Leveraging SS&E for campus communications in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene

As your community and campus continue to address the impacts of Hurricane Helene, Watermark stands ready to assist your organization in your recovery efforts. While Student Success & Engagement (SS&E) serves many functions throughout the academic year, it may also be leveraged to communicate with students and the campus community during times of disruption or natural disaster.

If you are interested in leveraging SS&E in this manner, Watermark has dedicated staff available to review your in-place plan and complete configurations on your behalf as desired. This is a complimentary service offered to NCCCS institutions who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene. To provide insight into what is possible, below we have included a specific example from Haywood Community College (HCC), with thanks to Michelle Harris

Haywood Community College’s goal: The institution reached out to Watermark, wanting a way to text students while easily tracking their responses and ongoing student updates.

Resulting SS&E configuration: Watermark met with HCC and created the following SS&E configuration:

• Manual Tag named “Helene Outreach” and apply to all roles and Department Spaces unless otherwise specified
• Note Type named “Helene” and apply to all roles unless otherwise specified
• Note Report, “Helene Outreach Note Type” and apply to approved users. Default Columns provided were: Student ID, Student Name, Note Creator, Note Created Date, Student Program, Note Text and Student Tags. (Additional columns and data are available.) 

Example Haywood Community College workflow 

As Haywood Community College communicates with its students, the “Helene Outreach” Tag is applied to indicate a student has been impacted as well as to document that interaction with any appropriate details using the note type “Helene”. 

If your institution is utilizing outside resources to contact students and these individuals do not have access to SS&E, document the interaction in a Watermark-provided spreadsheet so that this information may be imported to SS&E with your institution's permission and collaboration. 

The “Helene Outreach” Note Type is accessible within a user's account and is available to run on demand. Run this report to collect information on student information including the note body to view keywords determined by your institution and escalate as needed. 

Additional Note Types, Tags, and reports will be created upon your request as you strategize ongoing outreach efforts. Examples might be using Tags to indicate varying degrees of impact such as: Helene displaced, Helene housing, Helene transportation, Helene wifi, etc. 

Additional SS&E Features to Consider

• Enable Campaigns to track open, click, and click-through rates
• Create filters off currently registered students
• Created targeted filters based on enrollment, tags, zip codes, etc
• Monitor and increase texting permissions as needed
• Create additional Note Types
• Create additional Manual Tags
• Create Ad-hoc, customized reports

The Watermark Team is available to assist your institution with best practice approaches as well as SS&E configuration that can enable critical outreach. To expedite our support, we have set up a direct communication line to our experienced SS&E Product Consultants through the end of October. Please use the office hours sign up here.

With more than a decade of partnership with the institutions of North Carolina, and knowing many of you personally, we remain committed to your ongoing recovery and success.