Date rape, chlamydia, depression, suicide, stress.

As past years have demonstrated, the perils of undergraduate life can find their way into the Ivory Tower.

Instances of these and other health and safety concerns which cropped up during the last academic year highlight the question of how to successfully prepare first-years for the challenges ahead.

Enter Orientation Week, a calendar of meetings, information sessions and open houses designed to smooth the way for entering students.

The Freshman Dean's Office (FDO) plans and implements each year's Orientation Week, deciding what events will be held for incoming students and which of them will be mandatory.

Student Involvement

Unlike at many other colleges, Harvard's Orientation Week is planned almost entirely by the administration with little direct participation by current students.

At Brandeis University, in contrast, students run orientation almost entirely.

A group of 10 students makes up the orientation core committee, which begins planning in January for the next fall's orientation.

"The students are the ones who plan and implement the program," says Kristine Carlson Asselin, Brandeis's acting associate director of campus life and the advisor for orientation.

"We're orienting new students, and who better to plan for them than current students?" she says.

Asselin says Brandeis also tries to support entering first-years with approximately 100 student volunteers known as AIDE group leaders (short for Advise, Integrate, Develop and Educate).

The volunteers guide small groups of first--years through orientation--attending most events with them--and serve as counselors and resources for the new students.

AIDE volunteers go through extensive training, Asselin says, including instruction in sensitivity and advising.

At Cornell, the orientation program is also run in large part by students.