Submitted By: Kirsten Holles, Aggie Welcome and Orientation, March 2024

This was a team effort. The Saturday of fall move-in 2023, a mom called the family office. Her student (I’ll call them Pat) was in an accident, and in the ICU unable to move in. She called the Family Outreach office because she felt a connection from orientation. The mom mentioned Pat’s roommate (who I'll call Chris) was Pat’s best friend.  I contacted Dean Goodman who called the mom.

I told the mom that if Chris needed anything to please give them my contact information, this was an emotional issue for Chris. By Sunday night, Chris emailed me. Monday I met with Chris to see what their needs were to direct them to NMSU's resources.

At the meeting Chris said they wanted to move home and start in the spring. I asked if they were open to online classes to support Pat in their recovery.

I walked Chris to Aggie Health and Wellness for a walk-in appointment. After the appointment, Chris felt better but was sure they wanted to return home. But, wanted to stay enrolled at NMSU if they could do classes from home.

The next day, we worked on housing and classes while Chris had another appointment at Aggie Health and Wellness. Reid Adler at Housing discussed the move out process and options for spring housing. Marissa Fowler, Associate Director of Center for Academic Advising and Student Support looked for class options to make a plan prior to talking to an advisor. Chris moved home but was still an NMSU student.

During the week, I continued to reach out to the mom and celebrated as Pat stabilized.

When Pat worked on coming back to campus after deferring fall semester, they struggled to figure out all the steps needed. Chris told Pat to call our office because of the help we offered; all because a mom felt a connection to the family outreach office at NMSU.

My favorite part was that we had 2 aggies who could have decided to stay in Albuquerque, but are on campus this spring thanks to the team effort of DSS!