer the Selleck Food Court, which in the biz,
if you will, is called a ghost kitchen,
where we offer a a variety of retail concepts
for your meal swipe.
Whether that's our Qdoba that is on your meal plan,
so you can get your burrito bowl at a better,
more advantageous price point than the Qdoba in downtown,
or you can get a pasta meal at our Pasta Buono,
or you can get a huge omelet the size of your face,
if you want in Selleck,
or your grains in greens or your sushi,
you can get a lot of different options on your Selleck.
All mobile first dining center, our Selleck Food Court.
But any of our options on campus, any of our dining centers,
we're particularly attentive to those individuals
with dietary restrictions,
dietary preferences, or dietary needs.
So upfront we offer an eight plus
dining allergy free station in our Harper Dining Center,
but we also offer a completely gluten-free restaurant
in Selleck called Moxie's.
Our attention to allergies,
something that I'm really proud of.
We have a dietician on staff
who can help individual students address any meal plan,
any individual diet restrictions, any preferences,
learning how to eat vegan or vegetarian
or addressing a known allergy.
That individual, her name's Ellen,
you might hear from her throughout your admissions process.
She is a person
who individuals who have this type of restriction
or this type of need will come to know and come to love.
She is a individual who will serve you well.
We've talked about our mobile ordering,
and that's again when I was talking
about Selleck or Husker Heroes.
But you can also use your meal plan into the union,
into the Nebraska Union through our mobile app.
So through our mobile app on your meal plan,
you can mobile order or call ahead, if you will,
Chick-fil-A, Steak 'n Shake,
all of the vendors into the union,
that is something that, again,
these meal plans are flexible, they're portable,
they're used everywhere on campus.
We really do think that we can provide a food program
that meets any needs, something that I've said a few times,
we're just very proud of.
Something that I like to call out here too,
the individuals who serve in our dining centers.
Not to make a silly joke about my pleasure
'cause we have a Chick-fil-A on campus.
But it is truly their pleasure
to serve the students of this university.
They take that very, very seriously.
They're the friends and the folks
who will welcome you every day and say,
hi, how are you doing, as you walk in to a dining center.
They're the individuals who will help you
navigate dining rooms if you have any challenges
or any questions.
They're the individuals who take great joy
in ensuring that the menu is fresh for you,
that the tables are clean,
that the dining centers
are a world-class experience for you.
And again, as I suggested, being at a previous institution,
I know firsthand how serious they take that,
and it's something that I,
as the director of the department,
is super proud of and super proud of those individuals
who support our students.
We also know that there are some particular things
that are important to our students
and I wanted to call out
some of our sustainability efforts here.
In many ways, our dining program is best in class
when it comes to leaders on campus around sustainability.
I and Matt and the individuals
who work in Housing and Dining,
in many ways we run a small city.
You live with us, you eat with us, you grow with us.
And so we're set on a lot of resource,
a lot of square footage,
a lot of buildings, a lot of places,
and we take that responsibility seriously
to leave this world better than when we found it
and be good stewards of the resources that are given to us.
And our dining center is a great example of that,
whether that be the local food purveying that we do,
our biodigesters, our food waste education.
In the life of our biodigester program,
in just one semester,
we have diverted over 50,000 pounds of food
from our local landfill in the life of that program now,
that is over 120,000 pounds of food waste
that we have diverted from a landfill.
And again, we love to put that feather in our cap.
And in just six months,
I talked about kind of Matt and I voting with our feet
going there every day.
In the first six months,
the first semester of this school year,
our dining services served 1.3 million unique
or 1.3 million customer swipes into the dining rooms.
And so that's something that is absolutely something,
nothing to shake a stick at,
or something really we're really proud of.
I want to go to the next page
'cause this is maybe one of the our best slides
and it's on our webpage,
and it's something that I would keep handy
as you understand and learn our meal plan process.
As I kind of alluded,
we have dining swipes and then we have dining dollars.
I didn't really talk about the dining dollars,
and I'll talk about that now.
Our dining swipes as you see on this screen,
our premium plan, our big red plan, our platinum plan,
our diamond plan, our sapphire plan, that first number,
that 18, 14, 12, 10 or eight is the amount of dining swipes.
