Quality Vs. Quantity: An OTM Can Be Judged By The QUALITY Of Its Proverbs!

1. Quality Vs. Quantity:An OTM Can Be Judged By The QUALITY Of Its Proverbs! NRHH National Board

2. What is an Of The Month (OTM)??? • An OTM is a way of giving recognition to a deserving individual(s) that have worked hard on improving or enhancing a students’ experience in the residence halls. • This award in general means different things to different entities. • Campus: Way of recognizing a job well done. • Regional: Going above and beyond the call of duty; Showcasing exceptional programming with emphasis on educating and enhancing residential communities; and Exemplifying commitment and dedication to a cause. • National: An Exceptional individual(s) who personify student leadership at its best going above and beyond the call of duty to improve/enhance residence life across all areas.

3. What is an OTM??? (Cont.) • An OTM from a residence hall is supposed to showcase the best that a residence hall has to give to the campus level • An OTM from the campus level in general should highlight the best your institution has to offer. • Exceptional Programming • Dedicated Resident Assistants • Passionate Residence Life Staff • Ambitious First Year Students • Driven Students • An OTM from the regional level puts the regions best foot forward via originality, creativity, storytelling and grammatical expertise.

4. Well QUANTITY works for us!!! • Yes, it is wonderful to log onto the OTM account and see 350+ OTMs submitted to the database. • Yes, it is great to see that schools have submitted OTMs in all categories. • BUT… • No, it is not great to see an OTM written for a Resident Assistant that is 137 words with a 600 word maximum. • No, it is not great to not send a regional winner to the national level because no OTMs submitted measured up to the challenge. • No, it is not the goal of the AD-NRHH to just submit just any OTM to the national level. It important to not waste the time of the OTM readers.

5. Why do we want QUALITY??? • Quality OTMs tell a story • Quality OTMs answer who, what, when, where, how many, who or what for, and What effect • Quality OTMs leave the reader with minimal questions and in some cases no questions at all • Quality OTMs are well written and leaves no room for vague passages • Quality OTMs win regional awards • Quality OTMs win national awards • Quality OTMs display Quality individuals and institutions • Do you have the quality to put into an OTM on your college campus??? • I think you do…

6. What does it take to write QUALITY OTMs??? • Pertinent Information • Time • Patience • Focus • Grammar • Proofreading • Imagination • Creativity

7. Pertinent Information • To build a Quality OTM you must have all the meat and potatoes of the individuals’ work or program: • Name and contact info of individual(s) / responsible party • Title of Event or Party of Individuals • Program attendance / Target Audience • Amount Spent on Program / Amount of people planning • Date of program / Date of events • Origin of Program / Origin of idea • What the individual(s) did / What did the program consist of • How much time went into planning these events • What were the lasting effects • How can these program be implemented on other campuses • 3 brief sentences to describe this program

8. Time • It takes time to type a quality OTM. • If you only have five minutes to spare to type an OTM…DON’T DO IT!!! • A quality OTM can take anywhere from 15 – 20 Minutes to type (depending on the type of OTM it is). • Do not rush the process; if there are more individuals that can help, delegate areas of the OTM to them. This is true especially with program OTMs.

9. Patience • Patience is a virtue…That is for sure. • Sometimes you have to be patient when working on OTMs in which you having trouble writing what you want to say – especially sometimes when confidentiality is an issue with the individual you are nominating (campus crime, rape, assault, and abuse instances where RAs help residents). In these cases tell the story leave out the names and any identifier information. • A quality OTM looks like time and effort was put into it; where a quantity OTM looks like someone just wrote something and turned it in. • *** I personally believe that if an OTM looks like it was thrown together it is not even reviewed (i.e., an OTM that is less than 500 words).

10. FOCUS • No, I am not kidding…Focus! • Sometimes we get distracted by things like the phone, AIM, Roommates, and friends. • When working on OTMs pay attention to detail. • Think about what it is that you’re trying to get the OTM readers to know or see. • Focus on the individual/program and think about the characteristics/benefit that they have that positively affect the residence life program on your campus. • Focus, Focus, Focus…Pretend that the person you were writing about was you. Wouldn’t you want to look good???

11. Grammar • Grammar is very important when writing OTMs. • The committee scans each OTM for content and usually when that happens grammatical errors stick out like a “sour thumb.” • When typing OTMs check for the following: • Incomplete sentences • Misspelled words • Run-on sentences • “Big blocks of text” • Unknown Acronyms – (Not RHA, NRHH, RA, RLC, or Regions) • The best way to combat this is to type your entries into Microsoft Word and then copy and paste it into the OTM form on the otms.nrhh.org website.

12. Proofreading • I am not going to get to deep into this topic it is self explanatory. • Proofreading helps you make sure that you OTM makes sense. • In general, if it makes no sense to you, you can guarantee that it will not make sense to anyone else. • Remember: Read, Read, Read!!!

