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This summer, the Wake Forest University Center for Global Programs and Studies launched a new 3-credit course titled “INS 101: Arrive@Wake” aimed at incoming international students. The inaugural class was made up of seven delightful students. The flyer for the program stated, “The cornerstone of Arrive@Wake is a credit-bearing course designed to strengthen your writing and research skills, enabling you to thrive in future classes.”

From the conception of this course, the Z. Smith Reynolds Library was included as a collaborative partner in implementing this program. ZSR’s relationship with Global Programs reaches far and deep with Sarah serving as the ZSR LIAISE representative and Hu’s involvement with Human vs. Zombies, Zotero, and other programs aimed at our international population. Joy was the new kid on the block whose involvement came after being asked to do a presentation on plagiarism during last summer’s Worldwide Wake Pre-orientation program.

The amount of time we were given during this three week program (July 26-August 14) was substantial. Three individual two hour classes (plus another hour with Google Tools) gave us time to dream big and offer no-holds-barred deluxe library instruction sessions! We revelled in the challenge of giving this group our very best and we recruited several colleagues who generously contributed their expertise and time to help make it an amazingly fun and informative experience.

July 28 Introduction to the Library & Research Tools

Our first challenge was to introduce this group of students to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library and since so much of what they needed to know was related to Access, we recruited James Harper to help us plan and execute this class. James was on board immediately, and we sat down and methodically planned out a Library Tour tailored to the needs of international students. Sarah introduced us to the Cephalonian Method which we used at each service desk. Questions were prepared in advance in collaboration with the service area experts, and students drew 7 questions/station from cups and read the questions to the people at the service desks. The impact of using this method was dramatic. The students immediately followed up with questions of their own, conversations were started, and it became probably the most in-depth and enjoyable library tour any of us had experienced. Special thanks to Ryan Shirey, Mary Reeves, Meghan Webb, Amelia Knight, and James Harper who served as service area representatives.

After the tour, we came back to Room 476 and helped the students with several hands-on activities including printing from the library printers, scanning, reserving a study room, and finding a specific journal article that was related to their course. It was great fun and the students’ enthusiasm was energizing for all of us. Our first day was a hands-down success!

July 29 Intro to Google Tools

While all of our new students are familiar with Gmail, many have very limited experience with Google Docs and even fewer have experience using Google Tools for collaboration! We took advantage of this opportunity to not only give these students a chance to become more familiar with the suite of tools known as “Google for Education” but also troubleshoot any technology issues they were experiencing. Having “The Bridge” located in ZSR proved valuable in solving the wide variety of minor technology issues.

July 29 Research Tools and Databases Overview

During the Library Tour on July 28, several questions were raised about accessing our ebook collection. Derrik Hiatt graciously agreed to come and talk with the group about accessing these titles which currently number around 200,000 in our Catalog. After Derrik’s presentation, we talked about finding books on the shelf by call number, and then we had the student sort books on a book truck by call number. After this exercise, they went to the catalog, selected a book, and then went to the Main Stacks (with a librarian) to retrieve the book. Everyone was successful, and several of the students checked out their selected titles.

After finding books from the Main Stacks, the students returned to Room 476 where we began working on their first writing assignment given by their Arrive@Wake instructor. Their assignment was to find two scholarly articles and one style guide that addressed this question, “Should personal pronouns be used in academic writing? Why or why not?” Sarah, Hu, and Joy pulled several style guides and brought them to class. After they found what they needed in those guides, we then showed them how to access a linguistics database to find scholarly articles on their topic. We briefly talked about scholarly journals and scholarly journal articles, including how to search academic databases using boolean operators, keywords, and truncation. It was a full session, but the students were very appreciative and engaged.

August 7 Academic Standards (plagiarism/citations & Zotero)

Our last session with Arrive@Wake was on a Friday afternoon from 1:00-3:00pm. The session started with a visit from Carrie O’Brien, WFU International Student Advisor for immigration, who briefly explained the risks involved for international students if they are suspended for honor code violations. Joy then gave a plagiarism clicker presentation based on brief academic integrity scenarios. Hu followed that presentation with a Zotero session. After Zotero, we played a fun round of Jeopardy using our very cool response system (like the one used with WFU debate). The day ended with applause by the students and smiles on the faces of all who were present. Sarah, Hu, and Joy declared the session a huge success.

August 12 Arrive@Wake Dinner

Sarah, Hu, and Joy were invited to attend the Arrive@Wake Dinner which was the grand finale for the Arrive@Wake program. It was a lovely dinner at Bistro 34 with delicious food and generous accolades for everyone present. It was a pleasure to be an integral part of the inaugural Arrive@Wake program.