With most of the members of the Class of 1999 at home and enjoying their summer vacations, the Office of First-Year Students is preparing for the arrival of their successors, the members of the Class of 2000.
Accompanied by more than a little help from the upper classes, the office is organizing a host of orientation activities and other programs designed to help the freshmen in their transition to Dartmouth life.
"Most of the summer is spent putting together this giant logistical puzzle, which is orientation," Dean of First-Year Students Peter Goldsmith said. "There's a lot to do and by August we begin to feel that we are back in high gear."
Goldsmith said he and his staff have to coordinate the activities of dozens of departments and organizations in order to plan the orientation.
In addition to the normal rounds of testing, lectures and information sessions, the Office of First-Year Students will also be looking to add new and different activities to the orientation experience.
"As in past years, we are looking for ways to insert additional intellectual content into orientation in ways students will find interesting and appealing," Goldsmith said.
In an electronic mail message, he wrote that Dr. C. Everett Koop, the senior scholar at Dartmouth's C. Everett Koop Institute, will speak to freshmen about the health care system and Linda Fowler, Director of the Rockefeller Social Science Center, will lead a discussion on "Campaign '96: The Demise of The Republican Revolution?".
Goldsmith also wrote that his office is trying to arrange a screening of a new film, followed by a discussion of that film with professors in the film studies department, but the plans for this event are still tentative.
"All over the College there is an interest in seeing that the introduction to student social life is balanced, to some degree, by opportunities to become immersed in the world of ideas," Goldsmith said. "This is an issue on which my colleagues on every other campus I can think of are dealing with as well -- no one has found a perfect way of doing it, but we are always looking for new ideas."
Members of Dartmouth's previous three classes are playing crucial roles in helping the Office of First-Year Students organize events for the freshmen, Goldsmith said.
The "Shmen Guide To Shmen", a manual to life at Dartmouth written by the previous freshman class, has been revived after a year's absence, Goldsmith said.
He said Nahoko Kawakyu '99 and Sheryl Koval '99 were in charge of organizing the guide's publication this year.
Meanwhile, members of the Class of 1998 are at work revising the "Community At Dartmouth Night" presentation, a series of skits and monologues designed to make freshmen aware of many of the social issues and difficulties of college life.
Kara Josephberg '98, one of the committee's members, said "the problems that I saw around campus made me want to help out, to increase the respect for diversity among the incoming students."
Lia Monahon '98 said her involvement with Community at Dartmouth resulted from "the knowledge that students in our class and generally in the past have been dissatisfied with the performances and the way different messages were presented at the event."
While students felt the issues presented were important, they have not been pleased with the presentation itself and felt that it was too preachy, Monahon said.
The committee, which includes other sophomores as well as several faculty members and administrators, has been using the scripts of previous years as a basis for constructing a new show.
Both Josephberg and Monahon said they were working to alter elements that had not been successful, while keeping the best skits and monologues.
Josephberg said the group also aims to make the presentation more concise.
"We think it is too long and we are trying to cut it down a little and incorporate more issues in a shorter time frame," she said.
Monahon said the presentation "needed to be refreshed" and said the committee wants to "focus on lightening up whenever we can, trying to take things with as much humor as possible."
There are eight sophomores on the committee, according to Assistant Dean of First-Year Students Stephanie Hull, who is a member of the Community Night committee.
"This year's presentation is shaping up quite nicely," Hull wrote in an electronic mail message. We have "come up with a broad range of perspectives on some of the most important issues for the campus today."
For the second consecutive summer, Ken Yasuhara '98 is working at the First-Year Office to match freshmen with their first-year faculty advisors.
Using computer databases of the professors and the academic interests of the incoming class, Yasuhara tries to create the best matches possible.
"We try our best to match up the incoming class in groups of roughly five students to a professor ... the most difficult part is finding enough science professors to satisfy an enormous demand amongst the first-years," Yasuhara said.
Yasuhara said it was also important to consider the professors' interests, as well as the students, noting that professors who are not assigned any students interested in their department may not have a fulfilling advising experience.
Jessica Roberts '97, the intern to the First-Year Office, is managing this year's pre-orientation, planning events for students who move in early due to late Dartmouth Outing Club trips or other circumstances.
Apart from the standard events, such as computer courses and library introductions, Roberts said she plans to add some new elements to the schedule.
"I'm having a number of professors speak in an informal setting" to students, she said.
Roberts said English Professor Bill Cook and French and Italian Professor John Rassias are among the professors taking part in this program and added she is trying to schedule a star-gazing session with an astronomy professor.
