As of this school year, the Office of Student Engagement (OSE) has made the decision to replace Orgsync with Presence, an easier way for students to get involved on campus.
Compared to Orgsync, “Presence offers a more affordable, easy to use, engaging, and visually pleasing platform to engage students,” said Amanda Gelber, director of student engagement.
McDaniel’s version of Presence has been named The Arch, which was decided by student vote last semester. It helps students engage with organizations, events, and service opportunities on campus, as well as track and record their extracurricular activities.
“[The Arch] can assist them when they build their resume or apply for jobs or internships,” Gelber said.
Although there was some trouble with the program at first, both card swiping and the app are now fully functional. OSE has been swiping students in at all events to analyze students’ wants and needs, as well as offer a more in-depth cost analysis.
Presence offers comprehensive assessment collection tools for staff.
“The assessment tools include analytic reports to help us make more informed decisions about the types of events we hold on campus,” said Gelber. “It also offers simple and automated processes to save time and allows students to find information about events, complete and submit forms for organizations online, or sign up for service after office hours.”
Presence will also give staff members the opportunity to create experiences for students to build a resume outside of the classroom.
“In today’s higher education realm, it’s very important to track involvement to find gaps within programming models,” Gelber said. “Finding the gaps in our programming will help inform us about potential pockets of students who are not finding events that interest them on campus.”
Students who are looking to get involved can download the app by searching “McDaniel College” in any app store.
“For students who are new to McDaniel or are looking to get involved, it creates opportunities for them to educate themselves and stay up to date with not only events, but other updates on campus, such as the new renovations in Decker College Center,” said Gelber.
