Ithaca College

Contributed on behalf of Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Life Rosanna Ferro and Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs La Jerne Cornish

We are writing to share an important update with you regarding plans for our orientation program for incoming new students. Both the Division of Students Affairs and Campus Life and Division of Academic Affairs have been working hard to identify additional opportunities to better support student success at Ithaca College. After some consideration, we have decided to begin onboarding our students with one large orientation program, which will allow new students to be welcomed all together by the entire campus community.

As noted in our own Campus Climate Survey as well as in IC results from the National Survey of Student Engagement, many students report that they do not feel fully engaged with our campus. Orientation provides us with an opportunity to help build a foundation of engagement and belonging, both among our incoming students and with the rest of the campus community. Therefore, beginning in the summer of 2019, we will no longer have 8 summer orientation sessions but will instead have a single session that will occur in August right before the start of classes. This change will create the following positive outcomes for students and families:

• New students will arrive to campus in a single cohort, allowing maximum potential for them to develop meaningful connections with their peers.
• The entire campus will be here to welcome our new students.
• International students, and students traveling to Ithaca from far away, will be able to participate in the same orientation program at the same time as all other incoming new students.
• Families and students will not need to pay to come to campus multiple times.

Our next steps are to work with our campus partners to plan the details of this new approach to orientation. The Office of New Student and Transition Programs has created a website (ithaca.edu/orientation/augustorientation) which includes a detailed and transparent timeline of the proposed planning process for the revised orientation program. 

Opportunities for you to participate in this process will start immediately, with the collection of feedback on the form at this link (https://orgsync.com/114322/forms/326442). On this form you will have the opportunity to express interest in serving on the August Orientation Steering Committee. This committee will comprise approximately 15 people and will be chaired by Kevin Perry, Associate Director of New Student and Transition Programs. The steering committee will have the highest level of involvement in the planning process; therefore, we are seeking a diverse representation of faculty, staff, and students for this committee. Additionally, there will be a second-level planning opportunity through involvement on one of the sub-committees, which will focus on specialized areas. Finally, the steering committee and sub-committees will host feedback forums with faculty, staff, and students to collect information and ideas. We are asking that all recommendations for August Orientation Steering Committee membership be submitted through the form by August 6, 2018.

We thank you in advance for your assistance in helping us make this important improvement to our program for orienting and engaging incoming students.

Sincerely,

Rosanna Ferro
Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Life

La Jerne Cornish
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs