Editorial
Universal orientation: A net positive
By Editorial Staff
September 3, 2015
August 18 was a crazy day on the Hill. For the first time in over thirty years the entire first year class moved in on one day. These students, greeted by more than 100 student leaders and countless other community members represented the culmination of a multi-year project to standardize the orientation experience. This change was the result of the (probably correct) belief that pre-orientation, once a niche experience for some first-years, was becoming exclusionary, and students who were not participating were being left with an on-campus orientation experience that was generally seen as lackluster. While this was a serious undertaking that was never going to be seamless in the first iteration, the team that worked together to plan and execute these trips did a phenomenal job.
As part of the planning process Tessa Chefalo, coordinator of orientation and first year programs, in tandem with Andrew Jillings, director of outdoor leadership and Amy James, director of community outreach worked to send every first-year, plus transfers and some January-admits, out on 60 orientation trips. The meat of the new program was Exploration Adventure (XA), which joined the well-established Adirondack and Outreach Adventure programs. There were certainly bumps along the road, an understandable occurrence when planning over 20 new 5 day trips that aimed to take new students to exciting and culturally relevant sites in central New York.
Over time, the program should and will evolve. Many orientation leaders tell stories of having rather unengaged trip participants, an inevitable result of not everyone being able to get their first choice. However, as time goes on accrued wisdom will give College officials a better idea of the type of trip that appeals to a wide range of students and ways to keep nervous, out of their comfort zone students entertained. This strengthening of XA will also make the program more attractive for applying leaders. Some XA leaders, the majority of whom were hired this year, report feeling like second-class citizens compared to the more entrenched AA leaders. Over time, the programs should become more integrated and officials should consider dropping the Adirondack/Outreach/Exploration prefixes for a more standard, universal name.
Finally, while mandatory trips were a net positive, the new system may have been a step back for on-campus orientation. Trip leaders continued to facilitate on-campus events replacing a group of over-enthused and sometimes over-served on campus leaders. For all the faults on-campus orientation did have, the leaders did a great job of hyping up on-campus events and connecting their participants with things they cared about. This year, events that have been traditionally popular, such as The Mentalist show and the Chaplaincy ice cream event saw decreased attendance.
Overall, the new orientation system was a success but there are things that can and will improve to better it long-term.