Nicholls’ orientation team placed first in the Southern Regional Orientation Workshop for the second year in a row. SROW is a conference for orientation leaders from all colleges in nine Southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
“Based on the number of schools and the size of the schools, this means a big win for Nicholls,” Becky Durocher, director of Office of Admissions, said.
“It’s everything from flagship universities to the smallest private colleges,” Durocher said.
The 31 orientation leaders from Nicholls attended the conference in Columbus, Ga., at Columbus University.
During the SROW conference, the song/skit and dance competition is for the schools to highlight there university and to attract incoming freshman.
“Each school makes up a song/skit or dance incorporating things about their school,” Durocher said. “What we present at this learning conference for the students, we actually use as an opening for our orientation,” Durocher said.
She said the team usually comes up with the ideas for the skit together.
“This is usually a great way to get the incoming freshman interested in the University and campus activities,” Durocher said.
For this year’s skit, the orientation team did a montage of commercials.
“Instead of selling energy drinks, we sold campus activities,” Durocher said. “Instead of selling cars, we sold degree programs.”
Durocher praised the efforts and results of the orientation team.
“This team is amazing. It’s probably the best orientation team we’ve ever seen in all our years dealing with orientation.”
Durocher said the orientation team collected information and has already started using some of the information and the ideas they received at the conference for this year’s junior day.
“The orientation team represented Nicholls well and came home with every good idea they could obtain,” she said.
Incoming freshmen that don’t have prior knowledge of Nicholls and what the University has to offer have the perfect opportunity to learn what they need to know in a fun way, Durocher said.
“The skit shows the orientation leaders coming together as a team, and that helps close the deal with the students that come to orientation,” Durocher said.
Durocher said the goal is to have freshmen who attend orientation to feel that Nicholls is the right place.
“We want them to be engaged: we want them to be entertained at orientation, and we want them to learn things about Nicholls,” Durocher said.