Those swipes are given to your card each week
and they reload as such.
But our dining dollars
are that declining balance amount that is behind that,
that goes onto your card
and that is used as a campus currency.
So you could use a swipe in the dining center
and then want to go use the dining dollar
through our Starbucks as an example
or go to the the Herbie's Market and pack up and snack,
grab a whole bunch of snacks and load up on snacks,
and you could use your dining dollars for that.
Those dining dollars as it says on this little chart,
those dining dollars will transition over semesters for you,
and you'll see that those green check marks,
our first year students select one of those standard plans,
again, the premium, big red, platinum, diamond, or sapphire.
And we know that this might be a big choice for you
and that's okay.
We encourage students just to grab one,
try one in the process,
and we offer a meal plan change period
where you can understand your schedule.
You could say, hey, mom, I'm gonna be a three square eater.
And when you get here you're like,
man, I'm not getting up for breakfast.
And that's okay, and that's what we want to do.
We wanna provide a program that meets your dietary needs
and how you want to navigate your food
here at the university.
So you come here,
you select a program during the first two weeks
as you start to learn your schedule
and understand how you use your dining program
will allow you to switch meals
between those traditional dining plans,
and then that gets locked in for the semester.
And then in the second semester,
we'll give you another opportunity
if you'd like to move up or move down into the program.
So refer to this sheet, Kayla dropped the chat.
This is a great, great, great resource for us.
Something that we love.
I think, Kayla, did that meet your needs
around the chat talking about bucks versus swipes?
-: Thank you so much for explaining the swipe and bucks.
-: Look how dynamic we are that we're responding to the chats
into the presentation.
Holy buckets.
It's like we've done this before, we're excited to do it.
All right, so as we're coming around the corner here,
this is where we want you to get us,
make sure that we have all of your questions answered.
So we've mentioned multiple times,
our website is a great resource,
and we'll continue to do that here.
We've dropped it in chats,
but now we're gonna give you a QR code.
It's like every way that you can view our website,
we're gonna give you it.
So if this is something that you'd like to do,
scan our website, peruse it.
But we know that we have a few questions already lined up
that we've queued up to answer live and we want to do so.
There's mostly my content which probably means
I didn't do a very good job of explaining it.
I am going to try to answer one and it says,
how does a student access the roommate finder?
And where you access the roommate finder
is in the same location
as you accessed your housing contract.
So you revisit the StarRez portal
which is found through your MyRed.
And Kayla just dropped that in there on queue for us.
You would visit your MyRed, click the housing portal,
and the roommate finder will be a widget, if you will,
that will be available to you on that time,
and then you can go into that part of the process
and participate in the roommate finder.
Matt,
I'm gonna have you answer some of the roommate questions
'cause you talked about roommate conflicts and roommates.
So I think the question is once they find a mutual match,
can students reach out to their prospective roommates
and learn more about them? Is there a meet and greet?
I think that's a great one for the Rez Life guy to answer.
-: Absolutely. We see one another at orientation this summer.
Usually the silly dad joke that I'll use is,
yeah, we would love you to use your vocal chords
to speak with your roommate.
Too easily we can text or join
and see one another on social media,
but actually picking up the phone
or, my goodness, if you could meet in person even better.
But yeah, definitely please connect with that person
before you move-in,
talk about, you know, just get to know one another.
Start that introduction,
maybe an easy entry into that is, you know,
where are you from? Get to know you.
What are you planning to bring with you?
Let's make sure we don't both bring the same thing
and meet up on move-in day and be a little surprised
at the amount of stuff that we have in our room.
So yes, please connect with them.
The way you can do so is all pretty easy and straightforward
in the housing portal.
You can connect with them that way.
There's a kind of a way when you do the roommate finder
to message back and forth with folks,
get to know them a little bit better
before you kind of officially match with one another,
that sort of thing.
If you do run into problems,
once you get in the groove of things, you know,
it's really easy to, I don't know, you know,
you're living with someone,
a lot of us haven't shared a room before
and so that's a new experience.
Our staff's here to help you kind of navigate
some of those tricky situations.