13. Imagination • Writing OTMs is an art-form within itself. • Taking words and putting them together to form a sentence that tells a story is a hard job. • It is made harder by the fact that you are trying to explain to a complete stranger how something, someone, some group, or some program was beneficial to your campus community. • Thinking in this respect, you have to give a lot of supportive information. • A little background information is good. A good rule of thumb on that is 3 - 5 sentences. • When you go back to proofread through your creation, erase your mind of everything you know about the program and when you have finished reading answer the 7 questions.

14. Creativity • Creativity is in the hand of the writer! • OTMs are not meant to be boring reports…they are fun reviews of events and energetic accounts of hard working individuals. • If you write an OTM and it makes you sleepy, imagine what it can do to a OTM reader. • If you write an OTM like the Resident Assistant OTM in 300 words or less, it would be safe to say that either they did not do much or you are missing a lot of supportive information. • Be creative when typing OTMs!!!

15. Quantity or Quality??? • Advisor OTM (119) • This is Amy’s first year as an Hall Director here at Ocean Valley University. So far she has been nothing but amazing. She has really taken the time to be involved with the hall council. She sends us emails to personally thank us, as RA's, when we've handled difficult situations. She really has taken the time out to get to know us and show that she is making every effort possible to make this the best community ever. Her upbeat and energetic attitude is something you can't help but feed off of. I enjoy working under her and I hope that she stays as part of Ocean Valley family for a very long time.

16. Quantity or Quality??? • Organization OTM (593) • I’ve been involved with the Phoenix Club for the past two years, being the public relations director my first year and this year being the president. I am also involved in several other club executive boards on campus. What I have witnessed this year so far from my executive members in the Phoenix Club, I would never have imagined what has happened this year. On September 8, 2006 the recently elected Phoenix Club executive board met in a lounge on Purdue’s campus for the first time as a group to plan out their great year. We really did not know each other before then but by the end of the night we were all good friends. We worked extremely hard putting together a list of goals that we wanted to accomplish this year and how we wanted to do that. We created an extensive budget to support all of their club programs for the year. We even planned out a list of programs that we wanted to do in a variety of categories from social to educational. By the end of the night we were a highly functional unit. We did all of this in just 5 hours, which is phenomenal since the retreat was planned for 2 days. They really are a driven group, always wanting more of me and the others on the board. For example, I as president was kind of lagging behind by not getting people the information that they need or setting up a time for our first executive meeting. So they we e-mailing me like crazy wanting the information that they needed and wanting to know when the first executive meeting was so they could get the year going. They were the ones that chose to hold their retreat on a Friday night at 6 pm, knowing that it would not get over until about midnight. We are a very supportive group of individuals. The whole board is at every program put on by the club and the resident assistants, supporting each other, offering assistance and encouraging residents to come partake in the night’s activities to make the program a success. If someone is having a problem or something is not going as planned, there is someone going out of their way to help that person so we can make this year a great year. We have teamed up with the Hillenbrand resident assistants to put on a couple of programs, the most current one a Notre Dame versus Purdue Party. So far the executive board has redone how the general assembling meetings are run and how business is submitted for the meetings. We have also made the executive meetings more interactive then in the years past. The club has not had a constitution for 2 or more years a partial constitution for about a year, and select members from the board sat down and completed it in about 2 hours. Now the constitution is now in its final stages of approval. As a group we have completely overhauled the club and made it more of a place to come and make new friends. It is not everyday a group of eight strangers can come together in a night and become friends, and even more change the way an entire club functions. Even our general assembly is noticing the difference, and is becoming more involved by participating more during the meetings. As the year goes on I know that the bond that this group has is going to strengthen and take the Phoenix Club to new heights.

17. In Summation • OTMs can be put into the database at anytime (up until the regional due dates for that months submission). • Max out the word count – 600 (or at least more than 500). • Gather as much information and comments as you can on the individual(s) or program. • Try to type program OTMs the week the program happens while it is still fresh on your mind. • DO NOT RUSH TO TYPE OTMs…IT LOOKS RUSHED. • Make sure all of your information flows together. • Write your entries in word first to check for grammatical errors and then copy and paste into the database (don’t forget to hit the word counter). • Proofread the OTM and pretend you know nothing about the individual(s) or program and see if it answers all your questions.

18. Get Ready, Get Set, Go!!! • By now you should have a pretty good idea of what it takes to write a quality OTM. • It may take a time or two to get it right, but to compete with some of the other institutions within our region and outside of our region in the realm of OTMs there has got to be an upgrade in the quality of our OTMs. • I have no doubt that there are quality individuals and programs in our region; it is just the fact that the OTMs are not written to display this. Get Your head in the game! • If there were some parts about the presentation that leave you with questions please feel free to contact me • The Race Is On To Quality OTMs!!!