The initial weeks of the first semester are critical for students. Finding one’s way on campus, making new friends, and learning where to access various services and how they might be helpful all take on a sense of urgency as students’ commitment to this stage in their lives and the new setting they find themselves in grows. Orientation services that support students entering post-secondary education play a significant role in institutional enrolment management and outcome strategies.
This chapter offers an overview of the current functions and practices of orientation services at Canadian colleges and universities. Included is a discussion of the assumptions and principles that underlie such services, the typical nature and kinds of programs, the preparation and skills required of professionals in this field, and issues that continue to shape the design and implementation of orientation services. The chapter concludes with references and resources that can guide student services professionals as they consider orientation policies and programs supportive of their own student and institutional needs.
In the not-so-distant past, “orientation” typically consisted of a series of social events seemingly designed to show students a good time before they got into the swing of things academic. Although well meaning, the result was often more disorienting than helpful. In the 1960s and ’70s, orientation functions were largely led by student unions and groups wishing to involve students in their many causes – often in reaction to the hierarchical in loco parentis practices of university administrators. By the 1980s, the culture had shifted and partnerships with university administrations emerged, delivering more holistic orientation programs that also better managed the risks sometimes associated with such student-run initiatives. In the late 1980s, many Canadian institutions struggled with low retention rates from first to second year. Recognizing the social and economic benefits of keeping the students in whom they had already made the recruiting investment, efforts turned to front-loading services to better support students in the transition to university study and living.
Orientation services in Canadian colleges and universities are now typically much more integrated and expanded, attending to a broader range of issues such as recruitment, retention, academic success, risk management, and performance indicators, while serving a growing diversity of students. Increased co-operation between administrators and students in planning, organization, and implementation has also significantly improved the results. Fundamental assumptions inherent in the planning of orientation services now generally include that students experience normative transitions and ongoing development throughout their university experience, are themselves responsible for their academic and personal success, are often best helped by other students, and that there is a positive correlation between student success and persistence and engagement in the life of the institution.
Today it is more likely that students will find their first days full of activities strategically planned to help them make the transition to post-secondary study and life. Although orientation services are as varied as the institutions that offer them, most commonly attend issues related to students’ instrumental autonomy, such as finding classes, using the laundry machines, and reading university-level texts; negotiation of old and new relationships, including important ties with parents and families, roommates, romances, academic partners, and shifting friendship groups; achievement of balance through managing stress, taking care of one’s health and fitness, and managing substance use; and contribution to their communities. Delivery methods may include a mandatory one- or two-day program at the start of a new academic year, such as the University of Calgary’s U of C 101; a series of ongoing voluntary activities that begin with an intensive first week and extend over a full semester or the entire first year, such as Yukon College’s Orientation Week; credit and non-credit courses, such as Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology’s College Orientation course that is mandatory for most programs – and often a combination of these. They may also feature a variety of support services targeted both to students and their parents, and offer online services to those accessing their education from a distance.
Successful orientation programs are typically founded upon shared strategic, operational, and human resource planning. To define strategy, planning committees comprised of students, faculty, and staff are often convened to determine the goal and objectives and often to determine the program theme. The same committees may also be responsible for coordination of marketing; large event planning; coordination of institutional, academic unit, and student organization activities; and sometimes even budgeting and logistics. The people involved in an orientation program have a tremendous influence on its success, and frequently a good deal of time is spent recruiting and training student staff and volunteers and informing and involving student leaders, faculty, and staff throughout the institution.
While there is no magic formula for orientation program elements, those that achieve institutional and student objectives typically coordinate a mix of cross-institutional, academic program, and student organization activities and services ranging from large-scale events to one-on-one interactions serving mass audiences and specific target groups.
With growing attention paid in the 1980s to the first-year experience, many institutions created a “centre for new students” for coordination of orientation services. The University of Western Ontario, one of the first to do this, combined student recruitment, orientation, and peer mentor programs. Memorial University of Newfoundland, with the support of a federal grant, developed their Centre for Orientation, Nontraditional, and Commuter Students (CONTACS) in 1990. Typically located in the student affairs portfolio, these units are small but energetic engines that drive activities designed to promote first-year student success. Funding for such centres comes from a variety of sources, including student fees, grants, and university resource allocations.
Many institutions have initiated credit courses – referred to as “First Year Seminar,” “University Success,” or most commonly, “University 101” – to help first-year students acquire strategies for academic and personal success. Such courses have proliferated in recent years, with over one hundred model course syllabi from sixty different institutions worldwide available in the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition database.
