How to Make Orientation Stick

For new students, orientation can be information overload.

The first days of college serve as a rapid introduction to campus culture and a crucial opportunity to teach lessons on health and safety. And while colleges have always had orientations for new students, the calls to educate students on some issues, such as racial diversity, sexual assault, and mental health, have grown in recent years.

It’s a lot to take in. Staff members who run orientations don’t expect all of the information presented — or even much of it — to stick in students’ minds the first time.

How to Make Orientation Stick

How do colleges reach new students with the messages crucial to their safety and academic success?

• Colleges Go Online to Help Orient Nontraditional Students
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“I assume not much is retained,” says Keith Frazee, assistant director of orientation programs at the University of Oregon. For him and other college-orientation officials, “we recognize that we repeat ourselves many, many times. It’s necessary.”

So how do colleges make sure those messages — many crucial to a student’s safety and academic success — sink in?

A mix of techniques and program formats are called upon. Orientations can vary as much as colleges and universities do, and what works on one campus can fall flat at another. What colleges have had success with, say administrators who run orientations, are programs led by students themselves, tailored to the specific student body, and lasting over a longer period of time than a few days.

“It’s a process, not a program,” Mr. Frazee says.

Stretch It Out

At Oregon, the orientation period stretches over a six-week period the university calls “the starting block.” Other colleges extend orientation a few months, a semester, or even a year through classes and programs called first-year experiences.

“We see great success with extended orientations,” says Joyce Holl, executive director of NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education. According to a 2017 member survey that asked what kind of orientation programs colleges offered, 29 percent of respondents had some form of extended orientation or camp.

At Oregon, part of the extended orientation is a program aimed at sexual-assault prevention, called Get Explicit. It’s led by three students and focuses on consent and healthy boundaries in relationship. It follows a skit shown at the university’s two-day summer orientation for new students called “It Can’t Be Rape,” which covers situations that might otherwise be dismissed as misunderstandings.

Not only do multiple programs help get the information across to students in ways they can remember; they also signal to students that this is an important issue to the university, says Kerry Frazee, director of prevention services (and Mr. Frazee’s spouse). The core message on sexual-assault prevention has come to include social norms — that such behaviors are not OK, and that it is on all students to prevent them.

Students participate in Get Explicit the first weekend after classes start. Over two days, about 60 trained student leaders will spread out in groups of three to do a total of 100 to 110 presentations.

The programming used to be done over several weeks, but Ms. Frazee said she heard from students that, if the first six weeks on campus were considered a “red zone” for sexual violence, then students shouldn’t wait until week five or six to hear the message. This year, in addition to holding the programs on the early weekend, the university will put students in their orientation groups rather than with those they live with in the residence halls. Because the orientation groups have already been together and had discussions on other sensitive topics, “we’re hoping it allows for more authenticity,” Ms. Frazee says.

The student-led aspect also makes it more authentic to new students, because they can speak about their experiences and in the language of the campus. With sensitive topics, new students may be more likely to listen to peers, Ms. Frazee says. “It’s important for me in my role to acknowledge when my voice isn’t the voice that should be carried.”

Involve Students

Knowing the best ways to employ students in peer learning is key. So is making sure these student leaders are trained and prepared for what might come up in sensitive discussions.

Colleges should think small groups, interactive, and student-to-student as much as possible, says Nance Roy, chief clinical officer of the Jed Foundation, which works to improve student mental health. She has run counseling centers on several colleges. “The more engaging material, the better,” says Ms. Roy. “Nothing is worse than being talked at.”

At San Jose State University, Kathleen Wong(Lau), chief diversity officer, uses a combination of presentations and small-group discussions led by students to go deeper into the topic of diversity and identities of race, ethnicity, class, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and immigration status.

She gives talks on the theoretical framing and importance of diversity to rooms of 250 to 350 students at a time. Then, in groups of six to eight, they have group discussions at round tables. Student leaders facilitate discussions of social identities and how they overlap, and each student picks four identities from a long list to discuss. They watch three videos based on students’ real experiences of misunderstandings and what those students were thinking at the time. Then, in informal conversations, the participants work on cognitive empathy, to understand why others might feel a certain way.

