Although incoming students couldn’t come to campus for Summer Orientation for their first buzzing experience of college life, many were able to get an idea via Zoom.

Jordan Moore, senior liberal arts major, said multiple Zoom sessions allowed Summer O counselors to connect with incoming students and make the experience as normal and fun as possible. But, Moore said they faced a few obstacles along the way, including familiarizing students with a campus they were not yet on.

Counselors began preparing for Summer O in January. Moore said they were divided into groups to become experts on each campus department. Each group presented their knowledge to the rest of the counselors.

“We wanted to make sure every Summer O counselor was diverse in understanding all the opportunities we had on campus so that if an incoming student came in, we knew exactly where to direct them,” Moore said.

Once the pandemic hit in early March, Moore said they refocused their time to continuing their knowledge about campus while planning alternatives to what Summer O might look like for on-campus events if the pandemic continued.

“Fortunately, our office had the foresight to get us organized and get us prepared for a virtual summer,” Moore said. “They also gave us ideas of what it would look like if things were to clear up relatively soon. Our office was really on top of things as far as the predictions were concerned.”

Moore said the training, in-person and online, was really helpful in preparing the counselors. She said it helped that the counselors were already involved in so many different organizations as well.

Moore said the counselors had a Zoom meeting with a professional based out of Washington D.C. who gave them ideas on how to better implement a more welcoming environment through Zoom to the incoming students.

“To be honest, we were all a little nervous about exactly how our students would feel welcome, especially over a screen,” Moore said. “We wanted to really try and emit the best we could what Murray State is really about, and wanted to make sure that our passion for our campus really showed through.”

Moore said meeting with the professional was helpful to learn this, as well as learn ideas on how to best handle situations that they might come across.

When the day came for counselors to meet with incoming students, they had a large session for everyone in the morning. During this session, counselors discussed everything they would have on campus and showed students through a virtual tour what they would have seen in person.

Later they offered another Zoom session for students to return and ask additional questions. The afternoon session was a great opportunity for students to ask anything and everything in small groups, Moore said, such as the dimensions of their beds, the best residential colleges to live in or how to tell their moms to stop calling

“We would have much preferred to have you on campus and taking you around the buildings and making you familiar with how the campus climate is, but we wanted to do the best we could,” Moore said. “Going back to our training, I think we were really prepared to allow students to understand how to get in contact with people even though it was partially virtual.”

They also added additional sessions to ensure they reached all incoming students.

Although they didn’t have any actual Summer O days on campus, Moore said they had a second part to the orientation called Racer Life which gave students a chance to safely socialize. 

During this, everyone wore masks and played games outside that allowed for social distancing. For the students who couldn’t or didn’t want to participate in-person, they offered a Zoom session for Racer Life.

Over the span of multiple days, 1,355 students participated in the Racer Life session, Moore said.

Moore also said it was nice to interact with incoming students and share their love for Murray State.

“I felt very protected, but I also felt like it gave us a chance to connect with students,” Moore said. “It was nice to see people smiling and have that moment of realization; that ‘hey, I’m at college, I’m going to be okay and I can be social and safe at the same time.’”