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51����’s Amanda Augustyniak ’20 (Pickerington, Ohio) was recently awarded a certificate for Best Communication in a case study competition at the NODA Region 7 conference in Hamilton, Ontario.

Augustyniak participated with two students from other schools. They were given an in-depth case about an incident that could happen during orientation, and they had an hour to prepare before making their case to the judges.

“In our presentation, we had to address the problem, determine all factors that were involved with the problem, and find solutions to the problem,” said Augustyniak, who is majoring in Intervention Specialist Education. “For orientation, your main job is to inform and excite students about the new chapter in their life they are about to begin. You are responsible to make everything about them, and to provide them with the resources they will need when they get to campus.”

In this particular case study, it involved an orientation leader’s comments toward others and behind others’ backs within the orientation team.

“We took the approach on wondering why an orientation leader would make harsh comments in the first place,” Augustyniak said. “Instead of reacting to the situation, we took it from the mind of an orientation leader not receiving the proper training in order to handle situations that they were not the most comfortable in.”

In their presentation, Augustyniak and her teammates added personal anecdotes of situations that they had been in and how they handled them to emphasize to the judges the importance of proper training.

NODA is a leading association for orientation, transition and retention in higher education. Augustyniak, who is the assistant student orientation coordinator for 51����, attended the conference with Emily Birnbrich ’19 (Pataskala, Ohio), who is the student orientation coordinator. They are excited to lead the summer PioSOAR sessions on campus.

“Emily and I know that our biggest responsibility before the summer sessions start is to train the orientation leader team on being able to handle any possible situation that they will face,” Augustyniak said. “Emily and I are so confident about this summer's Orientation Team because they are already proving to us in our training class how passionate and excited they are to take on the role of an orientation leader.”