How to Provide Exceptional AV Services while Relying on Student Staff

Many AV professionals working in Higher Education rely on student staff in order to setup, maintain, and/or operate AV across campus. While this is both budget friendly for the department and valuable experience for the student employees, it can also be a heavy lift for the AV professional.

How do you instruct and manage a team of students, who have a wide range of prior knowledge and commitment? How can an AV professional rely on the success of classroom support or a live event when using student labor? Some people will answer, "You can't," but this session aims to prove you absolutely can!

In this session, we will cover the building blocks that create a strong and sustainable student staff:

• Setting and managing expectations
• Recruiting, hiring and onboarding
• Training in both AV and customer service
• Management tips
• "Off boarding" when students leave staff (they graduate eventually!)

Whether you feel you have your student staff well managed or you've abandoned the idea of a student staff all together, this session invites you to consider how strong and exciting the AV support on your campus can be while relying on your student staff.