A lot of times they're really small things
and the small things sometimes build and, you know,
gosh, it really irritates me when you turn the light on
when I'm still sleeping.
Those are really easy to fix
and have a conversation with our staff.
Happy to help you with navigating those things.
-: Matt, I'm gonna come back to you,
but I'm gonna try to talk a little bit
and maybe we can tag team this about move-in
'cause I see some questions going about move-in.
I know Keith is eager to jump on those questions in the chat
'cause something that's near and dear to his heart as well.
But our move-in process in many ways is unlike any other.
It's a touchless move-in process.
A process that we learned and borrowed in many ways
from the lessons of COVID, but it was such a success,
and such a service that we wanted to continue to offer it.
And so how that will happen is you will get a move-in time,
they'll be communicated from our office,
and Matt can talk to you a little bit about that.
But basically what I wanted to speak about is that,
here we have crews ready and able
to carry all your belongings up to your room,
get you all settled into your hall.
What we ask you and your parents to worry about
is just ensure that the room is set up
and you can kind of get organized
as everything kind of just appears in your room for you.
It's something that's really special,
it's something that we think, again, we're pretty proud of.
Matt, you wanna talk about the day of move-in
just a little bit more?
-: Yeah, you bet.
Our move-in is really slick and kudos to the staff
who work diligently to make sure it is that way for you.
In some ways, maybe it goes a little too fast,
but our move-in period is the week before classes begin.
So classes begin in the Fall on August 21st.
Move-in begins on Monday, August 14th,
and lasts for a handful of days.
Now, your move-in date and time,
you will be assigned a specific day and time.
And the reason for that is because as Lucas said,
we have a moving crew who,
essentially we're gonna ask you to check-in
at a set one central location, get your room key,
get all the information that you need
and then hop back in your car,
drive to the specific building that you're moving in,
and when you arrive,
you're gonna pull up and a crew of folks
is going to kind of descend upon your vehicle
and unload that car or truck.
If I were you, I'd recommend,
again, this is one of my dad jokes for the summer,
pack your F-350, you can pack your Honda Accord,
but, you know, pack all your stuff in the F-350
and the crew will descend on that,
unload it into carts and whisk it away up to your room,
so that you go park,
and hopefully by the time you come back into the building
your stuff is waiting for you at the room.
And so to kind of orchestrate that,
we assign specific days and times for move-in
that helps the crew who's doing so they move-in by floor,
if you would believe it, they time the elevator,
and so there is a science certainly behind this
as well as an art.
So the 14th for several days, again,
you'll be assigned a specific day and time
a little bit closer here in the summer.
We do have some groups who move-in early.
So for some of you who might be participating
in sorority recruitment,
that move-in typically happens on Sunday, the 13th,
and as well as some of our other programs
move-in a little bit early.
So if you're part of maybe a special group
who moves in early,
your particular coordinator would be in touch with you.
And if your date and time doesn't work,
we'll work with you, no problem there.
Lucas, before I move away from move-in,
anything else you wanna say about move-in?
-: No, I just think, I think you did.
Just to put a little finer point,
we'll communicate your move-in details
throughout the summer once we know your room assignment.
So there's been some questions about that,
and there are some particular special groups
that get preference in early move-in.
So I know that marching band and sorority
was a particular question,
and yes we work individually with those groups
and those group leaders to coordinate those movement times.
Matt, you can take us where you'd like us to go next.
-: Yes, there was a question about,
let me see if I can find the exact wording.
It was about basically who has access to my room?
Good question.
So let's talk a little bit
about access to the building in general.
So say you live in Harper Hall,
all students have a student ID card, that's your NCard,
hold it outta my wallet so you can see, your NCard.
And your NCard is how you access your meal plan,
so when we say dining swipes or use your dining dollars,
that's all on your NCard,
but NCard also lets you into the main door.
So if you live in Harper, you scan this,
this is how you get into the building.
When you wander up to fourth floor,
so you live on the fourth floor,
you'll be given at check-in, at your time of move-in,
you'll be given a key to your room,
and your room key will let you into the room
and your room only.
