The scores of new students arriving on campus today are not only marking the beginning of their own college careers but will also be the first to experience the redesign of various orientation week programs. Several additions and changes have been made this year to emphasize class unity and make the general transition from high school to college smoother.
It's no coincidence that these changes come in the wake of the inauguration of Tufts' 12th President Lawrence Bacow, who will be making his first official address to the Tufts' community at today's matriculation ceremony.
"It's a kickoff to a year that has a new President, Tufts' sesquicentennial and the class of 2005; a good time to feel good about the university," Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said. "It's Tufts pride. We want to give students a sense of belonging to a particular class."
The most significant change is the celebratory dinner being held tonight in the Gantcher Center, followed immediately by the traditional Light on the Hill ceremony (previously held on the Friday following move-in). The 68,289 square foot facility, which was completed in the fall of 1999, allows Tufts to seat the entire incoming class in one location. In the past students ate with their individual advising groups at staggered times, with half of the class in Carmichael and the rest in Dewick, leaving them little time to interact with the rest of their peers.
"We want to create a sense of community as soon as possible," Dean of First-year Students Jean Herbert said. "It's something we've wanted for a very long time."
"It's more for the group - everyone is present rather than split," Orientation Co-Coordinator Brent Saldana said.
One of the main criticisms of past orientations is that there were not enough activities that involved the entire class together.
"All [post-orientation evaluations] indicated that there should be more done for class identity, unity, and school spirit," Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said. "Getting the whole class together in Gantcher on Wednesday night is directly responsive to that."
Administrators have acknowledged a lack of opportunities for entire classes to assemble together, and the University hopes to remedy this by hosting events in Gantcher such as tonight's as well as one planned to welcome back the seniors.
"Matriculation, graduation, those are the only times an entire class is together," Herbert said. "Having something that's a celebration of their first night here - that's the tone we want to set."
She said that is part of the reason why the convocation ceremony, where students light candles to symbolize the beginning of their Tufts career was moved from its traditional Friday evening time frame and will immediately follow the dinner.
Herbert speculated that this will become an annual tradition, but said that the University must first weigh whether such an event is worth the high costs. She explained that the administration tried a few years ago to bring an entire class together in Cousen's Gym a few years ago. But the Cousens event was not successful, according to Herbert, because the gym lacked warmth and acoustics. Gantcher is a more versatile that was specifically designed as a multi-purpose facility with a good sound system so that the University could host large amounts of people in one place, she said.
Funding for the Gantcher event as well as several other new orientation programs came from reallocating money previously designated for orientation activities. "Orientation is already expensive, so the costs were shuffled," Reitman said.
Orientation Co-Coordinator Moira Poe explained that Dining Services does not begin full operations until next week and that the orientation budget has always allotted for food service for the week. After receiving quotes from seven different caterers she found that hiring an outside caterer for tonight's dinner was actually cheaper than using Dining Services.
"I don't think the [total] costs were dramatically different - people had to eat last year anyway," Poe said. Incorporating convocation into the first night dinner also helped to consolidate funds, as did eliminating some of the less-attended events from last year's orientation such as Monte-Carlo night and Midnight Madness in Cousen's Gym.
Although the orientation committee has not calculated the final costs of all of this weeks' activities, Poe said that she thinks they will wind up under the original budget allocated for new orientation events because she has worked closely with the Student Activities Office to make contacts with entertainment companies. But the total costs for all orientation activities will probably end up higher than in the past because it is Tufts' sesquicentennial (how many years is that??) and the University wanted to add more celebratory events - not just limited to the ones at orientation.
"It is probably more with the anniversary and new initiatives with class identity," Poe said. "This year is just going to be crazy."
