Summer orientation ends Tuesday

Summer orientation wrapped up last week with an estimated 6,500 participants coming from all around the country, Associate Director of Orientation Melanie Payne said.\n"Students did everything from take assessment tests to register for classes to attend sessions on student life," Payne said.\nEven though IU recently announced a decrease in enrollment, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services Don Hossler said he could not say how many students will be attending in the fall. \n"Students will also be coming to sessions in August, and we won't know those numbers until they literally show up," Hossler said.\nLate orientation begins Aug. 22 and will last about a day.\nPayne said although there were fewer attendees than in recent years, the reduced attendance rate did not change the program.\n"I know there were fewer (attendees) than we saw a year ago, but we still had a pretty full program," Payne said.\nShe said there were a few changes made to orientation in order to increase parent-student interaction.\n"We did some additional parent programming," Payne said. "This year, we started a parent orientation newsletter. It gives parents information on what the students are going through."\nEvery year, the orientation program has an interactive theater on safety called "For Students Only" that covers topics on alcohol and rape. "IU Unplugged" is an MTV-style video interactive session that covers topics on community and diversity.\n"The issues for new students haven't changed," Payne said. "It is our approach that is changing."\nThis year was the first year that freshmen orientation used an entirely online reservation system.\n"Last year we used it partially," Payne said. "Students had the option of signing up online or mail in a paper form. Most people used the online option and this year the system worked really well. We could even give confirmations online."\nBoth Hossler and Payne said they received unsolicited e-mails from attendees and their families commenting on the high quality of the program.\nEmily McCallister, a recent graduate, worked as a program assistant this summer. She communicated with students and their families and helped with check-in.\n"There were a lot of positive things from students about the programming," McCallister said. "Some of the freshmen and their families would remember their specific orientation leader and send in thank-you notes for making their experience enjoyable."\nThere were about 40 orientation student staff members including orientation leaders and office staff.\nSenior Tiffany Afseth worked as an office assistant.\n"I answered a lot of phone calls and was put in charge of mailing 6,000 pieces of information," Afseth said. "We got a lot of positive e-mails back about how quickly the office staff responded. We recently had an end of orientation banquet, and I got to speak with some of the orientation leaders. I think everyone had a positive feeling about how the summer went."\n-- Contact staff writer Karen Yancey at kaeyance@indiana.edu .