Orientation Trip Revisions Await Student Input

Author: Benjamin Salkowe

A committee of students and administrators reviewing the role of orientation trips within the first-year orientation program has opted to postpone their final recommendations for the time being and solicit student opinion via an online survey.

Dean of Student Affairs Ann Hanson said last Friday, "We have not reached any decisions yet. We hope to [collect] enough input from students to have some idea of how they feel."

When word first broke of the administration's overhaul of orientation, there was a fear that the orientation trips might be cut or severely limited.

Hanson's remarks suggest that the question is not whether there will be trips, but where they will fall within orientation. "CCAL (Center for Campus Activities and Leadership) is hoping to get student input before a final decision is made about when the trips will occur," she noted.

Middlebury Mountain Club President Michelle Long '04 sees the discussions as a beneficial to Middlebury Outdoor Orientation (MOO) trips. "There are a lot of positive consequences that can come out of changing our trips program, such as having longer trips available and creating more of a spectrum of trips available." Long pointed to "investigation of other schools' programs and student feedback" as the best methods for revising orientation trips.

Derek Doucet, assistant director of campus activities for annual events and outdoor programs, is the administrator directly responsible for the MOO trips. Doucet agreed with Long and pointed out that, despite the uniquely bovine spirit of Middlebury's MOO trips, MOO was inspired by similar programs at other schools and the committee is now looking to those schools for guidance. "Orientation trips have been around since the 1930's. Dartmouth was one of the earliest," he said.

The Dartmouth Outdoor Club Trips, established in 1935, are actually pre-orientation trips that occur before the official college orientation. Individual groups go out at separate dates for five-day trips in early September. As groups return to campus, the students move into their dorms, sometimes more than a week before the College's official orientation.

This is a situation Long says the administration would like to avoid. "Middlebury wants us to have one campus opening for first-years, which means that if we do a pre-orientation type of trip we will not be able to use the campus." She said an issue of discussion for the program has been finding off-campus base camps from which MOO could operate.

However, Long is concerned that offering the MOO trips before the official orientation could prevent some students from being able to participate.

"By having the trips program not a part of orientation week, I fear that we are deemphasizing the importance of this experience and that not all first-years will be able to participate," she said.

Nonetheless, the Dartmouth Web site claims that more than 85 percent of incoming students participate in the trips, although often students who live in the Northeast must go home after their trip and return a week later for orientation.

Doucet said the proposals, which students will review in the survey, attempt to "preserve the orientation trips, but they will no longer be embedded."

The student survey is expected to go online before Thanksgiving recess. "The committee is hoping to make some recommendations to me by Thanksgiving and then I need to discuss them with the Provost and the President," Hanson said.

Long is clear on the MMC stance. "I think the ideal situation would be for us to incorporate new ideas into our already excellent trips program and not change the timing of the program," she said.

Most students simply want to see MOO preserved for future incoming first-years. Matthew Volz '07 sees the trips as a means to meet other students outside of his commons. "We met a lot of people from different dorms."

Pascal Losambe '07 is passionate about the importance of MOO. He said, "All the kids with their backpacks and boots - it's good, it's just a beautiful thing."