La Trobe Coffee and Conversation Program

Universities are open, the sun is shining and students are returning to campus! But how do we create connections for students that spent almost a full year online, or are starting university

for the first time, in a COVID-safe environment. With the help of our Peer Mentors, we have introduced a Coffee & Conversation on-campus activity that has proved simple and effective for helping students connect to each other and to campus. Basically, it involves students turning up at a designated time/place in the campus café precinct, where Peer Mentors meet them to coordinate introductions and conversation- and we provide the coffee vouchers!

We have trialled this activity with undergraduate courses in our School of Humanities & Social Sciences. Our Course Coordinators helped us by advertising cohort-specific session times on their Learning Management System pages, along with us direct emailing commencing students. With an Eventbrite page set up for students to register for cohort-specific sessions, we kept the sessions small (capped at 12 students), but also to collect student names/IDs for COVID tracing requirements.

From our initial sessions, we have seen both commencing and returning students come along with an appetite to meet their peers and engage in face to face conversation. This has helped students to meet others in their cohort and proved to be a great way to initiate continuing connections with students exchanging details and organising online group chats to stay in touch.

We hope to facilitate more of these Coffee & Conversation opportunities by extending the initiative to our other schools so that more students can engage with their campus and each other.