When in-person isn’t an option: What Baylor Orientation & Line Camp look like in 2020
In the summer, the Baylor campus is usually teeming with students and parents sharing in the excitement of a new chapter in their lives. As they prepare for college (or to become parents of a college student), programs such as Orientation and Line Camp welcome thousands of new Bears into the Baylor Family, providing them with resources to make friends, meet professors, learn about university life and prepare to navigate the next four years.
Members of Baylor’s Class of 2024 — those coming to BU for the first time this fall — still need those things, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, such traditions have been shaken up a little bit. Orientation and Line Camp have been adjusted into “at home” editions, aimed at serving students in new (and in some cases, better) ways.
Let’s start with Orientation. The typical in-person Orientation often includes so many programs and meetings across so many departments that it’s impossible to attend everything you’d like. This year’s version brings everything to new students, with a mix of on-demand video content that can be watched at any time and live, virtual events that enable students and parents to interact with others and ask specific questions from their home computer.
Line Camp in 2020, meanwhile, is now Baylor Line Camp: Home Edition. Ten different two-day sessions offer students the chance to find the time that best fits their schedule. Each session introduces new Bears to Baylor traditions and facilitates friendships via online small groups. As a bonus, this year’s event is free and open to all incoming students — not just those who can make it to Waco, as in past years. A Line Camp Activity Kit provides each participant with gear and activities for his/her session, and plans are underway to offer trips to Independence for new Bears this fall. (And yes, Line jerseys are still available.)
New Baylor parents, too, have their own online sessions to help them connect to one another and learn more about the university their kids will spend their next four years attending. Baylor Parent Engagement is offering free “Baylor Parent Survival Classes” online this summer; interested participants should register for the Baylor Parents Hub, then sign up in the hub for the classes.
Obviously, we’d all prefer to be meeting in person, but health concerns come first. Even under such circumstances, however, Baylor student volunteers and staff have locked arms to bring as much of the Orientation and Line Camp experiences to as many new Bears as possible. It’s a sign of the times, but also a sign of the enthusiasm all of campus shares to welcome a whole new class to the Baylor Family!
Sic ’em, new Baylor students!