As a new student, finding the office or department you need on NC State’s campus can be difficult. NC State created the Office of Student Life and Advocacy to curb these difficulties through streamlining support services and improving the student experience on campus.
The office, which combines existing departments and creates a new Resiliency and Community Support unit, aims to be a central hub for students seeking assistance with various aspects of campus life.
Donna McGalliard, associate vice chancellor and associate dean for Student Life and Advocacy, said the office’s creation stemmed from a student mental health task force report that identified the need for a Dean of Students office at NC State.
“There was a recognition that some of the services existed in different parts of the University, but they weren’t all pulled together,” McGalliard said.
The Office of Student Life and Advocacy is made up of Fraternity and Sorority Life, Student Leadership and Engagement and the newly formed Resiliency and Community Support office.
Justine Hollingshead, assistant vice chancellor of the Office of Student Life and Advocacy with Resiliency and Community Support, said the new office within the Office of Student Life and Advocacy consolidates student support services like Pack Essentials, Wolfpack Pickup and the Absence Verification Process into one location.
Hollingshead said before the creation of the Resiliency and Community Support office, she was doing a lot of the work by herself.
“There are a lot of different components that just didn’t have a place to live before, and it can’t live with a person who someday, in the near future, will retire,” Hollingshead said. “You want to be able to have a good support system in place and a sustainable way to be able to make sure that people know where to go and what and what to do.”
McGalliard said she hopes the office will become a student hotspot on campus.
“We would like to think that we will become kind of that initial point of contact for students or families or others to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a student who’s going through XYZ. Can you help?’” McGalliard said. “And either we can help, or we can point them in the direction of getting that kind of assistance.”
Hollingshead said the goal is for the University to support students the best it can by connecting them with the resources they need.
“We hope to build that foundation to be able to have a more intuitive place for students and their families to go if they have a question and be able to help triage what that is and get people connected,” Hollingshead said.
Hollingshead said a benefit of the office’s creation is a better opportunity for the offices within to collaborate.
“We collaborate and work closely together,” Hollingshead said. “Part of it is having colleagues you can bounce ideas off of and now it’s just in a more formal way that will help to [create] that sound foundation when you talk about student success and support.”
Currently, the Office of Student Life and Advocacy has no physical space, but Hollingshead said the office is able to accommodate students’ meeting preferences.
“It’s not that you need a physical place to go,” Hollingshead said. “… What you expect, and what parents expect, is [students are] going to pick up the phone, they’re going to send an email, and they want someone to be able to respond back.”
McGalliard said right now, the office just wants students to know they’re here to help.
“This is something that hasn’t been a part of NC State ever,” McGalliard said. “So I definitely want them to just be aware that we exist and that we are here, and if they have questions or things that they want to know more about, they can contact us and we’ll either have the answer or find out the answer in order to try to get them what they need.”
McGalliard said she looks forward to the continued development of the office.
“It’s continuing to evolve, and we’ll see where we land,” McGalliard said. “But I’m excited about the foundation we have now and where we can go in the future.”