Canadian post-secondary institutions offer a broad range of such courses. Some, such as Trinity Western University’s mandatory University 101, include self-management, learning skills, and academic planning topics. Others, such as the University of Guelph’s optional First Year Seminars, are taught by experienced instructors who integrate the interdisciplinary examination of unconventional topics with practical application of cognitive and social skill development. For example, the University of Prince Edward Island, the first in Canada to offer these types of courses, now has a suite of four course options for first-year students, including an online version of its University 100 course and a career and learning portfolio development option.
Increasingly, attention is being paid to supporting the transitions students make through and from university life and study, rather than a singular focus on their transition into an institution. Initiatives such as the University of British Columbia’s Tri-Mentoring Program link a first-year student, a senior student, and an alumnus who all share similar career interests, bringing together people at different stages in their own life to learn from one another. At the University of Guelph, students enrolled in large first-year courses can choose to attend small supported learning groups facilitated by seniors who work closely with the instructor to design a group study program, and all first-year students have the option of living in academic clusters in residences, grouped with other students studying in the same academic program and supported by a senior peer leader with a strong background in the discipline who organizes academic enrichment activities bridging class and community. Approaches that address the specific characteristics of a growing number of student target groups are also becoming commonplace.
Understanding the mix of entering students at a given institution is critical to defining successful support strategies. Due to increasing diversity, orientation strategies are now commonly tailored to the specific needs of target groups and, as a result, are typically more effective, and frequently more efficient. The development of international student orientation programs led this trend, which now extends to a wide range of student sub-populations. At Queen’s University, for example, international students and their families are welcomed and oriented during five days of specialized programming that precedes the general student orientation activities. The Aboriginal Students’ Centre at the University of Saskatchewan offers an Aboriginal Students First Year Experience Program, and includes a Welcome Week Powwow in their orientation events. First-year students at the University of Victoria who have a disability are invited to “Coffeehouse Connections,” relaxed sessions where they can meet other students with a disability and learn about how the University can support their success. The University of Toronto’s Office of LGBTQ Resources and Programs provides orientation activities and events for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students. Programs are also being designed to reach out to those who may be part of the student’s support network, such as parents and other family members.
Increasingly, parents and other family members are exerting influence on the lives of students and are expressing greater interest in the post-secondary institutions where they study. Acknowledging that parents and family members also experience transitions as the students in their families enter and progress through post-secondary study, family orientation programs are beginning to appear at many institutions. The University of Northern British Columbia, for example, offers a parent and family orientation day concurrent with student orientation activities. Mount Royal College and Sir Wilfred Grenfell College also offer parent orientation sessions. Other institutions have created websites to provide information to parents, a strategy employed more and more to capitalize on the accessibility new technologies offer.
One of the most significant forces shaping best practices in orientation is the explosive growth of the Internet, particularly in combination with students’ affinity for and reliance upon its use as a social and learning tool. The University of Guelph’s ST@RT Online offers students the opportunity, over the summer months preceding their first academic term, to progressively explore time-sensitive issues using interactive Web tools such as video-streaming, surveys, moderated chat rooms, message boards, and pod casts. Once students begin their studies, they can access similar Web-based tools on topics that address typical first-year student concerns and challenges. The immediate success on campus of Web-based social network programs, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster, further underscores the pervasive presence of these tools in students’ lives and the potential they have for effecting the transition to college or university. Computer-mediated environments are here to stay in higher education and will continue to serve an important role in teaching and connecting to students.
With the emergence of current models of orientation services at colleges and universities comes an expectation for professional personnel who are adept at planning large-scale activities, who understand the psychosocial and cognitive dynamics of students in transition, and who are capable of implementing strategies that support students’ learning experiences. Advanced skills in marketing, communication, and human resources are needed to design and target information and experiences appropriately. The leadership to achieve this often requires advanced formal professional preparation such as that acquired in a master’s degree in student affairs or a related field. Although few in Canadian colleges and universities have attained such credentials, there is a growing library of resources and materials that can support the training and preparation of orientation staff.
A pioneering and premier source for best practices to support first-year students is the National Resource Center for the Freshman Year Experience, established by John Gardner and associates at the University of South Carolina in 1982. Recently renamed the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, its mission proposes “to support and advance efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education” (National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition).
Despite these initiatives toward better information and services there remains a dearth of published research on the needs of entering students, or the experience of first-year students in Canadian post-secondary institutions. The single publication issued in the past decade on the topic of Canadian orientation services is From Best Intentions to Best Practices: The First-Year Experience in Canadian Post-Secondary Education (Gilbert, et al. 1997) Although an important resource, this monograph is already somewhat dated. Clearly, more current work is warranted.
