How Fort Hays State University built a student ambassador program with Unibuddy

Challenge

Before Unibuddy, students inquiring about Fort Hays State University (FHSU) would be connected with the professional global recruitment staff. Although helpful, there was a key element missing… The ability for these prospective students to connect with students who are already studying at FHSU, both on campus and within the partner schools. After hearing about the power of peer-to-peer, Haley Williams, Global Affairs Operations Director and Jaydn Snyder, Global Engagement coordinator and Special Projects, started forming the beginnings of an ambassador program. They looked to Unibuddy to help them “go virtual.”

Solution

The university’s student ambassadors were selected based on their language capabilities –  targeting the countries where the Global Affairs team wanted to focus more efforts. This included countries such as China, Paraguay, Senegal, and Spain. The original plan was to hire five ambassadors; however, after promoting the ambassador program at international student orientation events, interest in the program grew. They now have 16 super-engaged student ambassadors from seven different countries.

By embedding Unibuddy Chat on their website, Fort Hays State University created a channel through which prospective students could reach current students. Now, instead of connecting with professional recruitment staff, they were able to learn about the lived experiences of real international students.

To create a collaborative community culture with their student ambassadors, Williams and Snyder host weekly workshops with the students. In these workshops, the group explores strategies to drive more students to the platform and discuss what the student ambassadors would like to learn to better support the prospects they’re speaking to. Keen to support their future students as best they can, Williams and Snyder have even trained their student ambassadors to help prospects with tricky college application software.

Results

Since launching, Fort Hays State University’s international student ambassador program has flourished. A testament to the power of harnessing their student voice, in the last year, Fort Hays has seen over 100 unique site visitors from over 30 countries, as a direct result of using Unibuddy. 

Comparing Fort Hays to where they were a year ago, with no ambassador program, it’s incredible to see how it has grown and become such an integral part of the institution’s international recruitment strategy. Talking with Williams and Snyder, you can see there is a strong sense of accomplishment and pride. Snyder shares “If I didn’t have Unibuddy Student Ambassadors, I wouldn’t know what to do. They are such a huge part of what we do here.” 

It has also become a valuable asset to the student experience for their ambassadors. Williams shared a stand-out moment from one of her students: “One of our ambassadors is from Paraguay, and she told us that before she enrolled, she was so grateful to be able to connect with someone at Fort Hays, as her family had a lot of concerns about her moving across the world. She wanted to be able to give back and be that person for someone else. I believe she came to Fort Hays because of Unibuddy.”

“It’s just been a really great experience. We continue to go back for more funding to keep running Unibuddy every year. Aside from the increase in leads we’ve seen, some of the things we do are very hard to measure, but the stories can speak for themselves. Unibuddy enables our students to make connections, and that is what is really powerful and beneficial for us.” Williams exclaims.