Annie Keith ‘01, Director of New Student Orientation and Student Transition at Randolph-Macon College, has been named a 2021 Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate by the National Resource Center First-Year Experience and Students in Transition (NRC). She receives the prestigious honor for her role in developing award-winning transition programming that supports students entering RMC and sets them up for success in the years to come.

Keith, who was herself a first-generation student at Randolph-Macon, spent more than a decade serving the College community in admissions. Five years ago she moved into her current role as Director of New Student Orientation with a mission to rethink RMC’s approach to supporting students in the early days of college. The award particularly celebrates Keith’s leadership in creating the New Student Orientation Captains Program, which she launched in 2017.

“The programming she has built provides students exactly what they need to successfully transition to a college life managed on their own—with just the right amount of support necessary (or waiting in the wings as needed),” Randolph-Macon President Robert R. Lindgren said, celebrating Keith’s award. “Annie Keith is a visionary first-year transition leader. She’s someone our students—and faculty and staff—admire and look to for support.”

New Student Transition Captains—part orientation leader, part peer mentor—provide the student-led foundation for the program, which begins before new students arrive on campus and continues throughout their first year. Students who serve in these roles are selected through a rigorous process that prioritizes a diverse and inclusive group of student leaders, each of whom personally supports between 16 and 18 first-year students. Each Captain benefits from Keith’s extensive training program and is nationally certified as a peer mentor through the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA).

The program is widely regarded on campus as a critical resource for students in their first year, with more than 90% of new students responding that their Captain was “very” or “somewhat” important to their transition to College. The survey results track first-year retention scores at RMC, which have risen in the years since Keith implemented the program.

Breya Robinson ’22 (Business Management major, Elementary Education minor), a New Student Transition Executive Captain, praised Keith for “her transparency and tenacity.” She said Keith has been in her corner ever since she arrived on campus for first-year summer orientation and has continued throughout her training as a Captain.

“She is dedicated not only to the work of her office, but to the success of students in all aspects, not just academics,” Robinson said. “Words cannot express how grateful I am for her, and I know that without her, my college experience would definitely have been different!”

That sentiment was echoed by fellow Captain Molly Mahoney ’22 (Communication Studies and Sociology double-major), who said, “Not only does [Keith] train the Captains to succeed, but she works for months preparing for orientation weekend and other events for first-year students to have the best experience. Annie is one of the most dedicated and inspiring people at Randolph-Macon College, and I am honored to have worked and learned from her through the Captains program.”

Keith’s other achievements include pivoting the orientation experience to a successful virtual program due to pandemic disruptions in summer 2020. The resulting digital orientation, called Expedition RMC, provides a gamified orientation experience that is now an ongoing part of orientation in person. Keith’s colleagues also cite her commitment to personal, individualized mentorship for individuals and groups who need it.

“Serving as Director of New Student Orientation and Student Transition Programs requires Annie to engage with a wide variety of campus constituents and requires that she be conversant with a range of policies, processes, student developmental stages, and cultural expectations and competencies,” said Dean of Academic Affairs Lauren Bell. “Annie manages to balance each of these needs all while helping students at all levels to develop themselves and feel connected to RMC in ways that we have never been able to before … She just simply ‘gets’ RMC’s students and respects them as individuals.”