Freshman orientation begins today

The class of 2009 will get its first taste of college today as IU's summer orientation begins. \n"By the time they leave it's just a little more familiar ... and that makes it much more comfortable," said Associate Director of Orientation Programs Melanie Payne, who oversees the summer program.\nOrientation gives incoming students their first taste of college life, but it's also an event that takes faculty and students the whole previous year to plan. Every student who enrolls at IU has to go through orientation, even transfer and international students. Because of this, it is an event that helps determine what the incoming freshmen class will look like, Payne said.\n"We'll be able to predict pretty accurately what the student class will be because we lose very few," she said. "But our numbers are huge for how many show up in the fall."\nSix thousand incoming students have signed up so far for a series of orientation sessions that will span until July 19. \nThis year, Payne said the orientation staff is aiming to extend the interaction between the IU community and new freshmen. \n"We're trying to do a little bit more with a smaller group of students," Payne said, "to help them feel even more of a personal connection with the students at IU. So we're starting things off a little differently, to help them get to know each other and the program."\nTo do this, she said the staff has added some evening sessions including one for parents to help them discuss and find their relationship with the University.\n"We've gone more and more toward personalizing it," she said. "We've added some sessions that are pretty frank about student life."\nAssistant Director Megan Ray said orientation is an effort between many organizations on campus. These groups help to form the message the staff wants to send to incoming students about issues such as academic integrity, alcohol use, sexual assault prevention, general health and safety and connecting with faculty members.\n"We need to decide what some of the most important messages are to give to our students," Ray said. "Then what we start to do is we go out and create a program based on those messages."\nPayne said orientation makes the IU college experience "real" to incoming freshmen and it is exciting to watch them experience it for the first time. She also said people not involved in orientation welcome new students and play a hand in the overall atmosphere on campus during orientation.\n"There's just a different energy on campus," she said. "And maybe that's easy for me to say because I'm in the front of it, but I feel that way. I like to see people not involved in orientation see orientation going on. I love the energy in the summer during summer orientation; I think the campus is aware of these newest community members ... I find it a very welcoming atmosphere on campus."\nStudent Coordinator and recent IU graduate Kyle Lineback has been working with orientation for four years. She said she was inspired to become an orientation leader by her experience as a freshmen at orientation.\n"A lot of the time you don't realize the impact you have on students and their families and then you get an e-mail from them," she said. "It's the little things that make the best kinds of days." \nPresent students will lead future students around campus answering questions today. Among those will be junior André Vaughn, an orientation leader doing this job for the first time.\n"Well for one reason, I didn't feel like staying home all summer," he said, when asked why he wanted to do this job. "But for another, I also had orientation leaders when I was coming in and a lot of them are still my friends today so it looked like a cool job... I'm going to have a blast. I love meeting new people so this is right up my alley."\nPayne said the goal of orientation is to get new students comfortable with the idea of going to college.\n"We get great reactions," Payne said. "They feel just a little bit better. We get great feedback from students and parents. I think the students really start to feel like college students, and they've met with their adviser… I think this really helps them to feel real"