The University’s Student Orientation Programs – currently welcoming a record-breaking number of freshmen in its summer IntroDUCKtion sessions – is working extra hours to accommodate a wave of new freshmen enrolled for fall term and still cannot accommodate all of them.
The program is holding one additional two-day orientation during the summer, and is also offering a session for students who will be living in off-campus housing at Stadium Park Apartments.
The University usually holds seven two-day IntroDUCKtion sessions that accommodate 450 students each, said Cora Bennett, director of the Student Orientation Programs. This year, the eighth session will allow an additional 450 freshman to take part.
Because of the record freshman enrollment for next fall, each of the eight summer orientation sessions have been filled, and despite the additional session there are still more incoming freshman than could not be accommodated, Bennett said.
“We’ve never filled IntroDUCKtion before that I’m aware of,” Bennett said. “It actually filled up a few days before the deadline.”
Veteran orientation staff members say that the two-day sessions generally have fewer than the maximum number present.
“The only difference between this group and last year’s group is that this year the groups are all larger,” said Logan Cole, a senior theater major who worked with student orientation last summer.
The overflow students that could not fit into the summer orientations must instead attend the University’s Week of Welcome in the fall, Bennett said.
Bennett said that this past winter term, the University admissions office told the Orientation Programs that it was forecasting an increase in the size of the incoming freshmen class and to be ready for this come orientation time.
Bennett immediately made arrangements for an additional “go session” during IntroDUCKtion, in case they needed it.
“We got everything in line to make sure that if we had to add another session we would be able to,” Bennett said.
This involved reserving the classroom and meeting spaces for those days, and asking staff and faculty members to continue their advising sessions.
The Orientation Programs have also added a welcome session for the freshmen who will be living in the University complex at Stadium Park Apartments.
Bennett said it was a last-minute decision to include this session in the orientation.
The Office of Student Life and University Housing put together a question-and-answer session for students living at Stadium Park Apartments and their parents, Bennett said. “We want to make sure the students there get all their questions answered.”
The University’s Stadium Park Complex Director Michael Smith, along with Sheryl Eyster, associate director of Student Life, and a representative from Stadium Park Apartments, fielded questions from future student residents and their parents.
During the session Friday, concerned parents asked what the bus system to and from the complex is like, how safe the footpath between the University and apartments is, and how rental payment schedules work.
Smith and other future Stadium Park community assistants – which are equivalent to resident assistants for on-campus housing – said that the bus system is easy to navigate and very accessible. Eyster said that the University offers the free Assault Prevention Shuttle for students to use after the Lane Transit District buses stop operating.
Smith also said that though part of the footpath between the University and Stadium Park is not University property and therefore not patrolled by the Department of Public Safety, the pathway is very well trafficked by students during the day. He encouraged students to be safe and exercise good judgment when commuting at night, and to always walk in pairs.