My 14-year old daughter is on the high school field hockey team. This is her first year on the team and every younger player is paired with an older player – their “Big SIster”.  The Big Sister’s job is to support, coach, mentor and befriend the younger players.  My daughter’s “Big Sister” has provided her with gifts for *every* game, most of them themed like “You’re on Fire!” – a plastic fireman’s hat filled with red hot candies and cinnamon gum. Or “Let’s Clean Up!” where she got her body wash and a floofy scrub.  My daughter, on the other hand…. not so creative with the gifts.  For instance, at the last game… a pack of gum.

So, because tomorrow is the last game of the season, we’ve made some cupcakes, personalized for her older sister “Emily” to thank her for all of her support this year.  Below.. the photos.

Once a year, the university that I work for holds an event called “All University Day” that brings together students from all of Penn State’s campuses to the main campus of University Park and recognizes them during halftime of a Penn State football game.  It’s a big deal for the students and a fun weekend for everyone participating.

The campus I work for is different than the other campuses in that it’s a completely online campus. Our students never see each other face-to-face. They don’t sit in the student union and chat with each other, or hang out in the hallways between class.  They don’t have that sense of ‘community’ that resident students do – but we’re working on that and I think we’re starting to do some really great things.

This year I was designated to be the ‘contact’ for All University Day at our campus.  This was all new to me, so after listening to what the event was all about, and learning the details from others at our campus that have taken the lead on this the last few years, I felt like I finally understood.  From what I understand, our campus has only been involved for a few years, but we’ve typically had difficulty getting students to participate.  One challenge is that we don’t get a lot of advanced notice about the event and our students live all over the world – so they really need to plan to be able to book a flight and hotel and be here for the event.  This year we had over 175 students say they wanted to particpate, and unfortunately we had only 10 tickets to offer (every student was allowed to bring a guest).  The event went off beautifully and we got to meet our students in person and really have a great time with them.

This year, for the first time, we also held our version of All University Day in Second Life for our students.  We had a virtual tailgate, free clothes for their avatar, live music from a former student, and the opportunity to meet other students and staff.  At one point, the virtual All University Day celebration had staff members, current students, prospective students and alumni all conversing with each other and learning from each other.  The day was absolutely wonderful and the beginning of what I feel will be a community of students eager to learn from each other, build campus pride, and serve as ambassadors of our online campus connecting with their education in ways we’d never previously considered.

I am so thrilled to be a part of it.