Brock University’s Office of the Registrar and Enrolment Services (ORES) has renewed its commitment to supporting two student awards benefiting incoming and current undergraduate Brock students. 

At an in-person meeting earlier this month involving a diverse group of more than 70 ORES employees — including student recruitment staff from India, China, Kenya and Vietnam — ORES senior leadership launched an initiative to reinvigorate several long-standing student awards that have roots in the Office.  

Geraldine Jones, Registrar and Associate Vice-President, Enrolment Services, said the extraordinary gathering was a great opportunity to reintroduce the awards and reflect on the team’s shared mission of supporting students.  

“Our team supports students from their earliest interest with Brock and through their time on campus, all the way to celebrating their achievements at Convocation,” she said. “While we did take time as a group to celebrate each other and our successes, we chose to focus primarily on what our team does best: channelling our energy and excitement into an initiative that will have direct benefits for our students.” 

The ‘Office of the Registrar and Enrolment Services Award’ for current undergraduate students and the ‘Office of the Registrar and Enrolment Services Future Innovators Award’ for incoming undergraduate students were created more than a decade ago through provincial award winnings and staff philanthropy.  

With renewed dedication to financially supporting the awards, the ORES team will seek ways to incorporate fundraising opportunities throughout the year. The hope is that small efforts will accumulate and compound over time to impact students in a big way. 

Sandy Howe, Director of Enrolment Supports, hopes the collective effort of supporting the awards will strengthen the bonds between team members, who each work on their own important portfolios and are separated physically, sometimes by national borders and oceans. 

“We have results-driven teams who are dealing with time-sensitive projects and high volumes of inquiries, so it can sometimes be easy to focus on our distinct areas and miss the bigger picture,” she said. “Our renewed commitment to these awards will help reaffirm the mission, vision and values of our office and offers an intentional and tangible example of how we are all working together to support students.”

The Office of the Registrar and Enrolment Services teams oversee and support global undergraduate student recruitment and admissions, central academic advising, Brock Central, course and exam scheduling, student records and systems, several Senate subcommittees, the academic calendar and Convocation.