Ellen's Graduation from SUU with Masters in Professional Communications

Ellen just graduated with her master's degree in Professional Communications! Congratulations, Ellen!! 

Jase and Ellen left for our house Thursday morning. Their van  broke down in Spanish Fork and they had to bring it to the shop and take Ellen's mom's car instead. So they arrived much later than usual. Friday morning they headed to SUU with the boys. We left shortly after and met them there. Ellen's parents and sister, Lexie, and her husband also met there. It was difficult keeping the boys entertained during the ceremony. Lexie got some darling pictures afterwards and then we all met at Pizza Factory for lunch! We are so proud of Ellen for this huge accomplishment! 

Energy Drinks for Breakfast?

(Jaiden SUU -- week 4) 

Jaiden has written a letter (through email) to Janelle every single week of her mission!! Janelle said that Jaiden has been one of her most faithful letter writers. I asked Jaiden if she wouldn't mind including me on the letters she sent to Janelle, and she said that was fine. I love reading them and scrolling through the attached photos. I always learn a lot about her week since she includes all the juicy details of her life, ha ha. These letters will make a nice record for her (since she doesn't keep a journal). I will try and put together a photo collage of her weekly photos from time to time for this blog, although she might not appreciate me posting the actual letters on here, so they will have to be kept somewhere else. But I will include her clever letter titles to help me reference which letter went with which photos! 

But just a few things...  she and Emily and on the Athletic Board and so they are very involved with the games and tail-gate parties and things like that. She and Emily also had the opportunity to be models for the SUU bookstore (the pictures of Jaiden by herself in the black SUU sweatshirt are from that). They are cute -- I wish they had given us the high resolution copies of them! 

I'm Pretty Good at This Whole College Thing (Jaiden SUU Week One!)

 

SUU!!

Moving day!! This morning we headed to Cedar City to help Jaiden move in to her apartment at Stadium Way! We were on our way up north for Everett's baby blessing. We helped her move in all of her things and then took her and Emily out to lunch and then grocery shopping to gear up for the week. Jaiden then came with us in order to go to the baby blessing and Jared dropped her back off Sunday evening. We are excited for Jaiden to start this new adventure! She is rooming with her best friend, Emily Williams. We met some of her other roommates also and they are cute girls and seems very sweet too! 

SUU Presidential Ambassador Weekend

Jaiden applied to be an Ambassador for SUU next year. There were several rounds in this process and lots of people were cut in each round. Jaiden made it through all of the rounds, but we won't find out for a few more weeks if she was chosen to be an ambassador. Part of me hopes she is chosen because it would be a great way to get involved with the university and meet people and it would also provide some more scholarship money -- and she would do an amazing job! (And of course it looks great on a resume!) But on the other hand, part of me will be a bit relieved if she doesn't get chosen because she is already so busy. Plus she already has a full tuition scholarship and could probably earn more money at a part time job than from this. Either way I am sure she will still be involved and busy at college. So we will just see how it goes! 

Anyway, the application process consisted of several rounds. Round one included a registration form -- filling out a questionnaire and answering a bunch of questions and turning in transcripts and things like that. Round two involved making a video. She made the entire video on her phone. I couldn't possibly do that. She was sick during part of it (you can hear it in her voice when she is holding the brush as a microphone.)  The video is really cute, except she filmed herself in front of our outside faded, paint peeling French doors during part of it and in the back yard with our old broken door in the background. I wanted her to redo those parts because it looks like we live in the skids, but she said she didn't have anyone to film her in the first place and was sick and didn't want to redo it. Oh well, regardless of the background she still made it to the next round. 

 

The next round included a twenty minute interview over zoom (which was scheduled during school which we thought was weird. I actually had to check her out of school so that she could come home and do the interview!) The interview was with a panel of three people (the head guy and two other ambassadors). She had to teach a ten minute presentation on "why you should come visit our home town" and then answer a bunch of interview questions. She made a power point for the presentation which she shared over zoom. It included things like Tuacahn, Swiss Days, State and National Parks, statistics on low crime rates and so forth. She felt like she did pretty well on the interview.  

Round three included a weekend of interviews, presentations, team building exercises and forth at SUU. They started off with over 200 applications and only 58 were invited to the President's Ambassador Weekend and only 20-25 will be picked to be ambassadors. She should find out within the next month or so! Here is Jaiden's write up about the weekend (I added capital letters to the beginnings of the sentences and to the acronym SUU because this generation doesn't seem to capitalize anything and it kind of drives me crazy, ha ha!) 

Jaiden: I had my SUU ambassador weekend thing!! It was super fun but also EXHAUSTING!! We first had to do interviews, and then we were put into groups and had to make skits that were like an SUU commercial, and then we were put into other groups and had to create a 10–12-minute presentation for convince people to go to SUU... it was kinda hard because we weren't allowed to have like slides or anything.... but after that we got to go to the SUU gymnastics meet and it was super super fun!! And then we got to go do open rec at the gym and then we did a 10-minute escape room that my group totally failed hahaha! The next day we had to perform our skits and our presentations! Basically, in the presentation they gave us a demographic like 30 minutes before so ours was a general science class of juniors and seniors from California, so we had to gear it towards that. Our presentation was only 6 minutes *oops* but we did have a smaller group hahaha and then after they asked us tons of questions lol.  I have no idea if I'm going to make it or not because they are definitely going to cut the group who was up there in HALF or even maybe more! Crazy! But we'll see how it goes haha.

Update as of April 4, 2022: 

So Jaiden found out that she didn't make it in as an ambassador. She was disappointed, but at the same time it might be a blessing in disguise. She has been so overly busy and stressed this year and this  would just add more to her busy schedule. It might be better if she started out her first year of college without jumping right back into a million activities and responsibilities. Anyway, here is the email: 

Hello,

Unfortunately, you were not selected this year to be offered a position as a Presidential Ambassador at SUU. 

As we discussed at the weekend there are a lot of factors that go into choosing an ambassador team, some involve a particular skill set, others involve things that might be out of your control that we as a recruitment and admissions team have to consider (ie Where people are from, our current gender ratio, our out of state representation vs in-state, etc.). 

We met some amazing candidates at the weekend and had some diverse evaluation processes that we feel offered great insight. We appreciate your time and commitment to making a thoughtful experience, but unfortunately, we have decided to move forward in a different direction.

Although you were not selected for this particular position there are a LOT of other positions at SUU that you could be a GREAT fit for. I’ve taken the initiative and sent your name to our Student Involvement and Leadership (STIL) Center. 

The STIL center is a triage for incoming and current students to help you find a place at SUU, train up on necessary skills for a particular position, and give you meaningful exposure to a variety of positions and organizations throughout your time here at SUU. 

Don’t let this setback keep you from accomplishing amazing things here at SUU. We encourage you to work with Heather and get involved with the STIL center. 

Thanks again and we look forward to seeing you on campus next year!

With Gratitude,

SUU Recruitment and Admissions Staff