Best of CASE District VIII Award
 

Institution: Capilano University

Title of entry: Explore CapU

About this entry: Over the past few years, Capilano University’s Explore CapU Open House, has evolved tremendously. Prior to 2020, Explore CapU consisted of in-person presentations by program areas, campus tours and a mini-fair. These activities were held in a single building at the campus during a weekday evening. In 2020 and 2021, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held online.

For 2022, we recognized the need to change the event format to make it more appealing to parents and students who were experiencing digital fatigue and eager to participate in person again. It was a campus-wide initiative that involved the entire CapU community, including more than 200 staff, faculty and student volunteers. The event was held on a Saturday, making it easier for whole families to come. The new format was designed to encourage attendees to, as the event name suggests, explore all that CapU has to offer, including all buildings, classrooms and labs. Instead of the traditional presentations that happened in the past in a single building, students participated in interactive activities with faculty and current students from more than 40 program areas. Each area created an activity that represented learning outcomes from that program. They also visited a mini-fair with representatives from Student Support Services and participated in alumni and student panels.

The goal was to allow students to visualize themselves studying at CapU in a real and tangible way. Past in-person Explore CapU events had 340 (2018) and 306 (2019) people RSVP. In 2022, 1,001 students RSVP'd.