From the Dean of Students' Desk
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Ted Hoef |
Welcome to the seventh issue of the 2008-09 academic year for Staying Connected, a newsletter for parents of first-year students.
Emergency Alert System
The one year anniversary of the tragedy at North Illinois University is February 14. We were all saddened to learn of the shootings at NIU last year. We pray that we never
experience this kind of tragedy at Webster. Please help us remind your sons and daughters that they should sign up for our Webster University emergency alert system. See:
http://www.webster.edu/technology/websteralerts/
This is a crucial step to make sure that we can communicate with students in a timely way during an emergency. Unfortunately, not that many students
have signed up.
Students can also sign up for the weather alerts, which can help notify them when we are closed due to weather. We had a snow day on January 28 and
the system worked well for those who had signed up for it.
Please know that we continue to educate our students, faculty, and staff to help us identify troubling behavior on the part of students. If a member
of our campus community notices odd behavior and lets us know, we can reach out to individuals in need of help.
Student Athletes
Our men’s and women’s basketball teams are in the process of finishing their conference regular seasons by the end of February. Congratulations to both teams for being very
competitive in our conference and for doing a good job of being fine representatives of the University. At 7-3 in the SLIAC conference as of February 2, the men’s team finds
themselves in 2nd place, one game behind conference leader Westminster. The women’s team is battling to break into one of the top four spots in the conference in order to
qualify for the postseason conference tournament.
The men’s team has included first-year students Kevin Miller, Berton Wong, Richard Ogunsalu, Ryan Fassler, Kevin Hart, Joshua Hirth, Chantz Barham,
and Kris Washington. The women’s team has included first-year students Ayrica Lockett, Amanda Arcangel, Bobbiann Auer, Myrtie Reilly, Blaire Underwood, and Loren Douglass.
Sorority
As you may have heard, Webster’s Student Government Association (SGA) will soon be voting on whether to recognize a campus chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon, a national social
sorority. A group of young women are attempting to start a sorority chapter at Webster for the first time in our history, following in the footsteps of our first fraternity
(Delta Upsilon) which was approved last year. I was very impressed with the Delta Phi Epsilon proposal. Our director of student activities has researched this sorority and
feels that it is the right group for Webster. The sorority will be held to high standards to ensure that we avoid the negative stereotypes attached to Greek systems at other
universities.
For more on this story, see this article in the Journal:
http://media.www.webujournal.com/media/storage/paper245/news/2009/01/29/News/Women.Hear.Sororities.Pitch-3606075.shtml
Emerging Leader Retreat
We held our annual Emerging Leader Retreat on January 24-25 in Gray Summit. I came away very impressed with the leadership skills of the twenty students who attended the
retreat. The goal of the leadership retreat was to help emerging student leaders connect with other leaders, learn more about themselves, and develop leadership skills to help
them be more effective during their remaining years in college and beyond. About one-third of the attendees were first-year students. As these talented freshmen assume higher
levels of student leadership positions in the coming years, I am confident that they will contribute very positively to the quality of campus life.
For more information about our student leadership development program called WebsterLEADS, go to:
http://www.webster.edu/studlife/StuA/leadership.htm
We hope to have another newsletter out to you in March. Please send us your suggestions for future articles.
Go Gorloks!
Sincerely,
Ted Hoef, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President and Dean of Students
hoeftl@webster.edu
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