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How Do You Create a Thriving Online Program? Start by Building Community

Green pasture and bright blue sky with scattering of white clouds.

15May’25

Feature Stories, Spotlights

May 15, 2025 by Erin Bartnett

On the final day of the graduation ceremonies, the Animal Welfare & Behavior (AWB) Masters students—now alumni—are sent to pasture. “Swine & Wine” takes place at the New Bolton Center in Kennet Square, where the graduates tour the large animal hospital before a final, celebratory lunch. On the hour-long bus ride between Penn and the Center, the newly minted alumni chat with one another and with the faculty and staff they have worked closely with over the past two years. They talk about what they’ve loved about the program, and what they imagine for its future. “It’s just a really beautiful way to end the graduation weekend,” says Chipo Siantumbu, the Program Director of One Health.

The AWB graduation is a three-day “extravaganza” —complete with networking opportunities, tours of both Penn Vet facilities, student research presentations, and alumni receptions. The flurry of in-person events is all the more significant for the graduating class because for most of them, this final event of their graduate student careers is also their first time on campus.

The AWB Masters is an online research master’s program that draws students from all over the country and the world. While the event may be the first time students are on campus, the community they have built starts and lives in the program online. “We were nourishing it from the very beginning,” Jennifer Punt, the Associate Dean for One Health says.

She credits Siantumbu and May Truong, the Director of Instructional Design & Online Learning, with building community into the program on every level.

12 Penn Vet students and staff stand in front of a blue Penn bus.
Green pasture and bright blue sky with scattering of white clouds.

The final day of the 3-day graduation “extravaganza” takes place at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center in Chester County, PA. Left: faculty, staff, and graduating students arrive at New Bolton. Right: the green pastures of New Bolton.

Building Community Starts from the Very Beginning

"I feel that community is really essential to learning. It’s part of the growth that you have in the classroom.”
Jennifer Punt
Associate Dean, One Health

Building the team

Now in its fifth year, the AWB provides a unique opportunity to earn a research master’s degree online. When Punt was launching the program, she reached out to CETLI (formerly the Online Learning Initiative) to learn more about making such an ambitious project a success. During that discovery phase, she learned about instructional designers, and shortly after hired Truong. “It was one of the best decisions ever,” Punt says. “Community becomes important. Learning becomes important.” And then, she says, Truong also had great instincts. One of which, was to hire Siantumbu, who fosters student experiences in the program and ensures the program is high touch and personal for the students.

Community building is integral to the program’s success. “I feel that community is really essential to learning,” Punt says. “It’s part of the growth that you have in the classroom.” Online programs across Penn continue to explore ways to make the community a meaningful part of the learning experience. From the beginning, Truong foregrounded the importance of community building in the design of the program itself. “Community is a big piece of online learning, period,” she says, and she worked to establish that for faculty and staff. “Being very student-centered in how we build our courses,” she says, “expanded outward to how we do everything else.”

Info Sessions

The information sessions are prospective students’ first opportunity to experience the organization and personalization of the program.

Faculty, staff, current students, and alumni are all present at the info sessions. But the best part of the sessions, Siantumbu says, is the Alumni Q&A. Alumni answer questions and share their contact information, and prospective students can be connected with alumni who have similar interests. For example, in a recent cohort, a prospective student who was a lawyer connected with an alumnus who also practiced law. When the prospective student attended, that alumnus became their mentor throughout the program.

“We prioritize caring about the student experience from our initial contact,” says Siantumbu, “and then we usher them all the way through. I think that's what keeps them coming back and makes them really feel connected to part of the program.”

“Being very student-centered in how we build our courses expanded outward to how we do everything else.”
May Truong
Director of Instructional Design & Online Learning
Faculty and Staff the Animal Welfare and Behavior MSc stand in ascending rows on a carpeted staircase.

