Students Greet The Year With Orientation Week
Day of Service kicks off during orientation activities
There’s little doubt that the various Touro University California programs are academically rigorous and challenging. The last thing incoming students need are additional complications to their experience at TUC.
Orientation helps alleviate those issues by helping new students become familiar with Touro’s campus layout, the different services available to assist them on their journey at TUC, and familiarize the newest members of the Touro family with the university’s dedication to service and community.
“New student orientation is one of the most important times of year,” said Dr. Steve Jacobson, Vice Provost and Dean of Student Affairs “At orientation, our new students have a chance to meet each other for the first time, get to learn more about the general university and the services we provide.”
During the previous two years, COVID has presented a host of challenges for the Student Affairs Department. Orientation in the heart of the pandemic was held in a virtual setting, which were well-presented under the circumstances but still missed out on critical components necessary for students to feel fully onboard.
“Over the last two years, we have held virtual orientations. One of the biggest concerns raised by students who were part of a virtual orientation was that they did not feel connected to the university, the local community, and their fellow students,” Dr Jacobson said.
This year’s in-person orientation resolved those concerns and found hundreds of students in the community assisting at a dozen different sites on numerous non-profit projects.
“There is value in connecting in person and in COVID we have been starving for connection in general,” said Student Activities Director, Yvette Elizabeth Carrillo. “I kept hearing that the upperclassmen were jealous of the ‘fun orientation’ we had this year.”
Having the students be able to engage in this type of service, as well as have a shared bonding experience, was a major goal for Student Affairs.
“We also had the inaugural ‘Day of Service’ too, so that added an extra element of community engagement,” Carrillo said.
“We believe we were able to help start this community building by having the students complete their service projects and having each service project group be comprised of students from each of the different academic programs,” Dr Jacobson added. “As a result of these service projects, our students were able to conduct over 550 hours community service in the local area.”