Orientation Leaders 2018

By Emily Christensen

The first few days on the Wartburg College campus will be a little bit different for the Class of 2022—and a little bit shorter.

Lindsey Leonard, director of student engagement and a former admissions counselor, said for years students have commented that orientation activities last too long, but orientation organizers could never find a way to trim the schedule. Leonard said she’s not taking anything away; she’s just found a way to include some activities in the early parts of the school year. 

“My admissions perspective has helped inform a lot of the adjustments I’ve made,” Leonard said. “Orientation is an extension of the recruiting process. A lot of the research I looked at shows that students want to feel connected. Everything we’ve been doing has been valuable, but we don’t need to do it all in the first five days they are here.”

Leonard is working with IS 101 organizers to find ways to integrate orientation activities, like the Involvement Fair, where students learn about campus organizations, into the course, which is required for all first-year students.

Even more exciting, Leonard said, will be the return of Mitch Matthews, founder of the Big Dream Gathering, to campus. The motivational speaker and author will speak to all incoming students at an event sponsored by American Family Insurance.

Mitch Matthews

If you would like to attend the Big Dream Gathering on Monday, Aug. 27, 10 a.m.-noon, or help out in any way, please contact Veronica Reece, Pathways Center associate for vocation, mentoring, and careers, at veronica.reece@wartburg.edu.

“Mitch and his team have visited Wartburg before for campus and community gatherings, but this is unique in that Mitch will tailor his message to the dreams of 18-year-olds literally on the brink of their college experience,” Leonard said. “What do they want to achieve? Then they can be supported in that dreaming by peers, student mentors, and other Wartburg community members.

“It is our hope that students will feel inspired to write their ‘Wartburg story’ with the intent to dream big.”

In addition to the Big Dream Gathering, new students also will take the CliftonStrengths, formerly Clifton StrengthsFinder, an assessment that measures a person’s natural pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving to help them discover their talents.

“The first lesson they get at college is going to be about themselves and how they can use their talents to be successful in college and build successful relationships with their peers,” Leonard said. “As a college, we can then use those strengths to help guide them and advise them. Their results will help us better understand them as people.”

Incoming students will take the online assessment during the summer and get the results before orientation begins. The college will use the data to build two orientation classes that will help each student understand their strengths and how they can develop those strengths and use them in college and beyond.

Students also will attend sessions on consent and sexual misconduct prevention and diversity and inclusion. Additional programming on these topics will be included in the IS 101 curriculum.

“We are using orientation to better help our students understand themselves and learn more about the people they will be going to school with for the next four years,” Leonard said. “We have students from many places, and orientation is a good time to tell them about this and why we value each person and the differences they bring to our campus community.”