Preparing for Move-In, featuring UIS ResLife

Good evening, Thank you for joining us, for preparing, for moving. Glad you could be with us this evening. We're excited to have you in just less than a month beyond campus, UH and uh all excited for starting a new academic year. While we are waiting for others to join us, 'cause we're gonna give folks about in a minute, another minute to get in.

Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself in the chat?

Tell us where you're from.

And how excited you are.

My name is Lisa McGuire. I am the Program Director for Retention and Student Transition at UIS.

I work with programming for students and especially first generation college students, students whose families didn't graduate with a bachelor's degree from a four year institution, and I work with the necessary Steps Living learning community.

How are we all doing this evening? Glad you could join us. My name is Lisa Maguire, program director for retention and student transitions. I'm glad you're joining us for this webinar, Preparing for Move in featuring Residents Life.

We're gonna give folks about another minute to join in.

Glad we could have you with us today.

2.

Really excited to have you all join us. I can't believe it's almost a month and you'll be here on campus. Umm, and we'll be starting classes on Friday, August 22nd. Umm Hannah, if you're here, go ahead and take control of the slides. It's the two arrows.

And then click on, umm, the camera key.

And the microphone.

Hmm.

We're having some technical difficulties. Hold on just a second.

Sorry guys.

It's been 3 months since we've done a webinar together, so we're a little rusty. All right, thank you all for joining us this evening. And this is being recorded so you can watch this again for fun. My name is Lisa McGuire, I'm the program to Program Director for Retention and Student Transitions at the University of Illinois Springfield. And I have the pleasure of working with Hannah Aquino and she's going to facilitate this webinar preparing for moving.

Hannah, take it away.

Yes sorry guys, I totally forgot how to do this. It's been a while. So thank you for bearing with us for a few moments. So I'm gonna go over preparing for move in day. Umm. So let's get started.

Let's see OK, so on the agenda today we have going over housing placements, roommate information, when you should arrive on campus, getting to campus when you arrive, loft kids, what to bring in not to bring and, uh, mail in packages. So First off for our housing placement information.

Umm, if you applied by June 16th, you should have already received an e-mail.

Sent to your UAS e-mail with your housing assignment. Basically you'll just log into the student Housing portal, navigate to this term selection page.

And it.

It will show exactly what you see on here. You'll go to, you know, under the academic year and then it'll show if you're in Lincoln Residence Hall that will it will tell you where you're located.

Next up is housing, the housing placement timeline. So like I said, if you applied by June 16th, you should have already received your umm, roommate information and housing assignment umm, if you applied after June 16th, we are trying to get those out as soon as possible. So we are looking at them uh, weekly to biweekly. So umm, just check your UIS e-mail regularly for an e-mail from us with.

Information. Next up is roommate information. So how to find your roommates on the student housing portal? Hopefully some of you have already done this, but if not, that is totally OK. This is what the webinar is for. So umm, you'll have to log into the student housing portal and then navigate to the application slash summer page. Umm sorry, summary page on your housing contract, which would be the last page.

And then?

Umm, once you see those contacts, you'll want to reach out to your sweet meats and your roommates to see who is bringing what and kind of coordinate those bigger items. So, uh, you know, not 2 of you don't need to bring a, uh, mini fridge. You could if you wanted to, but majority of the time people are good with just one mini fridge. So that's kind of what you kind of what you want to talk about with your roommates on who's bringing what.

And if you do not currently have a roommate assigned, so if you don't see anything in your booking summary, there will still be, uh, there's still time for us to put in other roommates with you. So umm, definitely go in and maybe check that periodically and see if you get assigned anyone else before the semester.

So when should you arrive to campus So new students move in On Wednesday, August 20th, All of our first year residents should pre register for a time slot between 8:30 AM and 2:00 PM. Transfer students do not need to sign up for this. An e-mail will be sent to your UIS e-mail.

Around.

The early August, umm, we will send it, you know, probably the first week of August. So you can umm, sign up and get that all situated and then the time slots are in 15 minute increments so you don't have to be moved in within those 15 minutes. Basically we umm, just want you to show up within that 15 minute increment time slot, umm, and get checked in and everything like that.

So getting to campus, all of our new students arriving on August 20th between 8:30 and 2:00 will check in at track. That is number 9 on the campus map, which is shown here and parking the lot I is where you will park. Umm, they're really, uh, they're adjacent to each other, so super close. Umm, if you have a phone or using GPS directions, this address on here.

Is going to be what you are going to want to plug into your GPS to get you straight to your check in destination. If you're traveling by train or plane, you'll need to make arrangements to get to campus from the train.

