MOST OUTSTANDING NEW EVENT NOMINEE
Tulane University Vietnamese Association (TUVA)
TUVA Shadowing Day
Provide a detailed description of the event and the population it served. Details MUST include: date of event, number of participants, program purpose (goals, objectives, etc.), use of resources (finances, community support, etc.), marketing techniques, and amount fundraised.
On Friday, February 16th, TUVA hosted its inaugural shadowing day. The purpose of the event was to expose New Orleans high school juniors and seniors interested in attending Tulane to a day in the life of a current student. We received a list of local Vietnamese students who were recently admitted to Tulane from Tulane's Office of Admission. Then, we sent a mass email to these students to invite them to our event (9 AM-4 PM). Additionally, we reached out to Mary Queen of Vietnam Church to advertise our event (flyer attached below) since the church serves as a social pillar within the local Vietnamese community. Through our event, we hoped to assuage fears about the transition between high school to higher education by providing high schoolers direct exposure to the college environment.
In the end, we had thirteen high schoolers from three different high schools across Louisiana attend our event. We coordinated buses to transport the students between the East Bank and Tulane campus. High school students were paired with a current TUVA member based off academic interests, getting a glimpse into their dorm and academic life. They shadowed our members in classes such as management, biology, chemistry, computer science, sociology, and more. The day culminated with a Tet celebration with food, a fan dance, and a meet-and-greet. The event was a huge success. We had over 200 members from Tulane's general body attend the event, and we plan to continue the invent in the future.
Our budget was utilized towards chartering the buses, as well as paying for the food for the Tet Festival.
What inspired your organization to create this new event?
After recognizing a disconnect between Tulane University and the broader New Orleans community, we were interested in organizing an event that engaged the local Vietnamese community. Additionally, given Tulane's racially homogeneous student body, our aim was to contribute to diversifying the student population by attracting students from different backgrounds. By introducing Vietnamese students to Tulane, we aimed to garner early interest in the university and in higher education in general. The majority of the TUVA volunteers we selected to mentor the high school students were underclassmen. This way, if they decided to attend Tulane, they would have familiar faces to support them throughout their journey.
What efforts were used to motivate and involve the organization's members?
We had 15 TUVA members volunteer to help with the event by providing campus tours, eating with high schoolers in the cafeteria, and bringing the high schoolers to classes. We were able to motivate TUVA members to volunteer by providing them free meal passes to the dining hall, as well as underlying the potential impact they could make on the high schoolers. We highlighted the goals of our event (to provide high schoolers an authentic glimpse into college life and hopefully help increase diversity on Tulane's campus), which resonated with many of our members.
Did the organization overcome any challenges that arose while planning and implementing the event? How?
Fortunately, the event ran smoothly due to preparations that were made in advance (a schedule was provided to each high school student so that they knew where they were going, the TUVA volunteers received a training the week before to learn about expectations, etc.). It was challenging to pair each high schooler with a TUVA member that shared their academic interests; however, once the list of high schoolers was finalized, we searched for volunteers whose interests closely matched that of the high schoolers.
