George Washington University
EN-2: Student Orientation

GW's student orientation program, Colonial Inauguration (CI), is a program offered to incoming students, including international and domestic freshmen and transfer students. In 2017, four of the six sessions took place in June. The fifth and sixth sessions are offered prior to classes starting in August and are more exclusively offered to transfer and international students. The program's format in June is 1-day, 2 nights for incoming students, who live in a residence hall room during their stay. These 2-day programs take place on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday. The freshmen August session is a 3-day, 2-night program and the August transfer student session is a 1-day program, again, offered prior to the start of classes. Sustainability is featured in CI in a variety of different ways. Representatives from the Office of Sustainability set up a table outside to talk with incoming students and their families about upcoming initiatives, opportunities for involvement, and where to go for more information. They hand out eco-friendly water bottles. Meals and activities are conducted with sustainability in mind by using cardboard boxes for lunch, instead of plastic and by educating new students on how to properly dispose of food and materials for compost and recycling after each meal. We provide information to each student in their residence hall room about recycling, water, and electricity use. Lastly, at the Move-In Fair hosted in June, we talk with students about sustainability efforts at GW and how they can contribute.

New student orientation programming that comes out of the Office of Student Support and Family Engagement is for undergraduate students. A variety of additional offices on-campus, specific to each program, offer orientation to graduate students.