About The Role 

UNSW sees 25,000 new students each year that are looking for vibrant experiences, to find their thing, build a new community, and have blast while doing it. The Event Coordinator (Orientation) manages and delivers comprehensive orientation programs at UNSW, ensuring a seamless and engaging transition for first year students while enhancing the university experience for all students. This role involves leading the largest orientation event in the southern hemisphere alongside multiple smaller scale orientation weeks and events, managing a dedicated volunteer program with rich history, and coordinating a wide range of university-level initiatives. The successful candidate will possess strong event and people management skills, extensive experience in large-scale event execution, and a passion for fostering student life and community engagement. 

​Who are We? 

Arc is UNSW’s student organisation. We like to call ourselves the cool older sibling. We know that the best parts of going to uni is all the stuff you do outside the classroom, and we pride ourselves on making that experience awesome. We do that through a huge range of opportunities and services available to students online and in-person.  

Working at Arc you’ll join a welcoming team of full of like-minded students, who believe in listening to students, working together and having fun between hard work. Work perks include professional development opportunities, the occasional work cake party, hot desk spaces, tickets to the Arc Annual Dinner, and more. But probably the best thing you’ll get out of working here are some friendships you’ll never forget.  

KEY TASKS & ACCOUNTABILITIES​ 

Event Coordination 

• Plan and execute Arc & UNSW’s O-Week each term, maintaining our offering as the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere (Term 1: 40,000 attendees, Term 2: 5,000 attendees, Term 3: 15,000 attendees) 

• Project manage and coordinate all aspects of the event including but not limited to site, safety, schedule, timelines, budget, user experience, stakeholder management, etc. 

• Collaborate with all internal Arc departments to drive their presence and involvement across the weeks, including rostering and briefing staff. 

• Innovate and improve services and operations to enhance the orientation experience 

• Plan and execute Discovery Fest each term: a weeklong orientation event post O-Week aimed at re-engaging current students and re-activating campus. 

• Lead Discovery Fest centrally, managing overall vision, site, safety, budget, schedules, both internal and external stakeholders etc. 

• Organise Arc departments to drive their presence and involvement across the weeks, including rostering and briefing staff. 

• Innovate and improve services and operations to enhance the orientation experience  

• Oversee and manage Arc’s pool of Event Casuals, ensuring effective support for event bump-ins and bump-outs, as well as other hands-on initiatives across the organisation. 

Volunteer Program & Officer Oversight 

• Oversee the orientation volunteering program (Yellow Shirts). The Yellow Shirts are a team of 200 volunteers that are recruited, trained, and managed with the sole purpose of facilitating O-Week and putting first years first. Specifically overseeing: 

• Volunteer recruitment, training, and management.  

• Internal program operation and long-term strategy. 

• Budget allocation and reporting. 

• Mentor, coach, and manage the Yellow Shirts Officer, an experienced student casual who supervises and organises the Yellow Shirt volunteers and program more holistically. 

• Expand Arc’s orientation presence across the first few weeks of each term through continued development of the Campus Compass program, wayfinding assistance and tour expansion. 

• Mentor, coach, and manage the Campus Compass Officer in areas of volunteer and program management, assisting them to achieve their program and personal development goals.  

• Attend and present at training sessions on nominated weekends across the year (3-4x Saturday full day trainings + Friday-Sunday training camp in January). 

Orientation Initiatives 

• Maintain a strong partnership with UNSW Onboarding and Transition 

• Attend regular Work-In-Progress meetings with the goal of alignment and holistic orientation improvement. 

• Continue to establish Arc as a key deliverer of orientation activities, cementing our role in UNSW’s strategy and aspiration of a ‘relentless orientation’ 

• Coordinate university level orientation initiatives, embedding Arc in UNSW students onboarding journey including being the point of contact and organiser of stalls, activities, and speakers at university events. These include but are not limited to: 

• UNSW Official and Faculty Welcomes. 

• Higher Degree Research Welcomes. 

• Canberra Campus Welcomes. 

• Riverina Campus Welcomes. 

• Coordinate university level pre-orientation initiatives, priming targeted potential students to have familiarity with Arc and student life more broadly, as they start their orientation journey. These initiatives would involve organising, speakers, stalls, or activities for the following non-exhaustive list of events: 

• UNSW College UEEC Welcomes and onboarding events 

• Gateway/ STARTS Welcome events 

• Nura Gili programs  

• Future Students Open Day  

• Future Students Info Day