Craig Dillaman, director of New Student Orientation, authored a book chapter, “Minor in Professional Teamwork and Leadership Evolution—Perspectives from New Student Orientation,” that was included in Integrating Professional Skills into Undergraduate Chemistry Curricula.
With college graduate skill sets lacking the ever-essential, and transferable, skill of working in a team, a program idea was born centered on the topic of creating a new minor focusing on developing teamwork strengths. What would it take to get it off the ground? How could baseline data be collected, and interest grown in a such a program? More importantly, how could stakeholders at an institution work together to model the skills that the program is designed to prepare students with?
This chapter focuses on how a new student orientation program supported the development and growth of the Effective Teamwork and Communication Minor. Examples will be shared on how the use of creative program scheduling and collaborative relationships assisted with increased awareness and enrollment in the program courses.