Graduate Students - Preparing for Fall quarter webinar

Alright, hello, welcome everyone to tonight's webinar. I had a little bit of difficulty there with the mic, but we are live now so you should all be able to hear me now. If you do not hear me, let me know in the chat. I would recommend at some point if you kind of lose connection, audio stops being In Sync, to go ahead and probably close the window and rejoin. Oftentimes that will resolve the issue.

But my name is Brandon Shadel. I'm the graduate enrollment coordinator here at Walla Walla University.

And tonight's presentation or today's presentation, we're going to be talking about everything you need to know to prepare for really the next quarter, this coming fall as a graduate student at WWE Couple House kind of cleaning tips first would be if you want to make the window full screen, you should be able to click the expand icon in the top right corner of your screen. If you do not or if you want to.

Enable Closed caption. You can go ahead and click on the CC button.

At the top corner of your share window. Things to know about closed captioning is that if you're the system is not hosted by us, so there could be some words or delay with the word transcribing that.

May not understand, so just be aware of that if you're reading it and relying on that for all the information. The entire presentation as well as the slides will be made available afterwards and you'll get an e-mail with an access to the recording here within two or three days after after it's completed. So that should be sent to everyone that attended and rushed for the session.

So without it, we'll go ahead and get into this. As I go through the presentation, there will be different slides shown. You'll have access to the current slide and any past slides that we're going through. So you should be able to click through them at the bottom or if you're on mobile phone, can I go through and and slide through those different ones at the bottom as we go through it?

So we'll get started with our first kind of what I would say most important next step to do for for you as a student is you've gone through the kind of the application process.

Most of you should all have that completed. Some of you might be wrapping that up potentially here really soon, but that step is pretty much complete now. You're going to be starting transition to our student portal. So this is called my WWU or my Wu is what internally you'll call it for short. You probably had some interaction with this already.

Maybe to set up the password, things like that. So it's very important. My was our student portal. You'll log in and use this and it'll be used for all applications. The sign in you use that's listed here, which is typically for most students, your first dot last name and then the password you set up is what your diabetes utilizing to access all of Walla Walla University's resources and technology tools.

So you can see information here about grades, account balances, financial aid, you can access other important applications that you'll be utilizing as a student and it keeps a record of account transactions as well. So to log into that, you can go to wallwall.edu/my WWU and login and you'll click on PeopleSoft Student Centre Classic. In order to see what we'll be talking about here shortly is some to do items.

And so you'll want to be checking on your To Do List.

Pretty frequently. Umm, if you checked on it a month or two ago, it might be different than than it is today. As we get closer to the start of classes, Student Financial Services and a few others will put on a few additional items there for you to take care of.

So it lists the things you have left to do before the year begins. You can click on each item listed there For more information. It typically include who to contact if you have questions about that item or what it involves and who to go to for help as well. It'll give you instructions what that item is and how to complete it. So after you're admitted, you should receive login instructions to set up your My WWE account. Set up a password as part of an automated e-mail.

If you've never logged in before, you'll find it's pretty easy.

For most of you, it's going to be username, right? First name dot last name, and a password you chose. If you set it up early, can't remember it, and you're trying to log in at some point, as all of us managing 20 different passwords may do, you can click forgot password when you click sign in and then you'll find the link for forgot password. That should be a blue link at the bottom and that will typically e-mail instructions to reset it to the personal e-mail address you use to apply to wall wall.

And if you have any trouble with logging in, that e-mail doesn't seem to be triggering contact computer support by phone or e-mail.

When you send them an e-mail, be sure to include your ID number if you can and a phone number in case they need to reach back out to you. I listed IT help desk phone number here on this slide and their e-mail is helpdesk@wawa.edu. They're a great resource. Be happy to help you. The students do need to do this themselves, so if there's some extra helpful spouses out there or parents assisting a graduate student, you'll need to make sure that the student.

Requests any changes to their account themselves.

And as well, you'll be given a wall wallet e-mail address which is very similar to your login.first.lastnametypicallyand@wallwalla.edu. You'll also want to be checking starting to check this regularly as we get closer to the classes beginning. Once the term begins, a lot of students will receive correspondence here from different departments, as well as maybe notifications from teachers or Brightspace when when grades are posted.

