Contact: Sammy McDavid
More than 1,000 professionals and students from nine states are coming to Mississippi this month to discuss and promote higher education orientation programs.
The 25th annual Southern Regional Orientation Workshop is meeting March 17-19 at Mississippi State. The university's Office of Enrollment Services is host and organizer.
SROW is the Southeastern conference of the National Orientation Directors Association. Joining Mississippi university, college and community college representatives for the 2000 meeting will be colleagues from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee.
"Mississippi State served as host for the first workshop in 1975 and again in 1988," said enrollment services director Jimmy Abraham. "With this year's meeting, we become the only school to sponsor three SROW meetings."
Some 60 schools will be represented this year, he added.
"We will have sessions on every aspect of the orientation process, from recruiting, selecting and training student leaders to planning, implementing and evaluating the varied campus introductory programs," he said. "Also on our schedule are skit, song and banner competitions, as well as informal times for professional networking and socializing."
Open to the public, a 4 p.m. welcoming ceremony on the 17th will be held at the university Amphitheater or, in case of inclement weather, the nearby Newell-Grissom Building. As the membership roll is called, each school's delegation will respond with a distinct greeting.
"They will sing or shout their school's fight song, traditional yell or a special 'hello,'" Abraham said. "The delegations also are being encouraged to wear clothing in their school colors and to wave appropriate flags and banners.
"The goal is to have as colorful and exciting an opening ceremony as possible."
For more information, telephone Abraham at (662) 325-3076 or visit the special SROW web site at http://www.ur.msstate.edu/srow2000/.