For years, first-year and transfer orientation at Rowan University was run the same way. 

A two-day long program that would allow students to familiarize themselves with the campus, the surrounding town, and businesses, and learn of the traditions, culture, and policies of the university. This system also helped students to address issues that had popped up early in their Rowan career.

However, this year’s orientation was different, being cut down to just one day instead of the typical two. To make up for this, Rowan instead held an extended Welcome Week.

Maria Arbizo Pattison is the director of Orientation and Student Leadership Programs in the Division of Student Life. 

“We settled our schedule, and we really wanted to make sure that students were getting [the] information that they needed when they needed it. So a lot of our summer program focused on helping students complete their onboarding tasks, like completing their new Student Checklist, meeting deadlines, and getting some really good information to prepare them for the fall semester, but a little bit more heavily focused on completing your onboarding tasks,” said Pattison. 

With orientation focusing on helping students get their pre-semester duties completed, the expanded Welcome Week was meant to help students better engage with their new environment, create relationships, and build a sense of community, all of which were meant to help students make a smooth and healthy social transition to college.

“What we are hoping for is that students were engaged in the campus overall, and are attending events, and students feel like they’ve made some more connections and relationships during these first few weeks… I know, from my perspective, we had a really good turnout at a lot of our Welcome Week events, which is really exciting for us, because we feel like students were able to come out and engage with campus and can meet some other campus departments… So I think the good turnout makes me hopeful that students will be more used to campus and really get involved in this year,” said Pattison. 

Students who attended orientation and Welcome Week had a range of views on how well these measures helped them in getting ready for Rowan.

Peter Combs is a non-resident freshman student. He felt that the orientation was enough to help him get a feel for the geography of the campus, where his classes would take place and the variety of clubs and organizations for students, but did not do so much for aiding in learning about policies or culture.

“The long lines and quick summations of each campus resource made it difficult for me to retain any of the policies/resources that Rowan had to offer…  an orientation debriefing on many of the issues you will face, especially as a commuter would’ve made me feel more prepared for the beginning of college. I believe orientation presented a rose-tinted view of the college experience and didn’t prepare me for the often-nightmarish experiences of parking daily, and where microwaves could be located on campus,” said Combs.

Others felt the orientation served them well, aiding in their transition to the new campus.

Peter Davis is also a freshman, though one who lives on campus. Davis felt that orientation ran a bit long, but overall served them well in the transition to the new environment.

“I’m able to find all my classes. I practically know my way around school at this point, especially from the first couple of days, and they had a bunch of free food, and then my friends were at orientation,” said Davis. 

While Rowan does not have hard-set plans for next year’s orientation just yet, this format of orientation will likely continue into the next academic year, as the university feels it was an overall success.

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