When was the last time you tried to get 1500 people to complete a specific task? Until recently the answer for me was… never. However, when Carleton decided to proactively adopt two-factor authentication for campus, we realized we were going to need to do just that — where the group of 1500 corresponds to our fabulous students (seniors are exempt, though still fabulous). As an alumna I know that Carleton students are wildly busy, so this was going to be an adventure, especially with our deadline set at the end of the first week of spring term! However, food is a strong motivator, so the concept of “Dinner and Duo” was born.
I had no experience planning dinner events like this, but this is where the excellent Carleton community comes in. This was totally a team effort, with 30 ITS professional staff, Helpdesk CarlTechs, and AT DataSquad students supporting the events. Mario Winburn of External Relations and organizer of the annual Phonathon events helped me understand how many people to expect (300?! Really?!). Noel Ponder from Campus Services, room scheduler extraordinaire, helped figure out if our plans for organizing the rooms were crazy (they were). Wayne Weaver from Facilities, who sets up the rooms for many campus events, helped with both of our event layouts and checked in before and after the event to make sure things went well. PEPS students set up our AV needs. The sustainability website made it easy to order fully compostable supplies so our events would have minimal landfill waste.
With the events now done, was it worth it? I certainly think so! We fed about 450 people and enrolled a total of 328 students who had not previously been enrolled. Though that’s a fraction of the 1500 non-seniors, it went a long way to spread awareness and (hopefully) reassurance that Duo isn’t so bad. Before our first event we were at 18.8% enrollment. We made it to 77% on the eve of March 30th.
Over the next few weeks, we will be working with the entire community to ensure that using Duo in everyday life is not a hassle. If you or anybody around you is feeling frustration or confusion at this new process please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Helpdesk.