In 2007, I served as Student Director for the University of North Florida Honors Program. Working with the Honors Student Union (HSU) – a group of a half-dozen Honors students– as well as the faculty and staff of the program, I developed that year’s freshmen orientation.
Honors Orientation was a weeklong event including service learning and team building activities, as well as a variety of events crafted to showcase the core values of the program, and served an audience of 140 incoming freshmen. Along with the Honors Program and HSU, I coordinated with local government agencies, the arts community and non-profit organizations in designing a successful week.
Under my direction, we extended the program to five days from four while still finishing under budget, thanks in part to cutting logistical expenses by 35% compared to previous years through strategic transportation planning.
Aside from Orientation, we also planned student life events throughout the year, offering the Honors community highly attended, weekly events. These events were successful in large part to an early social media effort, heavily utilizing Facebook and YouTube in order to reach the Honors community in a more dynamic way than flyers or emails allowed.
Below is a copy of the manual I constructed for Honors Orientation. Names and contact information have been redacted where appropriate.