Left: May Truong (bottom) with graduates of the 2024 AWB Cohort. Right: AWB faculty and staff, including Jennifer Punt (top, left), Chipo Siantumbu (bottom, left) and May Truong (bottom, center). 

Orientation Month

During Orientation Month, a combination of formal Canvas-based resources and social opportunities help students acclimate to the tools and culture of the program.

Because students will be using Canvas as their main learning vehicle for the next two years, Truong explains, it’s critical they get comfortable navigating it. All students are enrolled in the Orientation & Resources on Canvas course. They learn what tools are available to them as Penn students and refresh their information literacy, which is especially helpful for those who may have been out of traditional academic environments for some time.

Students are also invited to Lunch & Learns and Happy Hours. During Lunch & Learns, faculty are intentionally absent, so students have the opportunity to engage in candid conversations with each other. Faculty are then invited back for Happy Hours, which are informal chats. Truong and Siantumbu, Punt says, make these fun with “the best ice breaker questions.”

Finally, the program offers an Info Literacy Bootcamp. One of the special aspects of the bootcamp is that students are connected directly with Penn librarians. Punt is especially grateful to the librarians who are “wonderfully willing to share themselves, and not just a website” to help students become acquainted with all the resources available to them as Penn students.

Two rows of smiling graduates, dressed in cap and gown.

Penn Vet faculty members and Dean Andy Hoffman (back, right) stand with members of the 2024 AWB Graduating Cohort.

Graduation Weekend

Initially, the plan was to host graduation ceremonies online for the online program. But the first AWB cohort got very close and wanted to see each other in person, so the program worked with students to design a graduation ceremony that would be both online and in-person to support students in their new roles: celebrated graduates and active alumni.

On the first day of the graduation ceremony, students are invited to an intentionally intimate gathering for the graduates, faculty, and staff, where many finally meet in person for the first time.

The second day is “the big show.” Graduates go on a tour of Ryan Hospital and then have the opportunity to present the research they’ve conducted during the program. The research presentations become community building opportunities, too. With the presentation hosted both in-person and online, the audience includes many incoming students, who are then able to reach out to the graduates for ideas, or even in some cases, continue the graduate’s work. Then, there is an alumni champagne toast for the graduating class and a cocktail reception followed by the official commencement ceremony where the graduates enter the alumni fold.

Giving Back: The Alumni Community

“We want to keep up, they want to stay in touch. The natural thing to do was to say, ‘What avenues do we have?’”
Chipo Siantumbu
Program Director, One Health

By the end of the third day, the graduates have experienced the full scope of Penn Vet’s work—from the small animal care at Ryan Hospital to the large animal care at New Bolton during the closing “Swine & Wine” event. The final moments may be bittersweet as everyone says goodbye, but luckily, the alumni of the program have found ways to stay involved.

It started with the first cohort, who created the AWB Alumni Scholarship, which has enabled the program to expand recruitment to an international student audience.

“The Animal Welfare world is small,” Punt explains. The relationships built in the program become foundational for alumni’s careers. She laughs: “We also like our students."

Punt, Truong, and Siantumbu continue to think about ways alumni can stay connected with the program. “We want to keep up, they want to stay in touch,” Siantumbu says. “The natural thing to do was to say, ‘What avenues do we have?’”

The avenues are, in part, the same roads that led to community in the first place. Alumni are invited to return to the beginning of their own professional journey—the info session—only this time, as mentors. Alumni offer their experiences, provide mentoring to incoming students, and later, participate in the orientation month.

Punt attributes the vibrant community of AWB—both its current students and alumni—to the commitment of the AWB faculty and staff. “I think that's what keeps [students and alumni] coming back and makes them really feel connected to part of the program,"
Siantumbu says. To make that connection happen, she says, “involves every single person on the team.”

“I didn’t think this kind of community could be developed,” Punt says. But the combination of organization and personalization that Truong and Siantumbu have developed make the program a success. Their intentional work to organize the program and foster relationships, she says, has made it possible for the online program to thrive through community.