Government agencies, such as the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, have published the rare recent study that illuminates a specific aspect of the first-year student experience. Stakeholder groups, like the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), or jurisdictional institutional collectives, such as The University Presidents’ Council of British Columbia, have occasionally conducted further analyses of and shared publicly data on government demographics or institutional characteristics. The vast majority of this research has been undertaken to predict enrolment and funding needs.
To better understand the needs and experiences of diverse target groups of entering and first-year students, some institutions have conducted their own research to inform their orientation activities. Largely unpublished, this research is best accessed through participation in professional association activities, such as the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS) annual conference where information is freely shared.
Internationally there are other sources that can be helpful in the Canadian context, but it is important that cultural and institutional differences be considered in their application. For example, the Journal of the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition is published bi-annually by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina. The Center also offers monographs on many topics related to orientation. The USA-based National Orientation Directors Association (NODA) publishes The Journal of College Orientation and Transition and provides excellent resources related to the field. NODA also maintains a data bank of its three-year survey of member institutions that compiles information on orientation structures, resources, and strategies at over 400 institutions.
There is great opportunity to conduct research that would benefit orientation services, and thus the lives of many college and university students in Canada. If only to make the transition easier, such research would be commendable. The fact that other outcomes would result from the findings makes the research valuable, as well.
A scan of the broader terrain in which orientation services are delivered suggests that there are several emerging and persistent issues that bear significant implications for policy and practice. The changing youth culture, shifting demographics, and issues of risk management will all continue to influence the provision of orientation to higher education in the future.
The name Millennials (Howe and Strauss 2000), coined to describe the generation coming of age at the turn of the twenty-first century, has begun to creep into the Canadian lexicon, signalling recognition that the generation now filling our classrooms and residences is indeed different. Beloit College’s annual “Class of” Mindset List® (Beloit College) offers a sometimes poignant reminder of the changing perspectives of first-year students. Regardless of the lens through which youth are viewed, there are clearly significant cultural shifts that will continue to have implications for their orientation to post-secondary education in Canada.
According to Howe and Strauss (2000), Millennials are co-operative team players, accept authority and follow rules, have some very specific health-related concerns, are technologically savvy, and have high expectations for their own achievements. Products of parents who scooped up baby monitors and enrolled their children in lessons and sports programs in record numbers, the authors suggest that this is the most watched-over generation in recent history and most have had very structured childhoods. Add to this that they have been made to feel special and their parents have expected a lot of them, the result is a dutiful but high maintenance lot of young people entering the academy. Although the characterization of the Millennials resonates for many, it has been suggested that the assumption that Canadian culture is similar to the culture of the United States from which the Millennial Generation description has emerged is somewhat flawed, inasmuch as Canadian youth are products of a very different culture that emphasizes different social values.
Since 1983, pollster Environics Research has tracked the evolution of Canadian social values, interviewing more than 45,000 Canadians about their views of the world (Adams 1997). On the basis of the data collected over the years, Michael Adams, Environics founder and author, contends that there are six distinct “tribes” represented among the Generation X group of Canadians between the ages of fifteen and thirty-three, each characterized by the degree to which its members are inner-directed or other-directed, and prefer conformity and exclusion or ideals and individualism (Adams 1997, 2000). Adams and his colleagues have observed an increasing trend toward inner-directedness and individuality, noting that the fastest growing tribes of Generation X are the “New Aquarians,” defined by values that embrace adaptability, hedonism, concern for the oppressed and the environment, and contempt for traditional authorities, and the “Autonomous Post-Materialists,” who seek freedom and spontaneity. The other groups they describe include the “Aimless Dependents,” who emphasize ostentatious consumption and desire for independence, “Security-Seeking Ascetics,” who prefer security, simplicity, and deferred gratification; “Social Hedonists,” who engage in risk taking, aesthetics, sexual permissiveness, and immediate gratification; and “Thrill Seeking Materialists,” for whom money, possessions, recognition, and aesthetics are most important. Other Canadian researchers have also offered differing views of Canadian youth around the turn of the century (Bibby 1995, 2001).
