A New Hub for the Community
The Hotchkiss Hub serves as a virtual space where students can find answers to their most common questions.
When students self-quarantined in their dorm rooms, they may have asked: Which clubs should I join? What’s for dinner? How can I get help on my math homework?
In preparation for virtual community life this fall, Ms. Yasumura, director of student clubs and affinity groups, and Mrs. Wistar, director of student activities, created a virtual space where students can find answers to their most common questions. The Hotchkiss Hub serves as a replacement for all-school emails and hallway notice boards, featuring quick links to resources such as dining services and studies skills help. Additionally, all student-run clubs created websites linked to the Hub. Mrs. Wistar commented, “The site can be a platform for promoting diversity and inclusion on campus, as we see this month with the new homepage graphics highlighting Latinx Heritage Month. Hotchkiss has a lot going on, with a lot of clubs, events, and school services that help connect us as a community.”
When students first went remote last spring, the school created the “Maria” Student Intranet to organize campus communications in one place. However, due to a lack of student engagement, Ms. Yasumura and Mrs. Wistar worked with the Olympians & Pythians committee, the Clubs Committee, our All-School presidents, and Ms. Yasamura’s advisory to turn the Intranet into the Hotchkiss Hub. The committee helped determine what information students need and how it should be organized. These conversations led them to create features such as the Community Activities Calendar, which lists club events, weekend activities, and other events. Mrs. Wistar said, “The student Intranet was started when the pandemic hit and the School needed a digital home for information for students. The Hub is the next iteration of that idea and, hopefully, a place that students can turn to to find what they need.”
Students both on- and off-campus have found the Hub helpful. “Having a website for Baking Club has been extremely helpful this year, especially because it is our first year as a club,” noted Club Head Morgan Carr ’21. “We don’t have a club fair this year, [so the website] makes it easier for students to see when we have meetings and find the links rather than just getting an email that gets lost in your inbox.”
In the future, the creators of the Hub would like students to continue to taking advantage of digital communication options. Mrs. Wistar said, “While [the Hub is] important for this year, we may find that there are some ways that communicating in the digital space may help students get the help they need a bit easier or more comfortably than in-person. For instance, we might see more students reach out to the TLC via the Hub versus walking to the Center. We’ll be looking out for those pandemic-prompted positives.”
