Presence / Involve

  • Maintaining your Presence
  • Roster
  • Events
  • Attendance
  • Transitioning Your Org

Web tool (“Presence”) vs. mobile app (“Involve”) 

  • Kzoo.presence.io  
    • Access from a computer web browser  
    • Public facing “presence” for orgs and events  
    • Access your admin dashboard through here to maintain your “presence”  
  • Modern Campus “Involve” app  
    • Access from your phone  
    • See orgs and events  
    • Take attendance at events 

Maintaining Your Presence on “Presence” 

  • Under Events, you can create events 
    • Event Name 
    • Host Org 
    • Brief description (doesn’t have to be fancy) 
    • Start/End Time/Date 
    • Location 
    • Cover Image (can select a stock image or upload) 
    • Optional 
      • Contact Information 
      • Tags 
    • Ignore other things 

Using the “Involve” App to Take Attendance 

  • Process: 
    • Download app (search “Involve” and look for the purple clippy icon)  
    • Log in as a member of the Kalamazoo College campus  
    • Click on the 3 lines to open the sidebar 
    • Select “Collect Attendance”  
    • Select the orange People + icon next to your event 
    • Select Manual Entry or Barcode to type or scan IDs 
  • If you are an org Admin, you will see the orange people+ icon to check people in.  
    • If you are not an org admin, you can still check people in using a PIN  
    • When an admin opens the attendance panel, they can find the PIN 
    • More info on Presence Support page
  • If you forget or cannot take attendance on Presence, you can still collect student ID numbers and upload them to the event
  • When to Take Attendance 
    • Short answer: At every org meeting (not e-board meetings)​
    • This helps us see patterns of student engagement across campus​​
    • Orgs that meet regularly with the same group (e.g., performance orgs)​ should make an event and take attendance once per week​
  • Why to take attendance 
    • It makes Sally happy  
    • It makes the College’s auditors happy  
    • It’s not actually that hard (and people can help if you’re not sure how)  
    • It helps you and OSA keep track of engagement patterns  
    • You help demonstrate the value of Student Activities 

Transitioning Your Organization

Leadership transition can be difficult, but if properly managed, organizations can have a seamless year-to-year transition. It’s never too early to anticipate change in leadership. Keep binders and digital archives online of documents, financial records, and events/meeting agendas for each e-board member from the beginning of each term that can serve as a resource for new leaders in the upcoming year.

Think about successes and challenges that the incoming leadership should be aware of. Share ideas or plans for retreats and end of the year activities. It is also important to use meetings, retreats and activities to train current members who may potentially assume leadership roles in the future. Once new leaders are in place, use the summer months to train them for their new role; finally, remember that involvement is meant to be a fun learning experience that allows leaders to build connections with others. It is important that e-board members have strong, healthy relationships with one another.

A leadership transition is:

  • A process.
  • A time to exchange necessary knowledge and information for future success.
  • A group activity.
  • A time to reflect on the past year.
  • A time to learn from past mistakes.
  • A time to establish goals for the future.
  • An important part of successful student organizations and groups.

Four major components of officer transitions are:

  • Selecting new officers
  • Identifying key information to be shared
  • Communicating key information to new officers
  • Officers assuming their new roles

Hold a transition event for your organization. This may be at a regularly scheduled meeting. Give outgoing officers 1-on-1 time with incoming officers to exchange information and allow time for new officers to ask questions.

Evaluate position descriptions. At the end of each year, outgoing officers should review existing position descriptions to see if all items are still relevant to the job or to expand responsibilities to include anything that may have been added. If position descriptions do not yet exist, have the outgoing officers create those descriptions.

Recruit new people to your organization. Though working with your group of friends can be great, it can often lead to limited idea sharing and internal conflict. Consider recruiting newer members to leadership positions that have shown an interest in the organization.

Dedicate meeting time to information sharing. Though you may have communicated with your outgoing officers that they should meet with the incoming officers, schedules get busy and sometimes this just doesn’t happen. Dedicating meeting time to information sharing will ensure that time is spent on this important task.

Provide binders to each officer to be passed on at the end of the year. Providing your officers with the materials needed to create a binder will make them more likely to follow through. Consider spending a little time preparing the binders with a nice cover, labeled tabs, and common information that will be useful to all members. Be sure to include an information session on the binders in your training at the beginning of the year so officers know what information to include in their binder.

Introduce new officers to key resources. There are many people on campus with whom your officers will interact. Be sure to introduce them personally to these resources while informing your new officers of how the resource can help them in their position.

Review or revamp your organizational goals. At an early meeting with your new officers, revisit your organization’s goals. Have the group examine them and make sure they are still relevant or if they have expanded. If your organization has not yet determined it’s goals, do that with your new leadership early!

Be honest and realistic about where you have been and where you are going. In one of your final meetings of the year, be sure to discuss the year as a whole and encourage members to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of the year and your events. A private structured reflection activity that would be turned into the leaders of the group might allow members to open up about the year in a more honest way.

Don’t be afraid of trying something new. We often get caught up in the “but that’s how we have always done it” mentality. Times are constantly changing, and just because things worked well last year, does not mean they will work well the next year. Challenge the group to look at new ways to do traditional things. Look for different groups to collaborate with on campus. Try new events. We all grow with change!

Transitioning

The transition stage will take place once a year, in late spring. It will ask you to do the following:

  • Confirm/Update your Leadership Roster
    • Note that you need to have at least one “President” and one “Treasurer” – Although you may have as many of each position as you like. 
  • Confirm/Update Your Membership Roster
    • Note that you need at least four members to remain “Active”
  • Upload a current copy of your Constitution/ByLaws
    • This need only be done every other year
  • Update/Confirm your Meeting Time and Location
  • Update/Confirm your Advisor