Orientation prepares for incoming freshmen

Starting Tuesday, Orientation Programs will greet about 400 incoming freshman and introduce them to campus life.\nThis year, more than 6,700 incoming freshman are enrolled in orienation and the University expects more. Orienttion will run through July 17.\nDirector of Orientation Melanie Payne said the staff is ready and excited to welcome the new additions to the IU family.\n“We want them to know that IU is a place with plenty of resources,” she said. “We want to give them comfort.”\nNew this year, the orientation staff has revamped the program in ways that utilizes technology and makes students more engaged in the learning process, Payne said. She said the program will split incoming freshman into groups so that they can give presentations about what they learned during orientation.\nPayne and other orientation leaders discussed this change and other additions to the program at a meeting Friday afternoon of about 150 staff and faculty members.\nPayne said the meeting, called the Orientation to Orientation, runs about every two years and is important for faculty to attend.\n“We’re happy to share our plans with campus,” she said. “The campus really invests in the students.”\nIncoming freshman will also be introduced to radio-frequency response pads, commonly known as “clickers.” Clickers are remote-controlled electronic devices used in some IU classes that enable students to answer multiple-choice questions posed by professors.\nPayne said the use of the response pads will help students become more engaged to the learning process while introducing them to classroom technology.\nDuring a demonstration of the clickers in Orientation to Orientation, some crowd members complained about the complexity of the clickers.\n“I think that the freshman will have an easier time with them,” Payne laughed.\nDuring the program, Payne mentioned new programs added to the parent orientation program. She said orientation has created a “Dear Mom and Dad” virtual tour, which will take parents into a student’s first year at IU. There is also a program where parents write a letter to their children, and the letters are sent in the second and third weeks of the students’ first semester.\nAssistant orientation director Megan Ray said the student staff went through 100 hours of training for the orientation program, which included relearning about specific resources and debunking campus myths. She also said training stressed emergency response and IU Notify, the new system installed to inform students about threats on campus.\nJunior Jake Dawes, an orientation staffer, said he enjoyed the training, not realizing it took a total of 100 hours. He said he wants to teach incoming freshman how to ensure their futures at IU and beyond their college careers.\n“Getting involved early is very important,” he said. “It shows more success in college.”\nPayne said the orientation program strives to make parents reassured about their children entering into IU and incoming students comfortable in a difficult yet exciting time in their lives. She said in the program she is also proud to be a part of the IU faculty, who also help construct the orientation program.\n“It takes a village to put on an orientation program,” she said.