Warm welcome: A day in the life of a VCU orientation leader

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The future of Virginia Commonwealth University stands and waits for instruction. The members of VCU’s incoming first-year class clutch at luggage on wheels and pillows from home, their families positioned dutifully alongside them. The students are grinning and giddy but anxious and uncertain, too, the environs of the first floor of University Student Commons still new to them. In a few short months, they will stroll over this same ground with nonchalant independence, settling into chairs to speak with new friends in a setting suddenly as familiar to them as their home living rooms. For now, though, they seem hesitant, wide-eyed and ready for guidance.

Fortunately, a scattering of energetic VCU students in uniform black collared shirts also fills the commons. They seek out those who carry particularly quizzical expressions and respond to others who approach them. Among them, Keena Williams, who is in her third summer as a student orientation leader at VCU, places herself at the top of the stairs that lead to the building’s basement area and answers every inquiry directed her way with a broad smile.

Student orientation is handled in sessions across the summer, and each session features between 150 and 300 incoming students. Current students such as Williams serve as welcoming guides for their future peers. Family members often accompany the students, and a set of events and activities are geared especially toward them.

When it is time to call the incoming students to the basement, where they will temporarily store their luggage, Williams greets them as they pass her, acting like a concerned big sister as she reminds students to remember their luggage tickets. Some parents, in their confusion, stick with their children and prepare to venture downstairs with them. Williams shows a knack for separating them delicately, directing parents toward an information session designed for family members. Her manner is gentle in a way that suggests she is being careful not to wrench them apart too harshly.

The small moment clearly feels significant to some parents, who hug their kids and part with worried reminders to “Have fun.” Many stand and wait until their children are completely out of sight before turning and departing, perhaps not realizing that they will see them again in a mere matter of minutes.

Williams, who is from Dallas, remembers how wary she was when she arrived for her orientation. She didn’t know Richmond or anyone in it. In fact, she still wasn’t sure she wanted to attend VCU. However, her first impression of the university and the city soon confirmed her college choice. She did not forget the comfort that visit brought her, and she applied to become an orientation leader after her first year on campus.

“I want [others] to have an experience like I did,” she says.

The students spend the morning with their family members attending presentations on topics such as student government, new student programs and campus safety. Williams meets her orientation team, a smaller group of music majors apportioned from the session’s students, at lunch, where she works quickly in her unforced easygoing manner to make them feel comfortable.

Following lunch, incoming students and their families visit booths with information on university resources. Williams again stations herself prominently – this time in the middle of a heavily trafficked hallway on the second floor of the commons – and answers questions on topics ranging from parking to textbook prices.

Williams and the other orientation leaders attend monthly training events during the spring semester and receive two weeks of intensive training before the orientation sessions. Representatives from various university programs and services visit to provide information and guidance to ready them for the barrage of questions. Plus, Williams said, most of the questions are ones that she and her fellow orientation leaders once had themselves, and they know the answers now.

When the onslaught slows, Williams, rather than taking a moment to catch her breath, visits with a group of students who are lounging in chairs and chatting. She is soon laughing with them. Williams seems like a natural for the awkwardness of first days, but actually she had to develop skills in that area. In fact, she credits her orientation experience with spurring her to become a more outgoing person.

“Before, I was very much to myself,” says Williams, a craft and material studies major in the School of the Arts. “I didn’t know how to talk to other people. Doing this allowed me to learn to communicate with different people. I grew a lot because now I can express what I’m thinking in a number of different ways that will appeal to different people, which is invaluable.”

One way to confront the uneasiness of new surroundings and new people is head on, and – while parents head to a session on “Adjusting to Change” – Williams leads her cohort to a stretch of grass near the University Student Commons to participate in a series of organized icebreakers. Nearby, other orientation leaders stake out their own spots, and soon the lawn is chaotic with pockets of vocal outbursts and frantic movement.

With great savvy, Williams manages to egg on even the most reluctant of her students, her authentic enthusiasm apparent in her frequent clapping, appreciative cheers and good-natured but insistent enforcement of the rules – “Nope! Nope!” she cries, pointing repeatedly at scofflaws. She seems delighted when the students embrace the silliness of the challenges.

Williams says the success of an orientation session goes beyond student orientation leaders and university administrators.

“The students have a lot to do with it – their willingness to participate, their willingness to be here,” Williams says. “And then the orientation leader’s ability to adapt to what the students are giving off. There are times when students aren’t as willing to participate, but it’s the job of the orientation leader to overcome that and let them know you’ve been where they are and this can be a great experience.”

By the time the icebreakers conclude and Williams has led her group back inside the air-conditioned commons, the pack of new students and their guide are engaging in vigorous back-and-forth ribbing as though they have known each other for years. An impromptu, casual information session commences, with the students shooting Williams rapid-fire questions that she handles with finesse. She uses her own experiences to assure them of the ones that await them. However, she is careful never to act as all-knowing.

“I don’t want them to see me as thinking I’m superior to them,” Williams says. “I’m a student, too, and I want to have that relationship with them as a student. You learn a lot from other students. I know I’m still learning from them.”

Williams gets a break soon after the icebreakers when students attend sessions on University College, summer reading and long-term graduation planning. Near 4 p.m., parents and other loved ones spill into the University Student Commons Plaza. It is time for the traditional rubbing of the giant Rams’ horns. The parents laugh and rub the horns themselves for good luck, posing for photos. Once they have settled onto the plaza, the students stream out in their cohort groups, marching up an aisle that has formed to applause as an announcement welcomes the “VCU Class of 2018.” Each student rubs the horns. Williams does, too, as she has countless times over the years.

Later, Williams participates in a series of skits during the so-called “O-Show,” which is designed to teach the newcomers about college life in an entertaining way that helps the lessons stick. Despite her gregarious nature, Williams acknowledges some nerves about the skits, though she’s an old hand after participating in dozens of performances during the past three years. And indeed when the lights find her she puts in an unreserved turn on stage.

Following the show, Williams escorts students to their rooms in Brandt Hall, where they drop off their luggage. She meets many of them later at the Cary Street Gym, where the new Rams can test the rock climbing wall, work out or participate in a rambunctious game of dodge ball. Williams joins the dodge ball contest for a while, before finally bidding the students good night.

She will see them again in the morning for breakfast and a four-hour block of time that focuses on advising, registration and tours of campus. Then the students will head home for the rest of the summer, and Williams will prepare for her next group. “Every time I do this it feels like new,” Williams says.

Once the academic year kicks off in August, Williams will keep an eye open for her former students on campus. She feels responsible for them and as proud as a parent of their accomplishments and transition to college life. She revels in running into them and hearing how their time at VCU is going.

“It warms your heart,” she says. “I love hearing their stories.”

 

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