If you have a roommate,
so say Lucas and I are rooming together in Harper,
which is a traditional hall,
both Lucas and I will each have our own key.
It does access the same spot,
and if Lucas happens to lose his key,
he can get it replaced,
and it wouldn't necessarily impact my key.
Now if we live in a suite, there are multiple doors.
So there's a door kind of in the hallway
that would have access to anyone who lives in the suite.
So up to four people.
And then if Lucas and I are in room A
and another pair of folks is in room B,
we'd have access to the A room
and they'd have access to the B room.
So hopefully that answered that one.
Lucas, where do you wanna go next?
-: I saw a question about wifi
that I think maybe was answered,
but I wanna talk a little bit about room customization
maybe as kind of a global.
I saw some stuff about thumbtacks in the walls
and those types of things.
And so when you move-in,
you are going to receive the community living guide
from Rez Life and that'll walk through
some of those individual in-room residence hall policies
and that can be a part also of your orientation experience
that will ensure that students get
as a part of their process.
But generally speaking, room customizations,
there are parameters around such
meaning they can't paint your room
or put holes in the walls.
But we do show you some approved ways to customize your room
through that community living guide.
So command strips and the like.
I wanted to touch on that router
and I don't know the question behind the question here,
but I believe that I would answer that.
But the answer is no,
we can't install your own personal networks into your room.
But if the question is about speed of internet,
our in room network is very, very fast
and it will able to do all of your gaming,
your streaming, everything that you would need.
So I wouldn't see a need for your own network
and our IT professionals during move-in
will be onsite if you have a smart device
to get that connected to the network
and address those MAC addresses
and those types of things that you might need.
Matt, there was a question about when do I get my NCard?
If you wanted to answer that, I dunno if you heard that one.
-: Sure, you bet.
So your NCard, that student ID,
if you join us in the summer for a new student enrollment
or orientation program that is when you'll get your NCard.
So you'll have it when you come to move-in in August.
If for some reason you're not able to make it
and join us in person for orientation, that's okay,
we still want you to move-in
and we can kind of direct you from there
on how to get your NCard.
I know we use a lot of words,
there's a lot of acronyms and lingo with campus
and so just to kind of say it one more time,
the NCard is your student ID.
The NUID is that eight digit number
that you kind of use to log in for various systems.
Your NCard is what's gonna give you,
you know, tangible access to things.
Your NUID, that eight digit number,
is what's gonna provide you access to systems and things
in the technology sphere.
So like when you go to login to MyRed,
you'll sign in using your eight digit NUID.
I got a couple questions about parking.
I think maybe that could be interesting.
Parking, there is no restriction
on first year students parking on campus.
You are welcome to bring a car.
We do have many of our buildings are adjacent to
or near a parking lot or a parking garage.
Depending on where you end up moving and living,
you might change your option.
It might also depend on what kind of vehicle
you're bringing.
I don't need my car to be in the garage,
so I choose to park in the surface lot.
But you might have different thoughts on that,
that is a separate process from your move-in.
So like just by virtue of of signing your contract,
you do still need to go out and get your parking pass,
get that arranged,
though you can have it kind of all ready
and ready to roll before you get here.
All of our permits are virtual now
and so you don't actually need anything physically.
They do things based on license plate,
which is super, super slick.
I think that one hopefully answered parking.
Is there anything else about parking, Lucas, that you saw?
-: No, as you wanna talk about,
a lot of times we get the question
of should a first year student bring a car?
You wanna put a finer point on that?
-: Oh gosh, that's a very personal decision.
If I were you, I probably,
I would try it maybe without and see.
By virtue of living on campus,
you're close to everything that you need.
You're close to the activities, you're close to class,
you're close to the rec center,
to athletic events, to class.
So I don't really think you need it.
I would suspect that you could probably find a buddy
that could maybe be your challenge for the first week or so
living in find a buddy who has a car.
If you need to traverse between our two campuses,
City and East campus,
there's a bus route that you can show your student ID
and traverse both campuses.
So I don't think you need it,
but again, a personal decision, totally up to you.
You might wanna try it and see how it goes
and you can always add it later.
-: Matt, you wanna talk about,
there's a question about shipping items
ahead of time and out of state,
and you wanna talk about that mail process if you could?
