New Student Programs will make a few changes to the Alive! Orientation for this upcoming summer.

According to the Alive! homepage, the orientation is designed to prepare new students for the next fall semester. In the past, orientation has included meeting faculty and advisors, touring campus, attending workshops and using the campus resources provided to learn about any one of the 200 majors WSU offers.

According to the 2016 Alive! Orientation summary received by New Student Programs, 96 percent of the 4,007 students who completed the Alive! assessment stated they had a “better understanding of university resources after attending.” 92 percent stated that they felt “more confident in their choice to attend WSU,” and 87 percent agreed or strongly agreed the Alive! program had prepared them for the upcoming fall semester.

Most of the offerings that were provided in 2016 will remain largely the same in the next series of Alive! Summer Orientations, but there will also be several changes, New Student Programs Director Amanda Morgan said.

This summer the 45-minute workshops will be replaced with 20-minute Coug Talks, orchestrated like Ted Talks, Morgan said.

“We want presenters to focus on three key messages, easily retained and remembered,” she said.

This summer the first day of the event will no longer be a required day unless the student has scheduled placement tests.

“This year, we will not provide any formal programming on the first day,” Morgan said. “It will allow students to travel to Pullman whenever they want.”

The continued student feedback the department receives from the Alive! events is one of the reasons for the changes.

“One of the pieces of feedback we received is that orientation is so overwhelming,” Morgan said. “It’s like trying to drink from a fire hydrant, there’s just so much information coming at you.”

The program will also cut the number of working orientation counselling staff from 40 to 36 this summer, Morgan said.

The cut is due to this year’s increase of minimum wage from $10 to $11 per hour. The decrease in staff help the program stay fiscally positive and keep the one-time mandatory fee charged to all students who attend Alive! and other related programs, including Week of Welcome, at $230. The program has not raised this price since 2012, even though cost to provide new students with food and housing from Housing and Dining Services goes up each year, Morgan said.

“We are hoping that this will be a win for everyone in that we will save some money in terms of not having to increase the fee again this year,” Morgan said. “While also giving the students what they are asking for in terms of their feedback.”

Overall, the goal of New Student Programs is to have 4,200 transfer and freshmen students attend Alive! for the upcoming year. Approximately 4,500 students attended the summer and fall Alive! Orientations last year, Morgan said.