Creating connection is central to student success, yet it can be difficult to achieve online. This session shares a low-cost, high-impact model for building community beyond the classroom through live webinars that foster belonging, confidence, and engagement. Discover how intentional design can transform simple tools into powerful touchpoints for students.

Community colleges are built on a promise of access, belonging, and care—creating spaces where every learner feels welcome, supported, and seen. As online enrollment continues to grow, the challenge has become how to replicate that same sense of warmth and connection for students who may never come to a physical campus location. At a large community college serving thousands of fully online learners each semester, our team set out to create meaningful, low-cost ways to build connection beyond the virtual classroom.

The result was a series of live webinars designed to help online students feel seen and supported through real-time engagement with faculty, staff, and online student success coaches. These sessions, offered regularly throughout each semester, focus on practical topics like time management, library research, financial literacy, and conservation—while also giving students a space to interact, ask questions, and experience genuine community with faculty, staff, and peers.

This approach required no new technology or additional staffing—only intentional collaboration between faculty and staff and a commitment to being present with students in real time. Faculty and staff find the sessions energizing and positive, with the live format helping overcome the transactional nature that often characterizes online interactions.

Engagement in this express session will be woven throughout via live polling and interaction through chat. The presentation opens with a student story, and a live poll will prompt attendees to reflect on how often their fully online students see a face from their institution outside the LMS. As the presentation progresses, attendees will be asked which webinar topics they think will be the most meaningful for students at their institution, and who they can partner with to create a webinar program. Three simple principles—keep it human, keep it simple, keep it consistent—will anchor the presentation, along with examples of topics and promotional strategies.

Attendees will receive a downloadable resource sheet with sample topics, scheduling ideas, and post-event survey questions to adapt immediately to their own context. The session closes with one reflection question: How might we create affordable, authentic moments of connection that help every online learner feel they belong?

Sarah K. Lee, Ph.D.

Campus Provost, iCollin Virtual Campus at Collin College

Dr. Sarah Lee is the founding Campus Provost of the iCollin Virtual Campus at Collin College. At Collin, she has led innovative student success initiatives—including a dedicated online student support division, equipping faculty with the tools to deliver high-quality online learning, and the district’s Weekend College program. Prior to serving at Collin College, she was a tenured faculty member at Abilene Christian University. She moved into administration as an associate dean, then assistant provost, leading the effort to launch 9 fully online bachelor’s degree programs. She is passionate about creating opportunities for learners to achieve their educational goals and focuses on building scalable systems that foster faculty and student engagement.

Serena Meyer

Executive Assistant to the Provost, iCollin Virtual Campus at Collin College

Serena is a Texas native, having attended the Plano Campus of Collin College while in high school and later earning her bachelor's degree from West Texas A&M University. Her early career began in Florida, where she served as a park ranger and environmental educator creating fun, accessible spaces for community learning. In 2022, she returned to north Texas and joined the iCollin Virtual Campus' administrative team, where a commitment to public education, collaboration, and service continue to inform the heart of her work.

Meena Beri, Ph.D.

Professor at Collin College

Dr. Meena Beri serves as a Professor of Economics and the Chair of the Appreciative Education Committee at Collin College. She is a lifelong learner, a believer in the growth mindset, a practitioner of strengths-based frameworks, and a passionate provider of holistic student support. She is a published author in the field of Appreciative Education. She has presented on the topic of student success at several national and international conferences.