BOND Anywhere with the New Digital Immersive Student Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic created new challenges for the university as it was preparing to receive a new population of first-time freshmen for the 2020 fall semester. Fresno State has launched a pilot of the new virtual environment, "Hubs at Fresno State," a mixed-reality platform, to introduce first-time students to the Fresno State campus and offer all students the opportunity to meet and collaborate with classmates in a highly creative environment as an enhanced digital experience. In this presentation, Jaime Arvizu, Director of Advising and Resource Center at the College of Science and Mathematics, and Max Tsai, Innovation Architect and Coordinator of Digital Transformation at Technology Services, will share their interdivisional collaborative effort involving digital immersive technology to maintain the critical social interaction with the institution for students in the First-Year Experience program. They will discuss the implementation, planning, and development components and will provide a demonstration of the virtual experience, as well as many of the important outcomes that were achieved. They will also invite the CSM/AmeriCorps CSU VISTAs and TS/Innovation Interns to share how they worked together to develop ideas for social events and led the development of innovative social events. Finally, plans for the future will be shared with session attendees.