O-Week: The good, the bad and the boring
Orientation Week has always been a time of transition, and the orientations themselves often undergo revisions from year to year. O-Week 2006 saw changes in student conduct and safety orientations, the revamping of the Rice Rally, new academic department lunches, new speeches during adviser training and O-Week and a common reading program for new students. (see story, page 1)
Student Judicial Programs, Honor Council, Rice University Police Department and Rice Emergency Medical Service have run their lengthy presentations separately in the past, creating logistic problems. This year, they were combined into a single presentation. We applaud this increase in O-Week efficiency.
Additionally, the Tuesday evening Rice Rally was a marked improvement over previous O-Week athletic events. Increased student participation and a greater focus on athletes as college members made the rally more entertaining, and new students’ response to the football rally bodes well for the War Owls.
The speakers brought in from outside the university got mixed reviews. Motivational speakers Joe Bertolino and Bil Teipold during adviser training were mostly irrelevant and occasionally patronizing, and their presentation took away valuable time from the already-crammed schedule. However, Affirmations in Action president Steve Birdine’s diversity speech during O-Week was engaging and informative, if a little long.
The common reading program also aimed to increase new students’ intellectual engagement, and we believe the scheduled forums will do just that. But these will not occur for another few weeks, and we have not seen much focus on the readings during O-Week. Perhaps presenters similar to Birdine whose speeches tie into the common reading topics would be more relevant and interesting to new students.
We are impressed with the competent and mostly glitch-free implementation of so many new programs during O-Week 2006 and hope future orientations run as effectively.
Other opinion stories
- Bed, Bath and Beyond explains O-Week cult
- Counseling, riflery provide fulfilling summer
- Global health program looks promising
- Jones theme change averts racial tension
- Letters to the editor
- New writing exam efficient and effective
- Rice relevance key to quality opinion page
News
- Board approves two new colleges
- Del Conte brings new faces to senior staff
- Grant to fund global health courses
- International student yield up
- Iskander leaves President's Office for Planned Parenthood
- Leebron, Forman, Tupper offer matriculants advice
- Massive campus construction to begin spring semester
- Math chair Wolf and wife, Krisko, named new Will Rice masters
- New AD DelConte to focus on revenue
- New coffee shop highlights pavilion
- News In Brief
- O-Week runs smoothly with new events
- One third of freshmen fail writing exam
- Rice's first Cooke scholars named
- Sims named new fellowships director
- Student center gets summer facelift
- Zammito encourages path of discovery
Sports
- Football shows new looks on new field
- Keys to improvement lay in scoring, goalkeeping
- Owls picked third in C-USA coachers poll
- Robinson repeats as All-American
- Why freshmen will love Rice athletics