One thing you might be seeing right now on your To Do List is financial clearance.

So finances are important next step to take care of on your To Do List. You want to go through what's called financial clearance if you haven't finished your financial aid application yet.

You should do that immediately. Right now we are able to respond to you with an award letter typically within a couple of business days after you submitted everything that we need.

But as we get closer to school starting, you know, sometimes that delay increases trying to work through many different people. If we're missing anything from you in the process, it'll be on their To Do List.

If you have questions about financial clearance, I recommend watching a webinar presentation that we did, I think a week or two ago that we listed on wallawalla.edu/workshops.

So they they covered everything in detail there. You could also contact our student financial services office. Most of the time Carrie Butler will be working with our students, but quickly review financial clearance is the process all students go through each quarter. It checks to make sure you've made down payment, completed any necessary forms for financial aid.

And the process is open right now for fall quarter. So if you haven't completed it yet, it's a good time to do it. Pretty straightforward process. You shouldn't have, shouldn't take too much time the first time though it will take longer as you're getting used to it and setting up some items. Maybe you need to correct some credit amount that you're taking each quarter for different classes. So work with our student financial services department to kind of clear those up. But after you make your down payment, usually it's about 92nd process to to finish.

The deadline to complete financial clearance is 4:00 PM on Wednesday before classes begin, which this year is September 24.

If you do not have financial clearance by then, your classes will typically be dropped, but don't worry, we can help you get back into those. If you make payment shortly at thereafter, uh, you can know for sure that you're done with the financial clearance process. When you see this bouncing, uh, Benjamin or bouncing Ben, they call it, uh, we can, we begin dispersing financial aid during the third week of the quarter. So it's gonna be about 3 weeks into classes before financial aid starts being dispersed.

But steps for AID and the WWE application are available online. I'll try to share that link with you in the chat box.

So you should be able to see that.

And next, I'm going to talk a little bit related to finance as well. What hopefully some of you get to have is disbursement. So some students may have borrowed additional money for living expenses or need access to that money a little bit sooner.

And so that was the go through the process of bank mobile. This is something you'll handle during financial clearance and I'll go through questions that you'll you'll be asked.

So in the presentation on financial clearance, they talked about an envelope new students typically get from Bank Mobile. You get like an e-mail notification from them. That's the bank we use to disperse funds to students. So first, when you get the envelope from Bing Mobile or the emails that they send you, you want to log into their website, tell them how you want to receive your funds.

You can have them send a paper check.

Deposit into an existing bank account which most students utilize, or use a bank mobile checking account if you'd prefer.

During the financial clearance process, on permissions page, you can select when you want your funds sent, as soon as they're available, specific times, or just hold it until you request it.

You'll be asked if you want emergency draw.

On that, you'll ask this regardless of how you answered previous questions, so you can get half of your projected credit up to 500 around the first week or so of classes. If you asked us to send money as soon as it's available, that's all you need to do. If you wanted it at a specific date, you'll be asked if you're ready to request.

Funds and can specify the amount and date during financial clearance. We can't send money before we receive it, so it's going to be sometime still around that 3rd, 3rd, 4th week of classes. In addition to this process, we also have a credit balance request form on our website that you can use to request funds for your account.

So a few things I want to make sure that you completed right now or have coming up on your To Do List here is if you need to sign up for classes, make sure you contact your advisor in your department to finalize your academic plan. Once your plan is finalized, your advisor should clear any advisor holds that are on your account and you can go ahead and register for classes.

For the upcoming term, if you have trouble, graduate Studies office can help as well.

So some of my colleagues can assist with that, Glenda or Will.

If you are accepted into the graduate program with courses still in progress.

Have graduated recently but didn't yet send fin final official transcripts to us. Do that as soon as possible without the official final transcript, which is sent directly from your graduating school to us, typically electronically, but we can also receive them via mail.

Then your loan disbursement and process for financial clearance and other things might be, uh, delayed or.

'Cause a few hiccups that we'll need to address.

And then you should double check to make sure that you have no outstanding items or holds on your To Do List.

What I reference from the first slide, my WWE is where you want to go to review that To Do List in PeopleSoft Student Center Classic.

And once you're enrolled, make sure financial registration is finalized. So you go through registration, finalization and then financial clearance. Those are kind of the the big two to wrap things up. And once those have been completed.