These discussions help set the tone for the discourse on diversity that the university wants to encourage, Ms. Wong(Lau) says. The practice also lets students know that it’s OK to make a mistake.

Having students involved also helps her improve her presentation. Student leaders told her, for example, that they wanted more identities on the list. She added more. They also let her know what parts of her talk were dull. The criticism was difficult to hear, but it has made for a better presentation, she says.

Connect Students

Helping students adjust emotionally to college life is a goal of orientation. If they feel connected to the institution and to one another, they will do better.

At Oregon, helping students make meaningful face-to-face connections is one of the goals of orientation.

Many students arrive having already met online, says Mr. Frazee. But that’s not the same as making a good friend or having a close connection with another person.

At Oregon, as at other institutions, students are put in small groups led by a peer orientation counselor. What’s new at Oregon is that the counselors are now reaching out with a phone call to each student beforehand to introduce themselves and explain a little about what students can expect from orientation. It’s a more personalized approach than an email blast.

Even the icebreakers are designed to help students connect on a deeper level. No duck, duck, goose here. An example is “scar wars,” a discussion during which students can tell stories about their scars, both physical and emotional.

“I don’t want anyone to feel alone,” Mr. Frazee said.

It’s more than just warm fuzzies. Research shows that students who feel connected are more likely to persist. What’s more, if they don’t feel that way in the first six weeks, they are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, Mr. Frazee says.

For some colleges, the best way to help students make connections is getting them off campus.

At Colby College, students bond during trips led by other students. The two-day Colby Outdoor Orientation Trips, or COOT, can include backpacking, rock climbing, white-water rafting, and a stay at an organic farm.

The trips have several purposes. A key one is connecting students to one another. Many students report having at least one of their closest friends come from their COOT group, says Karleen Burrell-McRae, dean of the college, who herself went on a COOT as a Colby student. They have a friend they can turn to in a crisis, and a relationship with an upperclassman if they need advice.

COOT is mandatory at Colby, and the $300 cost is part of students’ general fees. Financial aid covers the cost for eligible students.

Colby is looking to extend the program further into students’ first year. Student leaders on the trips are often seen as role models, and the college wants them to be play a larger role helping make sure students who are at risk for, say, anxiety or depression or academic struggles don’t slip through the cracks.

“How do we say, this is bigger than six or seven days?” Ms. Burrell-McRae says. “We want to set you up for optimal success.”

Adjust to Today’s Needs

Good orientation programs keep changing with the times.

For 10 years, Virginia Tech has offered an optional extended orientation called Hokie Camp. Currently about one-sixth of the university’s 6,000 to 7,000 freshmen participate in the three-day camp.

Since it started, 10 years ago, the programming has changed, adapting to students’ needs. At first it focused on instilling the spirit and traditions of the university. Now it offers more-substantive content, including small-group discussions about diversity and identity, and it emphasizes community service and self-discovery, says Dakota Farquhar-Caddell, assistant director of new-student programs.

The goal is to give students a sense of belonging. For new students, that’s a “game changer” for college success and persisting through academic, social, or emotional challenges, he says.

This year Virginia Tech is adding an on-campus version for students who don’t want to go away to camp.

The university is also considering adding programs for specific populations, like first-generation, underrepresented-minority, or transfer students. But it wants to make sure those efforts don’t serve to isolate those students from others, Mr. Farquhar-Caddell says

The biggest issue are affordability and accessibility. Hokie Camp costs $240 to participate. Some students may choose not to go because of that expense, and the university is looking at ways to help them financially.

“If we could get every student to a Hokie Camp, I think that would be big strength of our community,” Mr. Farquhar-Caddell says. “If they’re all able to have that dedicated three- to four-day time frame to think about their purpose and their gifts and their talents and diversity and inclusion all together, it would make a big difference in the way they persist through college.”

That idea — that a stronger orientation can help lead to better student success and welfare — reinforces what many college administrators say: that freshmen’s initial experience on campus is among the most important parts of their college education.

Correction (8/23/2017, 10:15 a.m.): For students at Colby College, the cost of the two-day trip during orientation is $300, not $3,500, as this article originally reported. (The larger sum is what it costs Colby for each group.) The text has been updated accordingly.