Aside from rearranging you new room, unpacking all of your clothes and meeting your new roommate, Orientation weekend is packed with events and meetings for freshmen to attend. This weekend has been in the planning since summer, and many people are behind the scenes making it happen.

CAB

Campus Activities Board (CAB) plans and puts on all of the events for not only orientation weekend, but also the rest of the year.

Junior Faith Gruber is the Student Activities Intern and an active member of CAB’s Executive Board.

Gruber said that she focuses on getting the word out about the weekend and making everything run smoothly.

“I do a lot of behind the scenes work,” she said. “I mainly work on creating eye-catching publicity to get the word out for all the campus events we offer each semester.”

Gruber said things are different during orientation weekend than during the regular school year. Because this is the freshmen’s first weekend on campus, Gruber also said it is important.

“During orientation weekend, our only target for publicity are our new freshmen, whereas during the semester we try to reach all students,” she said. “Orientation weekend is a critical time for freshmen to make friendships and find their place here, so CAB offers events during the weekend so students can see what it is CAB does, while also creating bonds with roommates, new neighbors and fellow classmates.”

Although Gruber said that most of the weekend is planned by Orientation Team, she also said CAB mainly works on getting the word out to the freshmen.

“CAB’s role in the weekend planning starts with booking the entertainment, getting the word out to freshmen, and ending with the night’s production,” she said. “The most time consuming part of it all is finding ways to reach students and get them pumped up about what’s to come.”

Orientation Team

It’s almost hard to miss all of the Orientation Team Members, better known as “O-Teamers,” running around campus.

However, they have a schedule to stick to for this weekend as well.

Their main organizer is senior integrated social studies education major Kate Bowerman, the orientation weekend Coordinator. Bowerman said her job umbrellas most of the weekend, keeping her very busy.

“My job encompasses many different tasks in the planning, preparation and execution of o-weekend,” she said. “From things such as assigning O-Teamers to residence halls for freshmen check in, to deciding on the decorations for the Farwell Dinner, to emailing and collating organizations and businesses to take part in the weekend’s events, to introducing President Finks at the President’s Welcome on Saturday morning; my job is a very busy one.”

Bowerman said the main goal of her job is to help the new students.

The Orientation Team is the first group of people incoming freshmen meet on campus, and Bowerman said they all try to make the change easier for each new student.

“We are all here to make the transition from high school to college as smooth as possible for the freshmen, but we do not just support them; we support each other,” she said.

Having a rough start at Ashland University, Bowerman was sheltered under the care of her O-Teamer, and, once she was settled, was encouraged to become an O-Teamer herself.

“My O-Teamer noticed how upset I was in my Accent on Success class and she took me under her wing,” she said. “By the second week of school, with her help, I was loving life at Ashland because she gave me such great advice and really pushed me to make the most of this experience. After Accent on Success was over, she recommended me to the Orientation Team Executive Committee to become an O-Teamer.”

Bowerman said she and her team have been planning this weekend for about eight months, and that they try to get as much as possible done before summer starts.

Between meetings and workshops, Bowerman said the planning takes a lot of time.

“I have about a million rosters of the Orientation Team printed off for check lists to assign people to multiple jobs for Thursday through Sunday; to-do lists are crazy long; meetings are frequent and long; emails are endless; questions about decision making are being thrown at me from every possible way,” she said. “The O-Teamers go through spring workshops and a week of training and preparation the week before school starts and they are all amazing.”

Although Bowerman does a lot of the work for the weekend, she said she counts on the O-Teamers for a lot as well.

She also said this group of students is dedicated and gets along well.

“Everyone works together to get things done and in order to check freshmen in on Friday, meet with their Accent on Success classes on Saturday, and show them around to their classes on Sunday,” she said. “Through all of the training and prep work, the O-Teamers live and breathe orientation and Accent on Success. I cannot say enough how awesome it is to work with such a great team, because even though I throw my whole self into the preparation for this weekend, it could not be executed at all without the dedication from the rest of the team.”

Although there is a lot of time and effort put into this one weekend, Bowerman said she loves how hectic and last minute things can get.

“I love the endless challenges that I face to make this weekend happen,” she said. “There is always something that needs to be done or tweaked and I love it. That’s what makes this weekend so personal for me.”

Working with roughly 50 other team members may get crazy, but Bowerman said she loves it.

She said one of the best things about her job is how close-knit everyone is.

“I work with three other executive members, our director and 53 other O-Teamers who, no matter how stressed and tense things can get, we are always there to lift one another up and to be each others ‘right hand man,’” she said. “Orientation Team is like a family and the people that I have gotten to work with over the past three years are what I love most about my job.”