Station or the airport. So we do have like Ubers around here, you could call it taxi, stuff like that. So just make sure that you have that done ahead of time.

So when you arrive, like I said, you're going to check in at track and track is basically our athletic center. Upon arrival, you will want to proceed to track where you will receive your room key and your move in instructions and resources. Remember to bring your I card, that is pretty crucial. If you don't have your I card, we will direct you to the I card center before you check.

So no worries there if you cannot get it beforehand, we will help direct you to get there and then directions to our residence hall. After check in, a moving crew will guide you to your assigned residence hall. So once you get to lot I, we do a great job with getting you where you need to go. So don't stress about that and then unloading at the residence hall. So at your residence hall.

Our move in crew will assist in unloading your car and transporting your belongings to your room.

So we have a ton of move in crew helpers. They take all the stuff out of your car for you. If you want them to help you and bring them up to your room, we just ask that the resident living on campus goes up and unlocks the door for them. That way we can kind of follow you and get you up there as quickly as possible and then parking. So once everything's been unloaded from your.

Someone from your group, so that be a family member or a friend, they will take your car and move it to a long term parking lot and we will show you exactly where that is at on move in day. So that's a little bit of how move in day will go.

So what to bring and what not to bring to campus UMM. There are a lot of things not listed on here that we do recommend that you do bring and also some other stuff that you cannot bring to campus UMM. So if you want that full list, I have the link on this presentation. It's UMM go.uis.edu/back/what to bring list so definitely check that out.

The main things on here are personal clothing, toiletries, hygiene products, umm, A lot of people have questions about toilet paper, so definitely bring toilet paper. We do not supply that umm, And you are in charge of cleaning your bathroom and bedrooms, umm, So definitely keep that in mind when you're getting your, umm, all of your cleaning supplies and stuff like that.

Bed linens, make sure those are extra long, twin umm so compact or mini fridge you can bring those.

We don't supply those in the residence halls, so if you're living in a residence hall you definitely should bring a mini fridge. It's definitely recommended. You don't have to, but you can umm microwaves. So a microwave is really good to have as well. Just make sure it's under 1000 watts. Definitely bring ATV because we do not have.

TV's in the rooms we do have them on.

Each floor in oh gosh, I can't think of the word, but in the common areas we do have TV's there, but if you want one in your room, definitely bring one of those umm, a shower curtain needs to be 78 inches in length. General cleaning supplies, like I said, you are umm, you do need to clean your spaces, so that's a great thing to have laundry supplies, desktop fan, a small vacuum, a plunger and.

Trash can, I don't have a trash can on here, but definitely a trash can is good. And then the stuff not to bring flushable wipes even though they are or they say they're flushable, they are in fact not because they do clog pipes. So we definitely don't want that. Space heaters, candles, LED strip lights.

Umm, double sided tape, nails, anything that's going to damage our walls. We do not want. Air fryers, grills, toaster ovens, stuff like that are not allowed in the residence halls. We do not allow pets except for umm, fish with a 10 gallon tank at maximum, and any sort of weapons or drugs, excuse me, drugs of any kind.

So, uh, mail and packages.

We have mailboxes for every resident on campus so that is awesome. All residents are assigned their mailbox on campus. You may send and receive packages while living on campus, so if you want to order something from Amazon you definitely can do that. Umm package pick up location so in Lincoln if you have any packages.

Sent to Lincoln you'll pick them up at your front desk founders will be picked up at founders front desk and our apartments and townhouses come to H Comm which is our housing office building over on the east side of campus and umm packages come there so important reminders to ensure your mail is delivered correctly. This is a very very important.

Umm, we have. You know, we do a great job of looking at the.

Names on every package and stuff like that. But if your full legal name is not on it, it's going to be hard for us to find who that package belongs to. So make sure you or your family members. So if a family member wants to send you a package, make sure they use this example address format. Umm.

And let's see. So you'll want to make sure you include your complete campus address. You can find all of those addresses at go.uis.edu, back slash addresses that will show you every single address. So you'll just find you know, where you'll be living this year and then use that address where it says 2160 Rachel Lindsey Drive. So pretty self-explanatory, but that's a great resource.

To have and give to family members as well.

And that is it. Umm, I see. Hopefully umm, you guys have been sending stuff in the chat, but I would be happy to answer any questions if umm, you have any. Oh and I do want to point out, I think there was one question about umm, carpet. So we do have carpet in some of our spaces and umm, on the floor.

And that cannot be taken off of the floor or taken up that if there is carpet in your living space, it does have to stay. So hopefully that is helpful.

Lisa, I don't know if you want to take over.

Alright, umm, don't forget you go ahead and put questions you have umm.