-: Yeah, you bet.
So on our website,
and hopefully one of my colleagues can put it in,
our mailing addresses are publicly listed.
So once you know which building you'll be living in,
you'll be able to find your address right away.
It's really that simple.
So if I live in, gosh, if I live in Abel,
and my grandmother wants to send me a care package,
all she has to do is put my name.
It'd be really helpful if she put Abel room 304.
And then that unique Abel address, it'll make its way to me,
the room number helps our staff
when they go to process the package.
But, my goodness, yes, we receive a lot of packages.
And actually we just had a record day, Lucas,
I don't know if I told you this the other day,
but right around Valentine's Day,
we had a record number of packages logged by our front desk.
So I'll give you a couple guesses
as to why that might have been.
But whether it's a package, whether it's Amazon,
grandma's cookies from home,
whether it's a delivery from Walmart or DoorDash,
our front desks help with those.
We do hope that if you're expecting something
that's maybe hot and ready,
if you're getting a pizza or something,
hopefully you make your way down
to the front desk area in the lobby to retrieve that,
that way it doesn't sit without you.
But yeah, it's just like living at home.
You can have anything delivered to us.
We'd be happy to help.
-: The specific question of timelines
of how advanced you can ship that,
we can send you some information about that as well
so that you can ensure that if you are traveling from afar
to the university,
that those items are there for you when you arrive,
when you come here as well.
So I know that that was a question.
-: Yeah, generally, like give us until August
to get us ready to begin.
But yeah, once August hits, feel free to send stuff our way,
by the time you know your hall address,
you'd be happy to send something.
You'll probably get an email from us that says,
we've processed it for you and it's ready for you.
But it'll sit there until you arrive. So there you go.
-: We're getting a lot of questions
sort of outside of the scope, if you will,
of housing and dining,
which is fantastic and we're doing our best to answer those.
Know that we're probably referring you around
and asking you to email us
and we'll connect you with the right people
because I don't want to pretend like Matt and I
are some experts on campus when we're not,
and I don't want to necessarily
lead you in the wrong direction,
but there was a particular question about laptops
or whatever like best for a major.
And how I would suggest that to be answered is,
yes, it would be very major specific
and I would ask you to encourage your student
as a part of that process to engage kind of what's best.
But globally as an institution, we are system agnostic,
meaning we'll take PCs, we'll take Macs,
you can bring whatever device you would like to us
and our network team and our IT is gonna support you.
I talk often when I give these types of presentations about,
or with students about,
it's hard to get students to agree on certain things,
but there's three things that they always agree on
and that there's not enough parking,
the internet is too slow and the food stinks on campus.
And I'm here to say that I have to stop saying that
after transitioning to this institution
because those three things aren't a problem here.
I thought that they would be,
'cause I thought that they were common at every institution,
but maybe that was just my previous institution.
Matt, there's been a lot of conversation about parking,
and sure,
we always probably need one more parking spot than we have,
but there's a ample amount of parking.
Our network in our residence hall specifically is fantastic,
and it supports students all their preferences
and their needs.
And our dining program,
as I gushed upon over and over and over again,
it's something that we are really, really proud of.
And I think when you become a part of this institution,
you will see that too.
Matt, there's a question about electronic charger,
electric chargers in student parking areas.
I know that there are some,
if you could give a little bit more
of a specific answer to that, if you could,
or Kayla's shaking her head strongly,
maybe we can tap her in too.
-: Yeah, there are some areas across campus
for electric car charging.
I know, for example, there's one outside of Hawks Hall,
which is home of our College of Business.
So there are a few areas.
In the chat earlier, in the webinar chat,
I did put a link to parking.
So if you have more questions about charging your car
or parking your car, that would be a great resource.
Again, as electronic cars become more and more available,
this could be an opportunity, the university may expand.
So I'd probably go right to the source to ask that question.
'Cause, again, some of us in this room may not be privy
to some of that expansion knowledge right now,
but it's probably more and more relative.
There was a question really quick about purchasing,
I'm assuming technology.
The University of Nebraska does have Husker Tech Store,
it's in the basement of the City Campus Union.
