New Student Orientation for the summer of 2008 ended August 1, and as the process of making improvements for next year’s NSO program begins, the University needs to seriously re-evaluate orientation.
The fee for a student to attend NSO is $115 and is included in the various fees that accompany fall tuition bills. This fee hasn’t changed since 2000, while the size of incoming freshman classes is drastically increasing. According to Gabe Wical, director of NSO, this translates into a possible budget crisis. The program cost $651,590 in 2007 and raised only $584,582 in fees – even with existing cash reserves, the program may fall into deficit by next year if no changes are made.
Moreover, Wical emphasized space issues and information overload on new students as other areas for concern. Students are bombarded with information, some of which they might not need until later in their college careers. Further, with larger numbers of students and parents attending NSO, only Stewart Theatre is large enough to accommodate everyone for various presentations that end up feeling like long, boring lectures.
Students already have enough lectures to look forward to sitting through. The University shouldn’t add any more. And while issues like safety and alcohol regulations are important, this lecture-style presentation is counterproductive. There are clever ways to get this information to students in a memorable manner – this may include giving safety information while explaining the ticketing system or discussing academic integrity while guiding new students through the registration process. University officials need to use them.
The University might also consider adapting a system where incoming students may select which registration they attend instead of arbitrarily using last names to determine orientation dates.
But the University also needs to listen to the Undergraduate Student Transition Task Force, a panel created to evaluate orientation and make it into a permanent committee. Standing by a system that cannot keep up with growing numbers of new students hurts the message and is bad economics.The proposed one-day pilot orientation session is another good idea, which can ease budgetary concerns and increase the amount of useful information incoming students remember.
There are plenty of potential solutions – flexible scheduling, shorter orientations and integrating important messages into information about programs in which students are interested. The task is now implementing them.