I know I'm approving questions as they come in. I do want to share with students, our first year students, our freshmen that attended our June orientations. You move in on the Wednesday the 20th. If you've not attended orientation yet, you need to register for the August 19th. It's Tuesday, August 19th orientation session. It's the last session.

And you'll move in on Monday.

August.

Or yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. You'll move in on Monday the 18th. The orientation session is on the 19th and so.

You'll move in a day earlier if you're only if you're attending that Tuesday, August 19th, that last orientation session. And you could do that registration from your UIS application status page. I'm gonna be doing another webinar going over checklist items, those final checklist items like getting your parking pass.

Waiving your student insurance payments as well as things like buying books.

Now you do have access to the.

Checklist items on your confirmed student checklist, If you watched any of our prior webinars, I showed you how to access those from your offer letters that were you were sent and you could access that and get that information. But I'm just going to do a webinar to kind of show you go through each of those items and explain them a little bit further.

Key thing is now you should start to check your UIS e-mail regularly. Departments will be starting to send e-mail.

Directly to your UIS e-mail orientation and admissions will still continue to send things umm, to your personal e-mail address. And if you haven't changed your personal e-mail from your high school or previous college or university to a personal account like a Gmail, an iCloud, you know that kind of thing, umm, e-mail the admissions office admissions at uis.edu umm, to get that changed to a personal address because.

There are a lot of schools that are shutting out that you can access the UIS e-mail from.

The main university web page under Quick links, Important apps and links.

And that was part of one of the earlier webinars as well, umm, where I had a visual demonstration to show you how to get there.

Don't hesitate. I think in everyone of the emails that I send out about webinars, I've included a link for a virtual appointment. So if you would like, we can meet through Teams and I can show you how to do that access e-mail or anything else through Teams. I I'd love to meet with you guys and answer questions. So don't hesitate to use that as an option. We are a Microsoft campus.

And Teams is part of the Microsoft Apps for Outlook.

So and I know.

Laura S.

Is Lauren getting to Messages? Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, if you guys have any other questions, this is a good time to answer them because you have both me and Laura on here so umm, if you think of anything, throw it in the chat. We'd be more than happy to answer any questions.

And oh, I do want to point out the loft kids are not, umm, hard to put up, so you won't need any tools for that. I know there was a question in there in the chat.

And there is a deadline to order them, right, Hannah?

Yes. So that is June 30th. I need to look on my calendar.

And the loft kit.

Form is on our website under the Fall move in Page.

It's so if you just click on that link, I think it's at about halfway down the page. It'll take you right there. The one thing you need to know is to log in with your UIS credentials. So if you aren't logging in with your UIS e-mail, you will not have access to it.

Thank you Laura for throwing in the link.

And if you're not already following residents life on Instagram, they have a great Instagram, very informative. They've been putting information out about housing and move in and doing tours of the different residential spaces. But I would really encourage you to, I try to share what I can on the UIS Facebook. And if you haven't joined us.

And I know some of you are going Facebook, that's old people thing and I understand it's old.

For you guys, but umm, it is the only social media that will allow me to umm.

Keep out.

Unsavory characters who are not students. I check everybody to make sure not only that they've been that they've been actually admitted to the university. So our student Facebook, I'm going to drop this in chat so you can follow us. And I, I try to share social media from the university as well as other pages.

There's some really good stuff. Campus Rec does some really great stuff as well.

As residence life and the student Union too. But if you don't want to, you know, join a whole bunch of pages, you can join that one. And then once classes start, I'll be sharing information about what's going on on campus, umm, to that page.

Hmm.

There is a question about transferring students, umm, So basically with transferring students and move in day, umm, you can show up anytime between 8:30 and 2:00. The reason why umm, you don't have to sign up is we just don't have as many transfer students umm, moving in as we do, uh, freshmen. So we really just have those time slots to make sure it's not chaotic umm.

Play.

Umm so we don't want everyone coming at 10:00. So that kind of just, you know, evens it out. So yeah, as a transfer student, feel free to come at any time between 8:30 and 2:00. You'll still check in at the same location. Umm our freshmen are checking in. Umm so all new students will check in that track. Umm OK, we have a few more questions. How do we contact other mates from the other rooms?

So great question umm, when you go into your student housing portal, you'll see their name kind of I guess they can go back and show where am I going roommate information. So umm, when you go into your booking summary, you'll you'll see the first and last name, but I blocked those out just for.

Confidentiality reasons, but basically if you just pull up Outlook and you start typing their first and last name, their e-mail will automatically generate and you can send them a message. So that is how you can reach out to your roommates.