Concomitant with these generational value shifts, students are now immersed in the world of ever-advancing technology. There is no question that the ubiquitous Internet, and technology generally, has also deeply influenced youth culture in recent years, and vice versa. Today students may be more inclined to ICQ (“I Seek You” – the largest multilingual community on the Web) someone in the next room to ask them to turn down their stereo than to get up to do so in person. Email has all but replaced “snail mail,” and an email dialect is evolving: there is a good chance that, while most students understand the email short-form FOTFLMAO (falling on the floor laughing my ass off), many of their parents – along with university administrators and faculty – may not. Many courses are delivered entirely via the Internet, and even those with regular lectures are often accompanied by or partially delivered on an Internet-based platform. The Internet has become a legitimate research source, and literature in electronic format is increasingly available. With all of this, there is less and less motivation for students to leave their rooms to pursue academic tasks. Cellphones and personal electronic devices abound, and with built-in cameras and text messaging, there is almost nowhere that students cannot be in touch with friends and family if they choose to be.
As always, characteristics of the student body continue to change. Involving students in program planning and delivery is one obvious and highly effective way to help assure that orientation is relevant and uses institutional resources wisely. All students, but perhaps most notably student leaders, residence life advisors, peer advisors, program volunteers, and the like, have a great deal of insight to offer to advisory and planning groups by serving as staff, co-op students, interns, and volunteers. Student surveys, whether in-house or with comparative benchmarks (such as the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium, a group of approximately twenty universities across Canada that conducts an annual student survey), can also help paint the bigger picture of the student experience. Whether fueled by social forces, the influence of parents, or the rapid evolution of technology, it is crucial that programs and services keep pace with students in order to do the best job of orienting them to post-secondary life and study.
As the first decade of this century comes to a close, the effect of the so-called “echo baby boom” is reverberating through post-secondary institutions in Canada, though not in ways first predicted. Worry about elimination of the fifth year of high school in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to the greatest number of post-secondary institutions in the country, did not persist as anticipated, and there is currently a great deal of competition across the country to fill the seats created to accommodate students who did not materialize. Successful orientation programs will contribute to an institution’s market position, especially as the cohort of eager students seeking post-secondary education diminishes.
One hopeful sign for long-term enrolment is an anticipated influx of new and older students seeking opportunities for “lifelong learning.” The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada predicts that population growth and increasing participation rates will produce as many as 200,000 more post-secondary students by 2011 (AUCC 2001). As the baby boomers march toward retirement and the workforce shrinks, employer training and education requirements and incentives are expected to send more adults back to school, supported by increased recognition of the value of education across the lifespan and improved accessibility. For example, Royal Roads University, created in the mid-1990s, focuses exclusively on applied and professional programs for people who want to advance in the workplace – the current average age of a Royal Roads University student is forty years. Orientation for these students will need to address the challenges of balancing work, family, and community commitments with learning pursuits. “Re-orientation” might better describe helping these adults with their transition to post-secondary studies, keeping in mind that it may have been a long time since they have read academic literature or submitted an assignment to be graded by another adult.
The call for public accountability has become more insistent across Canada; in response, performance indicators are increasingly being applied to post-secondary institutions. In most jurisdictions, institutional rankings can determine the share of the government pie that a college or university garners. Retention and employment after graduation are the most commonly applied indicators, but there is movement to expand to the use of satisfaction indicators, such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) assessment now being applied in Ontario. Ongoing assessment strategies can not only improve the quality of orientation offerings but also make the link between student participation in orientation and the outcomes that the holders of government purse strings desire.
Finally, exposure to risk – or more plainly put, “threat of a law suit” – is becoming a critical consideration in the planning and implementation of orientation services. Despite the moral obligation to account for the physical and psychological safety of participants in any institution-sponsored activity, there is real and present danger of costly legal action in today’s increasingly litigious climate. Inclusive activities and communications that respect human rights and equality are fundamental requirements of all orientation activities, and all activities must clearly demonstrate that the institution upholds its duty-of-care responsibilities, especially if alcohol is involved.
The range and variety of post-secondary education settings in Canada, coupled with an increasingly diverse student population, suggest that there can be no single uniform approach to orienting students on today’s campuses. Student and institutional needs influence the goals and objectives of orientation at each institution. What is important in supporting a student entering a private or public college, university-college, or university may differ, depending upon the length of program, the institutional mandate, and other factors. In addition to traditional educational programs where students attend lectures and read texts, the contexts in which learning occurs is becoming increasingly complex as more and more post-secondary programs are offered entirely online or through blended models. Lastly, the residential character of an institution can also be important, as orienting and supporting first-year students at a highly residential institution is very different than at an institution with no on-campus housing. The key to designing and implementing effective orientation services that support student success lies in an informed understanding of the institutional mission and the students it serves.