We do sell Apple products among other products too.
You do have a different kind of cost
than you would find maybe at a Best Buy
or stores like that too.
So during your orientation through new student enrollment,
this is a good time to check out the Husker Tech Store.
They also always have staff available
to answer big technology needs about access and everything.
But Lucas is very correct,
we do accommodate all kinds of technology, PCs, Apple.
I would take this opportunity to plug visiting campus
where when you visit campus,
you get to meet with somebody
from your academic interest area.
It could be a faculty member, it could be advisor.
And these are great questions to ask the academic colleges
because they're gonna know the classes you're taking,
the technology required for those classes.
So this is a great time that I'm going to suggest you,
visiting campus,
we have admitted student day coming up here on March 25th.
I'm gonna go ahead and put that into the chat.
We would love to see you on that day.
But, of course, we offer many different options.
We offer Husker weekdays, which are daily options.
Husker Saturdays, which are on Saturdays.
We getting the trend a little bit here.
And then Red Letter Days,
the Letter Days are a full day option.
There's so many ways to visit campus.
But it's a perfect way for me
to segue right into my spiel of come visit us on campus
so you can see the residence halls, eat in the dining halls,
but get all these really good questions answered
by the experts themselves too.
-: And that might be the great segue to some of the questions
about who do I speak about classes and can you connect me?
We would start with the suggestion that Kayla just outlined,
connecting with the Office of Admissions,
coming to one of our programs,
they can connect you with the right folks
on this institution to get all of your questions answered
specifically about classes.
A very specific question that I love about fire codes
and extension cords, and we would just ask that.
This, again, available in the community living guide.
We just ask that your extension cords
have the underwriters, the UL insignia on them,
and that's gonna be good enough for us
as it relates to that extension cord.
So we are getting through these questions, Kayla,
in sort of light speed, which is great.
Huge shout out to Keith and Kate on the background
because they are just typing furiously
and answering those questions.
But something that we offered last time,
that we'll continue to.
Our department in Housing and Dining
aspires to be a part of your admissions process,
and if there's any question that you might have
that is specific about your living arrangements,
we want to be that amazing customer service agent for you.
So just email us and we can get any question answered.
If it's not us,
we'll put you in contact with the right person.
But this idea of living on campus, we know, is a big idea,
is a big step for many students.
It was for Matt and I,
we can speak very candidly about that.
And so that is something that we take seriously,
our staff does,
and we wanna make sure
that you get all of your questions answered.
And so if you don't know where to go,
this is but one option for you among the many
that Kayla has talked about tonight
that we can get your questions answered for you.
Kayla, I can't believe we are staying on time here,
that was unexpected, but are we at that point?
-: No, we are on time.
Type in one more question
for one of our participants real quick,
so I'll get to that question regarding admitted student day.
But yes, this is that time.
We have answered most of the questions.
This presentation was recorded,
we'll probably not set us out via email,
but we'll post it on either a housing webpage
our admitted student webpage that we have access to this.
But also ask questions, whether it be directly to housing,
housing.unl.edu, admissions office, admissions@unl.edu.
Google is always your best friend to find us,
but we are here to answer those questions.
The Office of Admissions is open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Central Standard Time Monday through Friday.
Our staff is dedicated to responding to your emails
within 48 hours, so feel free to reach out to us.
But thank you so much for visiting us tonight.
It's eight o'clock. It is game time, if you will.
So it's our last home basketball game tonight,
so if any of you have access to the Big Ten Network,
it is playing there.
But I'll allow, Lucas, if you wanna say any parting words
and then we'll say good night.
-: Absolutely. On behalf of Matt and I,
it's truly our pleasure to do these types of things.
This is what we love, this is why we're in the business.
We are so excited for you to take this next step with us.
We are excited to be your next home
and we'll do everything in our power
to make that hall, if you will, a home for you.
We are really excited to welcome you and see you on campus,
and on behalf of our department,
we are so grateful that you spent this time with us tonight.
So thank you so much, Kayla, wrap us up.
-: All right, everyone, have a great rest of your night,
and as always, go big red!
Have a good night, everybody.