In a time of uncertain change for recent high school graduates, the purpose of freshman orientation is to acclimate incoming freshmen to their new home for the next four or so years.

“I came to the orientation program to learn more about EIU,” said Katie Wilson, who came from Virden, Ill., to attend the June 13 orientation day. “I really like the orientation so far.”

Orientation also helps parents become more comfortable with their child’s transition to college.

Katie’s mother Cindy Wilson said “Katie is my second [child] to go away to school, so it’s not as scary, but this [orientation] definitely helps too.”

For most of June and parts of July, about 1,800 freshmen and 1,100 transfer students will attend the various orientation days.

On any given debut day there are about 85 students and 130-150 family members along with them, said Kimberlie Moock, director of orientation.

To split up these large numbers, four student teams take 20-30 students each, depending how many are there that day, and split them into color-coded groups as a form of crowd control so that not everyone is in the same place at the same time.

“The prime focus is to make sure students understand expectations academically and socially, to make sure they have an opportunity to sit down with an adviser, plan a schedule and get registered,” said Moock.

Moock also said the orientation staff tries to provide additional information for students such as helping them learn about PAWS, SPIN, setting up their e-mail accounts as well as living in the halls and getting involved in social and academic activities.

The day starts early for those attending orientation, 7:15 a.m. for check in, to be exact. The program begins at 8 a.m., where after the welcome; the student orientation staff performs the tradition of singing a song and dancing to get everybody’s attention and to wake them up.

This year they are singing The Temptation’s “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” with some of the lyrics changed to relate to coming to Eastern. Previous years have seen Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, as well the “Friends” theme.

During the academic orientation session the staff addresses general issues such as “What’s a catalog? What do you have to do to be here? What’s advisement?” said Moock.

After the academic session, students and families are separated into their own programs, which are ran by five student orientation directors. The parent program is a full-day family program that provides information and answers to questions parents may have.

The incoming students are guided by current Eastern student’s who take the freshmen through all the tasks of the day and serve as the experts for the students.

This provides an opportunity for “incoming students to ask questions of current students because I could answer their questions the same way my staff’s going to answer their questions, but in likelihood their going to believe my staff as opposed to me because they want to hear it from another current student,” said Moock.

Around noon, students are allowed some free time to have lunch or participate in the information fair, which is an opportunity for students and family to check out and ask questions of departments on campus that do not have a specific time during the program.

Megan Stepp, one of the student orientation directors, said that Eastern’s orientation program has improved greatly since her arrival in the summer of 2002.

“I feel that since I was a freshman, the orientation program in general has came leaps and bounds.”

Stepp attributes this change for the good to Moock’s past six summers as director of orientation.

“We’ve tried to incorporate games and fun ways to learn about the university instead of sitting there all day and watching a Power Point presentation,” said Stepp.

This year the orientation staff is doing a game show involving commercials which is used for “light entertainment and a way to engage the students,” said Moock.

Stepp said the game show “motivates them to get to know one another and lets the parents and families see their students learning something important.”

‘The audience may not be really receptive to it sometimes, but we later get phone calls and emails saying that did a really good job,” Stepp said.

Bryan Mceldowney, a soon-to-be freshman from Flossmoor, said that at first he expected orientation to “pretty much be boring and all lecturing,” but he liked the entertainment added to the program at the beginning. “I liked Becky [Wilson] and Alisa’s [Rogers] slap-stick humor because it kept me from falling asleep.”

If he had the opportunity to decide whether or not to attend orientation again, Mceldowney said that he would definitely do it again.

“As long as students come to us with the right attitude they end up having a good day,” said Moock.

The long day of orientation finally comes to an end around 4:15 p.m.

Upcoming dates for freshmen orientation are: June 15, 21-22, 26-29, July 5-6, 10-12 and final late day registration on August 17.

Jaclyn Rinkel, Mattoon, marks her hometown on a map before EIU debut on Wednesday morning. EIU debut is an orientation program put on for incoming freshmen to help them get acquainted with the school.

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