Orientation has a new look for the Fall 2025 semester. The Waino Wahtera Center for Student Success in collaboration with the Dean of Students office is adding a summer requirement to all incoming first-year students. The change will be implemented next year for the Fall of 2025 incoming class.
The change comes after the President’s Council wanted to improve the student experience starting from day one. The council consists of the university president, the eight vice presidents of various parts of the university, and the university’s general council. The council approved the idea of a summer orientation in July of this year. A larger committee, chaired by the Dean of Students Kellie Raffaelli, consisting of departments and students affiliated with different parts of orientation is currently meeting to figure out the specifics of how the idea will be implemented.
According to Raffaelli, the Michigan Association of Student Universities (MASU) has anecdotally seen an increase in a term they call “Orientation Shopping” where students will go to summer orientation after being accepted to multiple schools before making their final enrollment decision. MASU does not have any numbers on this trend. She continued saying Tech is one of three public schools in Michigan who does not have a summer orientation, the others being Lake Superior State University and Oakland University.
Other reasons for the change stated by Raffaelli are to decrease the amount of placement tests needed to be administered on-campus and to have on-campus communication with both parents and the incoming student instead of relying on just emails over the summer.
Currently, the plan for the summer orientation is to have four weekends; June 22 – 23, June 26 – 27, July 13 – 14, and July 17 – 18 with a makeup day on the Tuesday of the August orientation. The current week used for orientation would be shortened with student move-in on Monday and Tuesday of the week and the university welcome on Tuesday evening. The summer session will be primarily for the department meetings and collecting documents
There are concerns about the changes including less time for student org activities, a loss of time to engage with people and create relationships, and finding the support staff for the summer sessions. Kellie said that while the time is shorter, everything removed is either in the summer session or sessions that were repeat information. Regarding the staffing concern, she said the office will be leaning on the students staying in the area including some Summer Youth Program staff and international students.
More information about the changes and the staff application for both the summer staff and orientation team leader will be released in February.