The registration finalization is a process to ensure that you've completed all the necessary items to be enrolled at WWE.

You can complete the process through Student Center in Maiwu.

Restoration violation means all to do items holds clearance, financial clearance have been completed. When you finish that process, you'll know you're done because you'll see this guy here at the bottom of the slide jumping Einstein.

During UMM orientation for some of you that have an on campus program.

You can have your photo taken and get your ID card through it. Those of you off campus or on online programs will be able or a distance remote campus extension campus will be able to submit a photo for a view and that will allow us to print a card using the approved supplied photo you delivered and then have it sent and delivered to you.

Also, you can have ID cards created by getting a photo taken at your respective campus, such as our Billings, Mt campus students. You could wait for your cards to be mailed to your campus as typically they can take the photos there and then they'll send them to us and process through our machine and at main campus in Washington. And ID cards are only validated for charging for those of you near College Place campus after registration has been finalized.

It's still a helpful, helpful item to have as you could utilize that you're on the main campus for cafeteria, bookstore, the express, accessing buildings, the gym and library for example.

And then also you might be able to use it at local businesses that may ask for a student ID for possibly a discount which can be nice.

All right. In College Place, those of you that are going to be around our our main campus here in College Place, WA and maybe relocating or going to be in residence here for a little bit for your program, we have a number of apartments for students as well as houses for families. These are typically made available on first come, first served basis.

If you've not made housing arrangements and you would like to utilize university owned apartments for rent or housing.

Be able to charge your your student account for that. You can begin that process right now at wallawalla.edu/village.

And I'll see if I can get that put up here in the notes for you here at the end. But you'll be asked. You may be placed on a wait list when you complete the application. That's fine. That's, that's sometimes a normal part. I've been on the wait list before, but completed as soon as you think you might need housing. You can always cancel or withdraw your name later if you need to.

And whether you live on campus or not, all of our students are automatically enrolled in a system called Omni Alert.

This is our emergency kind of campus alert system. So in an emergency or to alert you to inclement weather, maybe even on campus, students will receive alerts via text messages and emails. In addition, our campus siren will sound at times depending on it. Parents and spouses are able to opt in and also receive these alerts by providing their contact info. So you can go to wallwallah.edu/omni Alert.

To insert your information or have them insert their information as well they will receive.

The same messages as our students while parents and spouses can elect receive the information.

For emergency situations, there is some info that we can't share with them.

And so that brings us to FERPA. So spouses, graduate students or parents, those who had some relation to you sometimes want to know information about the student, such as account balance, their grades.

And how much the student has borrowed, et cetera. However, a university cannot share this kind of information with anyone except for you, the student.

There is a federal law called Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which is commonly referred to and known as FERPA.

This law applies to all areas of campus, but it's with finances that you most often run into the issue.

We have We need to have your permission before we can talk to anyone else about your account. It's easy for you to grant permission on my WWE.

You can tell us who we can talk to, who we should mail a statement to, who we should send e-mail reminders to, and who we should not talk to as well.

You can also choose to have statements mailed to multiple people. You can also authorize other users to see electronic statements. So This is why also why no one else can call to reset your password with it that we talked about with the help desk. Because of FERPA, computer support can only reset the password if the student themselves contacts them.

All right, next important item that many of you have for your classes would be textbooks. You should plan on how you will order or get your textbooks for the upcoming quarter. You'll want to go to wallawalla.slingshotedu.com.

And I'll put that link in in the chat box as well. You want to copy that one down carefully. Our bookstore homepage and login. If you're rushed for classes already, your courses should appear with required materials. All students are opted into Slingshot when they start their program, with a preference for rental books set as default. You stay opted in typically for future terms unless you choose to opt out. And any student can opt out or return unneeded books, but we can't guarantee we will have.

For for students that are opted out.

But you're free to source your material from libraries, Amazon, Czech com other places as well. Umm, If you order from our bookstore materials, we'll ship to your home or campus address on file unless you specify them to send a specified slingshot to send them to a new location. So our bookstore is an easy option. You can call them for any help needed. Megan leads it up over there. Very helpful. Also recommend though, like I said, checking libraries and audiobook apps for if your professor signs a book to.

