Steffensen chosen to lead O-Week

By Margeux Clemmons and Vinny Singh     1/29/09 6:00pm

A new campus-wide Student Director of Orientation was appointed last Wednesday - Brown College junior Peter Steffensen. The committee that chose Steffensen convened last fall and consisted of several former Orientation Week coordinators, former student director Megan Hermance and Assistant to the Dean of Undergraduates Kate Noonan, and applications were released over winter break.

"I am both really excited and humbled by the position," Steffensen said. "When I was given the opportunity to be the student leader of O-Week, I jumped at it: O-Week had played such a large role in my life ... in setting a tone and standard for one's entire career here, academic, social and otherwise."

His term begins immediately and lasts until next January. Steffensen will lead a coordinator retreat Feb. 7-8, at which he will outline the goals for all the coordinating teams from every college, Director of First Year Programs Shelah Crear said.

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"The Student Director position is probably the top position that a student can have in the orientation week process - it is a pretty big job, " Steffensen said.

Crear said the leadership role is also an extremely demanding position to apply for. While other O-Week coordinators are nominated and elected by their respective college communities, a prospective student director has to fill out an extensive questionnaire as well as go through a complex interview process. Crear's position was introduced last year, and fall 2009 will be her first time spearheading O-Week at Rice.

As student director, Steffensen will serve as a liaison among student coordinators, faculty, and staff involved in O-Week, including Director of Academic Advising Brian Gibson, Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman and the Office of Academic Advising.

He will also be responsible for overseeing the entire process of selecting the coordinators and facilitators, as well as the developing coordinator training, such as the February retreat. He will communicate all the ideas and policies that the administrative figures of the university are planning and implementing for O-Week to the student coordinators, who will be responsible for executing them in their respective O-Week schedules.

Steffensen said the biggest challenge this year around would be the introduction of Duncan and McMurtry colleges. Acknowledging the difficulties the administration faced in transferring students to Martel College at the time of its inauguration in 2001, he said that the system of college ambassadors was implemented as a deliberate step to enhance the experience for the incoming freshmen at the new colleges.

Crear said that Steffensen was a good choice for such a difficult transition year.

"Peter has an extensive leadership portfolio; he's done lots of different things on campus," Crear said. "He's got more than experience, though - he has a great vision for O-Week and a great perspective on the coordination process. He understands the the challenges and opportunities of O-Week 2009 and will bring successes to the two new colleges. He really gets that O-Week is about the new students, and he'll make it the best it can be."

Timothy Faust contributed to this article.

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