In recent years, it has become difficult to engage students outside of the classroom due to their expanding personal and professional obligations and the rise of asynchronous learning modalities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also often challenging to compete with technological advances, which allow students to watch movies, play games, and engage in social media from the comfort of their homes. However, according to the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General (2023), “human beings are biologically wired for social connection. Our brains have adapted to expect proximity to others” (p. 9). We’ve known for decades that “the higher the degree of integration of the individual into the college systems, the greater will be his commitment to the specific institution and to the goal of college completion” (Tinto, 1975, p. 96). More recently, Abdul-Rahaman et al. (2022) confirmed that academic and social integration are strong predictors of retention. Ocean County College (OCC) has responded to these issues by creating a diverse calendar of opportunities for students to connect and learn about college resources.

In November 2024, OCC held its first Mystery in the Library event, planned by the library, Student Life Office, and Retention Team. In August 2024, event organizers from these three areas met to explore ways in which they could work together to meet their individual goals. During the meeting, they discovered a common interest in developing a gamified learning experience for OCC students. The newly renovated campus library became an obvious choice for this activity, which would introduce students to the resources that the library offers while emphasizing the importance of academic skills in an interactive learning environment.

Since the pandemic, OCC’s campus events have struggled with low attendance, so when Mystery in the Library attracted 30 students on a cold winter’s night, event organizers were thrilled. In this article, we will share the goals each department had as they began planning the event and review plans to modify future iterations to better meet students’ needs.

Departmental Collaboration

In September 2024, the OCC library reopened after a year-long renovation and modernization project. The project involved (a) a complete reimagining of the library's space to better fit the needs of 21st-century college students, and (b) the introduction of new technologies to facilitate equitable learning access.

A project of this scope and scale necessitated the relocation of the library's staff and part of its printed book collection to a temporary space on campus for an entire academic year. During this period, most of the library’s services continued unabated. Librarians still provided information literacy instruction to classes each semester, and students could still take advantage of the library’s many digital services and resources. However, students became accustomed to this diminished iteration of its services. In order to advertise the library’s newly expanded presence and resources, the librarians reached out to OCC’s Student Life Office and Retention Team to inquire about collaborating on an event.

The Retention Team is integral to the success of the students at OCC. The team is dedicated to supporting students through the transition to college and helping them navigate the challenges they may face along their academic journey. The four Success Coaches on the Retention Team connect with students via text messages, emails, phone calls, and one-on-one coaching sessions. Outreach typically begins when a student encounters an academic obstacle, such as a course average falling below 70 percent or a faculty member submitting a participation or performance alert. However, students can utilize the Retention Team’s services at any point in their college experience. Once a connection is made, the student and Success Coach work together to create an individualized academic success plan.

The Student Life Office embraced this collaboration with the Retention Team and library as a creative way to expand their weekly evening programming, which helps to foster inclusion and build connections. Due to the need for students to balance academics with work and family responsibilities, activities that create a sense of belonging are essential to helping students feel more included in the community college experience (Baker-Brown, 2024). The U.S. Surgeon General advised that “social connection can be a proactive approach to living a fulfilled and happy life, enhancing life satisfaction, educational attainment, and performance in the workplace” (U.S. Office of the Surgeon General, 2023, p. 10). By working with other departments, Student Life was able to increase exposure to their evening events while providing regular attendees with more chances to meet new people and increase their sense of belonging through social connections.

Mystery in the Library introduced students to a variety of resources available on campus through gamified learning. This form of learning is becoming more popular “because games instill lifelong skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, social awareness, cooperation, and collaboration” (Buljan, 2025, para. 3). These skills are crucial to the success of our students, so the game was designed to emphasize their importance.

Event Design

The Mystery in the Library event was primarily modeled after Clue, the popular board game wherein players strategically move through various rooms on the board and use the process of elimination to determine which character committed a murder, the murder weapon that was used, and the room in which the crime took place. The typical Clue storyline was adapted into something more appropriate for an academic setting: In our game, a professor was mysteriously rendered unconscious in the library and, upon waking, discovered that the answer key to his final exam had been stolen. The object of the game was to discover where the professor was knocked out, how he was knocked out, and the identity of the thief.