And then we have washer and dryers correct? Just need to provide our own laundry detergent that is correct and Laura already got that so she is on it. Umm.

Yeah, and then it's one loft kit per room. Or does each student need 1? So it really just depends on your preference. So if you want a loft kit for yourself, umm, that's great. You can definitely, uh, request one. If your roommate wants one, they can also request one. But if they prefer not to have a loft kit, they don't have to request 1. So it's really, umm, your.

I would recommend reaching out to your roommates again and maybe talk about your setup and just be like hey I'm interested in a loft kid.

3 BHK residential house.

And see if you know, you guys can workout your setup so, and if it gets to, if it gets after July 30th and you're like, oh, I actually want a loft kit, you can e-mail us so residents, sorry reslife@uis.edu umm, and just say, hey, I missed the deadline. Do you have any loft kits left? And we can definitely see if we have one and.

1 So it's not the end of the world if you forget to, but definitely talk to your roommate about that.

And don't be alarmed if the roommate's not responding 'cause sometimes they're not paying attention to their e-mail at all and they may not have seen the e-mail from Residents Life saying, hey, you can come, you know you've got your room assignment and you can contact your roommate through the portal.

That's a good point.

Happens every year.

Right.

Also, Residence Life has measurements of the furniture that's included in each of the rooms. Umm, so you know if you're planning on how you want to arrange things and what will fit where, umm.

If you go to their website, they have a list of what's included in each room.

And that includes the residence halls as well as the townhomes and the apartments for any transfer students joining us this evening. So OOP got a couple more questions I'm gonna toss to Laura.

Also, sorry if I hadn't echoed this whole time, umm, I was not reading the chat while I was presenting so hopefully that cleared up for you umm. If not, I apologize, I'm not sure what's going on.

And command hooks are allowed so you definitely can use command hooks for like bigger items to hang on the walls. If you have any posters you can use blue side like the blue painters tape that tends to stick well but not leave any marks on our walls.

Umm Kenley No, orientation is not mandatory for transfer students bringing in 24 or more credit hours. We have freshman transfers that come in with less than 24 credits, 23 or less, and they are required to do orientation. But if you're bringing in 24 or more credit, you are not required. Umm and then EV, the first day of classes is Friday, August 22nd.

Umm, if you are a first year, your new student welcome starts the evening of August 20th.

And uh, it'll be that evening until 9:30, though 930 is when the ice cream social is, so free food, you want to go to that, umm, and then, umm, Thursday, umm, it's basically 9:00 to 5:00. And then there's evening, uh, evening social activities. Umm, Friday you'll have classes. Umm, there are a couple different. All the first years will have first year seminar on Friday between 8:00 AM and 3:00. They're also a couple of science.

On that day and some math classes. Classes end at three though, and then the new student welcome will continue Friday and then as well on Saturday.

Jane, we also have virtual tours on our website under our housing options. Laura, if you can hear me.

Could you potentially put the link for a virtual tours umm in the chat? But yes, that'll also give you a good idea. We also have YouTube videos of students actually showcasing the room and kind of talking about their layout and what they brought. Umm, those are on YouTube.

So definitely look at those because I think that kind of helps set the vision and you get to see what other people do.

Morgan yes, the admissions office visit days and they have visits Monday through Saturday that you can opt to do. They do show. We have a showroom and founders residence hall and so it shows what the setup is for the residence halls. I don't know if there's a apartment showroom anymore.

We don't have an apartment, showroom, umm, we do have a townhouse, umm, for transfers or upperclassmen.

And OK, Zion, umm, if there are things in my room that are provided but I don't need, can I have them removed temporarily? Umm, no. So everything that comes umm, with your.

You know, once you move in, umm, that does have to stay in there.

OK.

Play.

How do we request no bunk beds? Umm, so technically if your roommate wants to bunk their bed, they can, uh, but you don't have to bunk your bed. So you just, you just don't request a loft kit and let your roommate know that you don't wanna, umm, you know, bunk your beds and you don't have to.

Umm, and then Jane, how do you know the layout of the room if B doesn't designate the side so?

B does designate which side of the room that you're on. Umm, but we don't necessarily have that labeled on the website. We just kind of show you the entire room. Hopefully that makes sense.

It's kind of hard to explain.

All right, we're coming up on 602 umm, We'll hang out here for another few minutes. If you've got questions, umm, please keep sending them in. This is a great opportunity to get all your housing questions answered. Umm meal plans will start on Wednesday. Umm, so umm, if and if you live in the residence halls, you are required to have a meal plan. Umm, And so umm, the dining hall will be open.

Umm.

The hours will be posted shortly. It should be like 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM starting that Wednesday, August 20th. Starbucks might not be open until Friday.

