As more institutions announce their reopening plans for fall 2021, Student Affairs leaders are faced with a challenge: How might building community among undergraduate students look different when campuses reopen amid shifting COVID-19 safety restrictions?

Join us online for a 2-hour, highly interactive discussion and brainstorming session around this topic, focusing in on three key areas of Student Life: Orientation, Housing, and Student Activities. Our facilitators will share how their campuses are approaching their planning while navigating state, local, and institutional COVID-19 guidelines. You will actively participate in large and small group discussions framed around questions such as:

• How might these critical areas of student life look different as restrictions loosen?
• What creative new approaches can we take to build community in this new, post-COVID-19 context?
• How can we address isolation while also encouraging COVID-safe behaviors among students?
• What steps can we take now to enable quick pivots if a campus outbreak occurs?
• What positive practices have come out of the pandemic that we will want to continue moving forward?

We recognize that institutions are grappling with different elements of student community building depending upon their institutional type, size, state regulations, and a variety of other factors. Our aim for the session will be to build a network of peers to share challenges, successes, and strategies around community building in this new, shifting context and work together to curate a list of ideas to try and questions to ask.