Students who attend Peer Involvement Advising through the Center for Student Involvement will gather the skills and knowledge on how to become an active and connected Kent State student.

“Students don’t usually know that they can take advantage of this service,” said Katie Goldring, assistant director of student activities and PIA coordinator. “It is kind of a more one on one help with a plan on how to get involved.”

There are six student advisors who are trained to know about different resources that the campus has to offer and know how to seek out opportunities for students struggling to stay connected on campus.

“The upperclassmen advisors are involved in student organizations, have a variety of majors and are very diverse,” Goldring said. “They help each other out so that they can provide the best assistance to students.”

Some of the concerns students will be able to come to PIA with include finding intramural sports, how to become a resident assistant and being a part of a student organization. All of the students at DKS receive a Transitions Magazine that includes a full page ad on PIA and CSI.

“In the ad, students that fill out the quick involvement survey and bring it into the PIA office, starting in the fall will be given a free t-shirt and get to chat with the peer advisors,” Goldring said. “That same promotion will be in all the resident halls during move-in.”

The PIA office is centrally located in the Student Center inside of the Student Organization office. During the second week of classes, students should look forward to PIA open houses offering drinks, appetizers and informal conversation with the advisors.  

“As long as we are provided quality assistance to the students that do come in, to me, that is all that matters and also we would love to try to reach out to as many incoming freshmen possible,” Goldring said.

Contact Brittany Anderson at [email protected]