Discuss over the quarter. Great way to help ease the budget a little bit.

All right. Those are the main topics we had planned to cover this evening. There will be a future webinar taking place in September. Go over to kind of the technology tools we'll be utilizing such as Microsoft Teams, Brightspace, a little bit more in detail on those topics and a helpful overview as we get much a little bit closer to starting classes and how to set up notifications for wind grades or assignments.

Either are posted or due.

But on this screen here you'll see some helpful numbers, various departments you might interact with or need to discuss things with. So feel free to copy down some of these. They are all listed on our website. If you search just a department or a person that should come up with their phone number on the website, at least from desktop version on the left hand side and you can find a full list of steps to enrollment.

If you're looking for a kind of a printed list, just kind of a general overview of all the things that you may have done or should have done, you can find that at wallawalla.edu/new Steps.

Let me put the textbook.

Link there in the chat box so you should be able to see.

The textbook at least home page for our bookstore.

Wallwallet.edu/new steps though that would take you to step structured summary of everything we've kind of covered today. Should give instructions for remaining tasks. Your applicant portal though, and then your Mywoo student portal that you're transitioning to are the best resources for your specific current tasks that need to be completed. And remember, you are always welcome to contact me with any questions you have along the way. Myself or someone else in graduate studies would be happy to help.

If we answered all your questions today.

Great. You can feel free to sign out if you need to at any time. We're going to open it up here for Q&A time that we'll be going through. Some of you may have some specific questions that we can talk about. And if you do have those questions, make sure to click the the questions or chat box and type those in. And then we will post them as as they come through over here or I'll just share some of them out loud and and discuss those with you.

Alright, let's see.

OK. So we have a couple things I think that would be helpful for everyone and then?

Some that looks like they'll be a little bit specific to our our Master of Social Work MSW students. So if you and there was a mention of Ballmer, someone applied from MSW for the Ballmer conditional grant, you are correct. If you have not heard anything yet, original timeline was to get that out and typically had been in July.

We had. We paused a little bit.

Umm on that and we had a few spots that we're trying to fill as well. So they haven't yet alerted everyone to whether they've secured A placement or not, but we are very close nearing that completion. Let's take a little bit longer than than normal for for this year for MSW students. But you if you applied for the Ballmer behavioral health conditional grant, you should be hearing from them in September. I think their time frame is around, you know the.

There. So to get that out to students.

But as soon as they can. So they're feeling a few more additional spots here through the end of August and then didn't get that information out to students.

Then we had someone mention a little bit about having hearing anything maybe from financial aid or kind of if they got merit scholarship, any of the normal stuff that we offer through the admissions process. So student financial services would be the best 1 to reach out to. They are listed there on 2nd from the bottom on the screen at 509-527-2815.

Also Carrie. Butler, CARI.

Dot Butler b.utler@wawa.edu could be a person to e-mail as well. They'll be happy to help. They have gone through several transitions. So there's several people kind of learn still learning a role. So it might be a little bit slower, but they'll they should get back to you pretty quickly. If you have some general questions, you need me to kind of take a look at some things I could do that as well. So you can feel free to kind of send me an e-mail with a little bit more details what you're looking for. Be happy to help.

Alright, umm, I did post one there from Sophia. Uh, so how does the Balmer disbursement work? So if you have the Ballmer Behavioral Health conditional grant, then you are awarded it got notified you'll be receiving it. Our student financial services department works directly with Ballmer group and they will receive those, uh, amount that you was in your award letter. Umm, that's kind of split up per, per quarter as billing goes long. So we will apply that amount there.

Possibly some amount that you'll be paying out of pocket in addition to that. So our student financial services, usually our director or one of our assistant directors are the ones that are processing that. So they would have probably the most most up-to-date and accurate information.

And they'll, they'll handle those disbursements and then they'll process it, apply it to your account. Usually that's somewhere within, you know, first.

Three weeks or so of classes beginning and all that kind of processes through and gets dispersed on there. So I would recommend talking with maybe Nathan the director or one of the associate directors, maybe Anna Perez might know as well in SFS about the disbursement a little bit better, but that's the general function of how it would work.

And then I mentioned that MSW is available in an online asynchronous format that is mostly asynchronous for the first year, but there are some classes that will have a live synchronous component and those would meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and that would be available to regular standing students entering this year and all students starting next year as well.