They might do like a sneak peek Thursday because they'll be training their new staff. Umm, so it it it's very possible Starbucks will not be open until Friday.

Umm, and just be aware, you know, yes, you can use your meal plan dollars at Starbucks, but you know the cost of some of those drinks, umm, equals probably like what you have allocated for breakfast allowance, umm, And so it could be pretty quick, umm, depending on your Starbucks habit to go through your, your food money, umm. So umm, if you are still awaiting maybe a graduation gift from somebody.

And you've got a Starbucks habit. Encourage them to send you a Starbucks gift card. We don't the our, our franchise, our university franchise doesn't do the mobile app or the mobile discounts, umm, or the loyalty program. But they do take the Starbucks gift cards.

Umm, there was a question, are you allowed to go and eat at the dining hall more than once during the open hours? Yes, you can go and eat whenever you want. Umm basically your swipes are based off of how much money you spend. I mean we don't really have swipes. I know some universities have like swipes, but basically the money you have on your meal plan.

Umm say you spend 12 dollars, $12.00 will be taken off of your meal plan. So umm I guess just.

Be cautious of what you're spending. That way you don't run out, but you can always add more. So yeah.

And Jose?

The this webinar, it takes about 24 hours for the system to process the recording. And so it could be ready tomorrow and I'll send it to everybody who registered. So if somebody wasn't able to attend, they'll still get the, you know, they'll get an e-mail with a link to the recording and you'll log in with your, your UIS application status page credentials.

And then?

If somebody wasn't able to register for this webinar, they can just e-mail me. I'm going to drop my personal e-mail my work e-mail in here.

LZ TU2 uh, my e-mail address is elmagu2@uis.edu Umm and uh, you could just ask me and I'll be more than happy to, uh, forward that link to that person. You might be able to do it too. I don't think it's umm.

Like IP address specific, umm, and then I'll be umm.

Sending our raw video to our because it'll, it, it records me talking and then it records Hannah and we've got to get it merged together. And so I'll send it over to our Office of Electronic Management, They'll merge the two files together and then I'll send Hannah that digital file to post on the Residence Life website.

So it'll always be accessible through your application status page. Log on if you e-mail me and or you have that link with the e-mail in it.

Umm, and then.

Depending on how quickly they get it back to me. Umm.

Yeah, depends on, you know, who's on vacation and how much.

They've got to work on.

So, but definitely by August 1st, I'm kind of hoping.

So good questions, folks.

Alright, it's 607.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to drop them in.

Hannah, if they don't have a lot of, uh, space in their vehicle for packing, umm, can they ship boxes, umm, early?

Yeah, we recommend.

I would say probably like the week before, maybe a week or two. That is totally fine. We will definitely keep them. We just try not to do too many otherwise we won't have room for them. So I would say like one or two would be fine if you absolutely have to, but.

Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, not everybody can get a van.

Or has a or has a trailer hitch.

I mean, I guess if you're bringing a van, I don't know if it'll all fit.

Umm yeah, my dad had a truck so we had a big truck bed.

Alright, alright, I see the questions are winding down. Oops. Nope, one more just snuck in. There we go.

Let's see, I saw.

Play.

A good question, Jane. Do we fill out a room checklist for damage, et cetera before we move in? Yes. So we are actually moving all of that online. So when you check in umm, you will get the instructions, a little handout on your room inspection. So you'll go in umm and it will actually be it through Starres this year, umm and you will do a little checklist and make sure you put any little damages.

Down South you don't get charged for it when you move out.

Good question.

Alright.

Make it.

All right, just for the sake of time, umm, I'm gonna give one more minute for questions. Umm, if anything else occurs to you after this webinar, don't hesitate to e-mail reslife@uis.edu. You can also call them during regular business hours. They also have some great stuff on their website as well. Or you can reply to the e-mail about this webinar. Umm, and I could forward it to residents life as well.

And definitely follow us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. We definitely try to keep our information up to date, make it light hearted. Umm, and there will be a lot of like move in tips and all that sort of stuff. So our handle is UIS reslife. So definitely give it a follow. I'm biased because I'm the marketing associate, but.

Umm, yeah, I I it's fun and.

It's a good way to know you know what's going on and events and stuff like that, so.

Thank you so much for being a part of this and doing this presentation. Laura, thank you for answering all those questions in the chat. I'm so glad all of you were able to join us this evening. We look forward to seeing you in just a little over a month. So have a great night everybody, and this recording.

If the computer system, the systems have it.

All digitized properly. Hopefully late tomorrow afternoon I'll send it out. If not, probably Monday. Have a good night everybody, take care.

Bye.