Rose basketball highlights
Link Crew institutes new Code Breaker competition
TUES. | 05-04-21 | NEWS
SAT. | 10-10-20 | NEWS
Link Crew is an organization at Rose that provides freshmen with mentors to help them transition successfully to high school. With low freshman engagement because of the pandemic, Link Crew has had to change their hands-on and in-person activities in advisory. Link Crew advisors Randall Leach and Stephanie Noles decided in March to implement a new interactive activity, the Code Breaker Tournament, to help increase freshman and leader engagement.
“Code Breakers is a tournament where people have to guess a four digit code in the correct order and in the least amount of time,” sophomore leader Stuart O’Connor said.
Code Breakers uses colors to distinguish whether the code is correct or not. If the color is green, the number is correct. If the color is orange, the number is right but not in the correct order. If the color is red, the number is incorrect.
“We try to keep [the activities] relatively simple and easy so we do less explaining and [the freshmen] do more playing,” O’Connor said.
Link Crew is planning on keeping this challenge for the rest of the year, as well as having an in-person freshman orientation.
“We are looking forward to having a physical freshman orientation,” Leach said. “We’ll adjust activity, we’ll adjust space, we’ll make the proper adjustments but we will also be fully prepared if anything happens to have virtual options as well.”
Due to COVID-19, Link Crew has had to adjust to altered advisory times and to virtual activities.
Photo taken by Mary Elizabeth Hutchinson
“Link Crew would hold meetings in-person and some of the activities were more hands on and interactive,” O’Connor said. “With COVID, we had to do things virtually and with stationary activities.”
Link Crew was started by the Boomerang Project, which emphasizes hands-on work internationally. Leaders have adjusted and created more opportunities for freshmen while still trying to emphasize the interactive aspect of the Boomerang Project.
“We are now going to be able to create some more virtual content with advisories just in case we can’t go to a physical advisory next year,” Leach said.
Leach and others feel that it has been more difficult for Link Crew leaders to reach out to freshmen because of the virtual environment.
“To stay motivated, I always try to think about the freshmen,” O’Connor said. “They are new to Rose and it’s this big, scary environment that they don’t know how to navigate.”
Leaders have had a hard time building personal relationships with the freshmen because of the virtual environment as well.
“In my experience, many people would not come to advisories,” O’Connor said. “Things are virtual, we learn over Zoom, there are less people to make personal relationships with each day.”
Although Link Crew has had to adjust many of their regular activities for the year, Leach believes that they did succeed in creating new opportunities.
“I’m proud that we did make adjustments, instead of just throwing the towel and folding in,” Leach said. “We have adjusted completely and have actually come away with some highlights and great opportunities such as Code Breaker.”