It is pretty flexible and offers you the opportunity to kind of take the classes and then meet any live synchronous sessions, especially as you get towards the second year or the practice classes as well they will be doing throughout the program. That's more often when the synchronous component will start to take place. But yeah, it's very flexible, can meet in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

And and still earn your clinical MSW.

There is no in person requirement for that. You basically have the choice. Typically when you're applying you'll you'll choose your option of online or in person. If you would like to switch or life circumstances change as you're in the program and need to change from one format to the other, that's still possible. You'll want to do that by speaking with probably your academic advisor and the Dean.

At the School of Social Work, and then they have some internal process, kind of like a petition explaining what the circumstances are, how you'd want to switch from one format to the other, and then you can handle that internally with the department.

Perfect. I think that answer is Yep. You're welcome, Sophia. Thank you for asking that question as well.

Let's see, I think we have some other ones. Umm.

Yeah, so if you're looking to register for classes, we have that you should Russia for classes, if you haven't yet met with academic advisor, those emails should all be going out. I think they may even have it automated now at this point after you've been admitted, get information to meet with your advisor, set up that appointment. They'll clear any holds, give you what classes are coming for the next term and then you'll be able to rest your for those through my WWE.

And then I have What software will we use for classes? Online courses?

You'll be utilizing Microsoft Teams. I think most people have mentioned they've had some experience with that over the last couple years, but Microsoft Teams is the product we use for online classes. You'll need a working webcam and microphone. You can utilize and download the application and sign in with that my WWE login. So same account. You're accessing your wall, wallet, e-mail and Mywoo. You'll be able to log in to Microsoft Teams or Office 365 even.

And utilize that as a student so you can download Teams to one of your smartphones or tablets and access it there. You'll have to get pretty proficient at switching some of those. A little bit easier, I think with a laptop or or desktop, a little bit larger screen as well. Maybe if you have a larger tablet, that could work quite nicely too.

And I think everyone does have my contact information, but just in case you do not, I'll go ahead and post it here in the chat so you can reach out to me with any questions and for student Financial Services.

I'll give Carrie Butler's e-mail as well.

So that way you can reach out to her with with some questions. Some of you though especially related to Ballmer and some technical disbursements might want to try and just speak with the Director, Nathan Follett.

All right, if there's any other questions, feel free to enter those and submit the questions and we will get to them here as they come through. If you do have your questions answered, feel free to close at any time. Again, you will get a e-mail.

In two to three days, at least by Friday night with an access to this recording so you can go back through and view everything. You should also right now be able to go back through reference any previous slides that had some information that maybe you wanted to spend a little bit more time with. Go through there.

And I will advance, we do have a couple more slides of information to share here briefly if.

You want to look at past recordings of any webinars. Some of the webinars on wallawalla.edu workshops apply largely to undergraduate students. Financial clearance is applicable to all students. But some of the content in a few of these will lean a little bit more towards undergraduate students. So that's why we have a couple dedicated to our graduate students, a little bit more condensed.

Process 2 for our graduate students, but love to hear what you what you think about the presentation as well. You can feel free to to do that at wallawalla.edu/grad Dash comment.

And tell us what you think.

Of course, just e-mail me or leave that in the chat or questions box. And again, if you want to watch that financial clearance or other presentations, they'll be available at wallawalla.edu/workshops and most of you I think are already registered.

For the one in September about technology tools, that one has some helpful information and you'll be a little bit closer to starting classes. So you'll get a little overview of signing into Brightspace and making sure that's arranged how you want it. So big thank you to everyone for attending and those of you that were brave enough and asked some of those questions. And we look forward to you being part of Walla Walla University graduate studies family this quarter.

And I hope you have a great night. I'll hang around for Justice a few moments to see if there's any additional questions posted.

Other than that, thank you for everyone for attending.

All right. It looks like the questions have stopped and our attendees are signing off right now. So thank you everyone. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me. Hopefully you've taken care of your to do items with financial clearance, rushing for classes, working with your advisor and then make sure to go through that process of registration, finalization as well as financial clearance.

Any questions along the way, feel free to reach out.

But hope you enjoy your time and thank you for listening to this.