At the start of the game, each player was given a case file that allowed them to keep track of their clues. A map of the library, which highlighted 10 spaces students could investigate for clues, was also provided. Each space was chosen to highlight a particular service, collection, or amenity the library offers to the campus community (e.g., the podcast studio, chess collection, and computer lab). Students then solved a special puzzle in the space, which led them to a hidden envelope containing four cards. The first three cards identified a suspect, weapon, and location the player could eliminate from their case file. The fourth card directed them to the next puzzle space, which gave the game a sense of flow and prevented too many players from congregating in one space for too long.

Each puzzle was designed around a certain theme or learning goal, such as the maze in the computer lab. The maze’s exit and false exits were labeled with the names of the subject study guides the library hosts on its website. Upon solving the maze, the player was instructed to use one of the lab's computers to scour the winning subject guide for clues to eliminate from their case file. Other puzzles were thematically appropriate for the spaces in which they were hosted (e.g., a cryptogram in the military history section); still more were oriented around the principles of success identified by the Retention Team. Thus, each puzzle was not only a challenge to work through but a lesson in itself.

Upon successful completion of all puzzles, or whenever they felt confident in their powers of deduction, a player submitted an accusation card to one of the event organizers and checked their answers against the cards in the organizer's envelope. At the end of the event, the organizers invited players to a debrief, where they could socialize and share their feedback.

Final Thoughts and Next Steps

The biggest takeaway from the event for the organizers was the power and importance of collaboration across campus departments. Almost all of the student participants frequently attended events hosted by the Student Life Office. By collaborating with Student Life, the library was able to draw in more students than it likely would have through its individual marketing and outreach efforts. The students who attended Mystery in the Library had frequented the library before the event, but had viewed it as a place for quiet, solitary study, and were mostly unaware of the array of resources and services offered. In addition, the collaboration on this event was a powerful way for the Retention Team to connect with other departments to enhance their coaching initiatives. For example, by building a stronger working relationship with the library staff, the Retention Team has developed a better understanding of the library’s resources and how they can benefit OCC students.

This event was a successful experiment in delivering familiar course content and introducing helpful academic skills in new ways. For example, some puzzles emphasized specific subject guides and collections offered by the library, all of which are mentioned by librarians in traditional information literacy classes. Other puzzles were structured around time management and study skills that the Retention Team’s Success Coaches advise students to utilize in their one-on-one coaching sessions.

One of the most meaningful and unexpected outcomes of the evening for the Student Life Team was watching students work together to solve the puzzles and seeing natural leaders emerge in each group. They were leaders in every sense of the word as they guided their peers through the library and coached them on how to solve each puzzle rather than just giving them the answers. Student Life has since invited these students to attend leadership workshops hosted by the office in order to continue the development of their natural abilities.

We are hopeful that this event will become an annual tradition at OCC. To enhance future events, we plan to recruit student volunteers to facilitate connections with solo attendees to make the event more welcoming and inclusive. We would also like to incorporate students and professors from a variety of schools into the event to expand appeal across the campus community. A few examples include utilizing students in acting classes to portray characters, asking engineering students to create an interactive puzzle, and applying elements of history to the characters by way of the history department. We hope that these efforts will encourage more colleagues to join us in engaging students, faculty, and staff to promote our campus culture and highlight the amazing resources that OCC has to offer.

References

Abdul-Rahaman, N., Terentev, E., & Arkorful, V. E. (2022). The tertiary experience: Of social integration, retention and persistence – A review. Public Organization Review, 23(1), 133-147.

Baker-Brown, C. (2024). Why student clubs matter in community colleges. Community College Journal, 94(4), 31. https://www.ccjournal-digital.com/ccjournal/library/item/february_march_2024/4172231

Buljan, M. (2025, April 24). Gamification for learning: Strategies and examples. eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/gamification-for-learning-strategies-and-examples

Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89-125.

U.S. Office of the Surgeon General. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK595227/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK595227.pdf

Lead image: New access services desk in the renovated library at Ocean County College

Madison Caldwell is Student Success Coach; Shawn Oates is Outreach and STEM Liaison Librarian; and Michelle Youngs is Assistant Director, Student Life, at Ocean County College in Toms River, New Jersey.

Opinions expressed in Innovation Showcase are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.