Orientation Week is Changing
Did you hear? In July 2024, the Office of the President decided that a new Orientation program would be created in place of Orientation Week (O-Week). A task force consisting of four members of the administration was created to develop this new Orientation program.
The new form of Orientation will consist of 2 parts: a 2-day Summer Session in Houghton, MI and a 3-day Orientation Session. The Summer Session would be dedicated to academic departments and getting students a head-start on preparing for college. The Orientation Session would be a shortened version of Orientation Week with a more full schedule.
In response to this decision, the Undergraduate Student Government has created a committee to gauge undergraduate student perspective on this decision. This survey collects data from students regarding their experiences with Orientation and their opinions. This data will be analyzed and used to inform the committee and guide their actions.
We believe that incoming students to Michigan Tech will be impacted the most by this change.
With the new Orientation model, students can still keep up-to-date with their "TODO" list for becoming a Husky. However, they will have fewer days with their Orientation Team and Orientation Team Leader, which may reduce the opportunities to connect with peers and a mentor, potentially impacting their sense of belonging at Michigan Tech.
Parents and families of students who are coming up to Michigan Tech for the first time have a large responsibility in accompanying their students to their college transition.
Traditionally, this has been only during the Orientation Week, where families are tasked with finding a place to stay during the duration of Move-In Weekend. However, with the first rollout of the new Orientation system, families will not be provided housing, and must find a place to stay.
This can also cause additional strains for families, as they have to deal with taking work off and finding time to travel the long distances.
Orientation Team Leaders will be specifically hired for the Fall-portion of the Orientation session, but will receive a shorter length of overall time working with their teams.
Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) at Michigan Tech regularly plan and host recruitment events throughout Orientation Week, and the shortened 3-day Orientation session could impact the effectiveness of recruitment events.
RSOs can still host events on what was formerly the Sunday of Orientation Week, however, new student Move-In does not conclude until that Tuesday. This could impact the reach of organizations' recruitment efforts to new students.
The initial decision was made by the President's Office without student input and with little reasoning provided.
The long answer is we have potential reasoning based on various reasons provided by individuals working on the new Orientation model. Most prevalently of all of these reasons is the idea that students are "shopping" around for Orientation programs at various universities during the summer, meaning Michigan Tech's old Orientation program would not be competitive in comparison.
The Undergraduate Student Government specializes in representing the voice of the undergraduate student body at Michigan Tech. With this being a major decision affecting almost all future undergraduates at Michigan Tech, we want to see how students truly feel about this change, so we can best advocate student perspectives to administration.
In addition, there is no current comparison for how this new model of Orientation would bode with Michigan Tech's unique environment and incoming classes of students. This model may work well for universities that are closer physically to their students, however, with many students living far away from home, that might not be the case at Michigan Tech. Because we are a unique university, we need student opinions to convey to administration whether or not students think this model could work for us.
Share the news about Orientation Week going away! While many students may not mind of the change, many still might. Please share the survey to others around you if you care about this issue, and encourage them to voice their feedback about this change!
If you have additional thoughts, feelings, comments, questions, concerns, or stories about how your Orientation Week experience was, please send them our way at usg@mtu.edu!
Please see an official release of information on the details about the new Orientation program from the News From the Dean website hosted by the Dean of Students, Kellie Raffaelli!
