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Welcome Week with CampusGroups - Advice from a Student Leader
As the fall semester approaches and Welcome Week gears up at universities around the world, we asked University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) student leader Dakota Kath for his tips on helping students feel comfortable and build a sense of belonging from day one!
Welcome Week is all about helping students transition to college life—getting to know their campus, meeting new people, and making their first connections. Welcome Week activities are critical in helping students learn about student organizations, engage with each other, and make friendships.
Dakota is very familiar with this process. This fall, he’ll begin his final year at UMD, where he’s studying Political Science, Linguistics, and Spanish. Outside the classroom, Dakota serves as an Orientation Leader, Welcome Week Volunteer, and campus club leader—all roles that support first-year students as they find their footing. Given his experience, we asked Dakota how CampusGroups, known on his campus as BulldogConnect, is helping drive engagement during Welcome Week, and what other schools might learn from his experience.
How does your campus use CampusGroups during Welcome Week? What do you like best about it?
We use BulldogConnect to display each and every Welcome Week event. The platform allows us to see what activities are going on, including workshops, activities fairs, social events, and more. And with everything hosted under a parent event called “Welcome Week 2025,” we have one consistent place where we can see a list of all of the events.
What I like best about it is that you can click into individual events from the landing page and “register” for them. Because of this, students can see if other people they know are planning to attend an event, encouraging them to attend!
As a Welcome Week volunteer, how has CampusGroups helped you as you assist with different activities throughout the week?
Back in 2022 when I started as a first year, UMD didn’t have CampusGroups, so Welcome Week looked very different. We had to rely on posters, handouts and paper maps to know what was happening, when and where. Now, with BulldogConnect it’s so much easier. We still use printed materials, but we also have a digital, more convenient way to stay informed about the events going on.
As a volunteer, one feature that’s been particularly helpful is the in-app map. Because students obviously don’t really know the campus upon move-in, I often find myself showing students how to access the maps within BulldogConnect to find event locations. And this has been much easier than having handfuls of maps to hand out!
How has your experience as an Orientation Leader shaped how you use CampusGroups during Welcome Week?
As an Orientation Leader, I’ve had so much fun spending this summer with so many diverse groups of incoming students! Our orientations are full-day experiences where students do group activities, from hiking and canoeing to escaping a lighthouse. Students get to know each other and some of what our campus has to offer.
Having already built connections at Orientation, during Welcome Week, students are already reaching out to each other using the Chat feature of BulldogConnect! I’ve specifically been encouraging my orientation students to use the chat to invite each other to events throughout the week. And on top of that, I make sure they all know my name so they’re able to reach out to me with questions that come up!
As a student organization leader, how is CampusGroups supporting you and your club during Welcome Week?
I’m the Founder and President of the Campus Clashing Party. We play the mobile game Clash Royale while chatting and hanging out with each other. It’s not much, but it’s tons of fun!
CampusGroups makes it easy to recruit people and get them on our email list! We generate a QR code through the app so students can join the club on the spot and automatically get added to our email list. It’s way easier than passing around a sign-up sheet and relying on traditional paper email lists.
What one thing do you wish your campus did better during Welcome Week?
Honestly, we could make better use of CampusGroup’s features. For example, creating “tracks” for different types of events, like “Required Sessions,” “Social & Fun Events,” or “Workshops,” would help students navigate the week more easily.
Also, I think we could do better at promoting the app itself! Plenty of students will ask me questions in the halls during Welcome Week, and my answer is often to check BulldogConnect—but they don’t have it on their phone! So, I think including some promo about it in our handouts and on our posters, or even promoting or using it at Orientation, would be really helpful to get more people using it.
What’s your favorite Welcome Week event?
I always LOVE our Bulldog Scramble!! This is the event every incoming student is “required” to attend. During it, we play all sorts of minigames that get students moving, conversing, and laughing. From massive rock-paper-scissors tournaments to speed-“dating,” we have tons of fun and get to know so many people. I can’t wait for my fourth and final one in just a couple weeks!
A big thank you to Dakota for sharing your insights! We are so happy to hear how CampusGroups has helped support your work across campus. Wishing you a successful and engaging Welcome Week, and all the best in your final year at UMD.
We hope these tips can help other student leaders make Welcome Week even more meaningful; for volunteers, staff and, most importantly, the new students just starting their journey!
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