Seniors Amanda Maiorano and Dwayne Waite have been involved with new student orientation from their new student experiences to today. They both enjoyed such wonderful orientation experiences that they decided to come back and be Orientation Leaders (OLs) their sophomore year.

“My OL was awesome; she got everything right to the point,” Waite said. “She used humor and made me love Elon. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to give back.”

But being an OL is not the end of orientation involvement. In their junior and senior years, former OLs can join orientation head staff. These are the people who teach the OLs how to teach the new students. Both Maiorano and Waite joined the head staff their junior and senior years, and now Maiorano serves as orientation coordinator.

The head staff moved in on Aug. 10 to prepare for the OLs who began training last Saturday.

Training OLs spent every day of this week in sessions learning everything there is to know about Elon, including things that may have changed since their orientation experience.

“[The OLs] are briefed on the entire school,” Maiorano said. “We have speakers like Dr. Lambert, Dr. Jackson and Dean Nelson and [the trainees] are informed about every aspect of Elon.”

In their sessions, the OLs learn how to answer all of the questions their orientation groups might ask them through a mirror-image sort of program. The head staff models the sort of sessions the OLs will have with the two different groups of students they will be working with- new students and transfers, and then the OLs move on to teach them about Elon in the same way that they learned.

“This week is hectic and exciting,” Waite said. “From the point of view of the head staff, it’s a whirlwind. Going from participant to provider is awesome.”

The OLs did have some fun, though.

“It’s like a big kid summer camp,” Maiorano said. “If the OLs are burnt out by the time the freshmen get here, it defeats the purpose.”

Elon’s orientation program is award-winning and has been nationally recognized for first year experiences.

News Editor: Kaitlin Ugolik - 08/24/07