National Student Employee Appreciation Week

Last week I shared tips for college students. All things I wish someone had told me when I was in college. In addition to having a lot of college student readers, I am also friends with people who work in higher education (duh because I work in higher ed :P). This week is National Student Employee Appreciation Week. The National Student Employee Association (NSEA) designates the second full week in April as appreciation week.

Student employees make a huge impact in the day to day operations of a department. They rarely get the recognition they deserve. As a student employee supervisor I feel it is my priority to prepare them for life after college, including transferable skills and life lessons. Needless to say there are a lot of “teachable moments” in my office. I also feel it is my responsibility to show them appreciation.

Although my university does not have a campus wide student employee appreciation initiative (check out UT’s initiative), every year I try to do something for my student assistants and I know several other departments on campus that do the same. Rather than doing one thing for the week, I like to do little things every day. One of the hardest parts is finding ideas. Pinterest is great for many things, but if you search student employee appreciation gifts/ideas/whatever keywords you want to use the results show a lot of teacher appreciation items. Some can be adapted to fit what you need, but for the most part it is unhelpful. If you search what other universities are doing it is mostly a repeat of ideas from every other university.

Which brings me to this, a list of things I have done in the past and of course some of the ideas other institutions use that I think are awesome. The links will take you to visuals of what I’m talking about.

Keep in mind the way to a student’s heart is their stomach 😉

Food Ideas

• This place would be a ZOO without you
• You’re the STAR of our office
• You’re all that and a bag of chips
• We’re NUTS about our student assistants
• We “DONUT” know what we would have done without you
• Thanks A LATTE – Gather everyone’s Starbucks order or give gift cards
• Our student workers FLOAT above the rest – root beer floats
• Breakfast of champions – Serve breakfast
• Without you there would be a DIP in productivity – chip and dip potluck
• Pizza party, potluck, cookout

Non-food Ideas

• Pat on the Back – trace the outline of your hand, make copies, and write something you appreciate about each student
• Make a banner and/or decorate the office
• Chalk the walkway leading up to your office
• Create and distribute awards (even if they are silly awards)

One day I would like to see a campus wide initiative at my university, but making changes can be delayed sometimes. I hope this gives you some inspiration! Feel free to share your ideas in the comments below.

Until next post…xoxo Becca

  0     |     Labels: college