Since it's back to school season, I thought I would continue thinking a bit about freshman orientation. I concluded my last blog with the suggestion that the warm and welcoming feel of orientation works in large part to ease students into accepting certain ideological positions and certain intrusive practices as normal, natural, and even comfortable. I'll develop that claim over the next several blogs by looking closely at three standard features of college orientation programming: the minority orientation, the sexual assault awareness workshop, and the summer reading program. But first I want to give a little bit of background on the orientation industry itself, which has grown enormously--even exponentially--over the last ten years.

As one reader aptly pointed out, liability is a big factor in the exponentially enlarging freshman orientation. Consider alcohol. A recent Harvard study found that 44% of college students nationwide qualify as binge drinkers; with binge drinking comes drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, personal injury, rape, and, all too often, death. In September 2000, a freshman fraternity pledge at ASU was made to go on a three-day drinking binge as part of rush. While drunk, he crashed his motorcycle and was killed. His parents sued the fraternity. In 1998, a boy visiting a friend at Cornell fell into a ravine on the Ithaca campus and died. He was drunk. His parents sued the school for $3 million. In August 1997, one LSU freshman died and three were hospitalized after they spent an evening binge-drinking at the behest of the fraternity they hoped to join. A lawsuit followed.

Not all such cases involve fraternities, but many do. And what happens at the frats sets the terms for school policy. Some schools bar exceptionally alcoholic frats from campus; other frats declare themselves to be alcohol-free zones so that they can stay on campus; some schools declare the entire campus to be an alcohol-free zone (Michigan had just gone dry when I studied there in the early 90s). Anxious to eliminate binge drinking, underage drinking, and the liability issues that come with each, colleges have been jacking up their alcohol awareness programs for several years now. Educational sessions on drinking frequently figure large in freshmen orientation, and with good reason: as the examples above show, entering freshmen are particularly vulnerable to the ravages of alcohol. The Harvard study shows, however, that even as students are more aware about alcohol, the rate of binge drinking has not dropped significantly since the early 1990s. Moreover, it shows that women, particularly those enrolled at women's colleges, are doing a lot more binge drinking than they used to.

A recent settlement at MIT marks a telling development in the pattern of administrations appearing to care more about avoiding liability than about taking responsibility. In the fall of 1997, freshman Scott Krueger moved into the fraternity he was pledging. Five weeks later, he died of alcohol poisoning. The parents sued the school. That in itself is a depressingly common story, as the examples above show. What sets this case apart, though, is MIT's response to the lawsuit. Instead of contesting the charges, MIT largely conceded them. Paying the parents a $6 million settlement and issuing an elaborate written apology, MIT set a precedent for accountability on campus-- a precedent that, in accepting liability, will almost certainly involve the nationwide creation of an increasingly elaborate set of school policies surrounding alcohol education and under-age drinking--even though it doesn't look like all that programming is working.

The result is spiralling costs, ever-expanding orientational programming for everyone (including faculty and administrators), and moneymaking opportunities for prevention experts. Colleges' and universities' concerns with liability predictably extend to issues surrounding sexual consent (much more on this in upcoming blogs). Likewise, the closely connected issues of sexually transmitted disease, AIDS, and birth control figure large at orientations. Operating according to the theory that an hour of prevention is worth millions in legal fees and court costs, schools are doing massive "risk management," hiring specialized consultants to help them minimize their potential liability. The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, or NCHERM, is one such consulting organization. For the right price, NCHERM will review your school policies (a price list for policy review services is here), teach your administrators how to deliver discipline, advise you on proper safety and prevention techniques, and help you make sure you are in compliance with the law. Specializing in sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and alcohol abuse, NCHERM puts out articles, books, and videos; runs workshops for college administrators and college students; and even hires itself out as an expert witness in court cases. Currently, NCHERM is featuring a new program entitled "10 Things Every Student Should Know About Drinking." Designed in response to the abject failure of "don't drink" programs, this is a workshop aimed at teaching students how to drink responsibly, rather than at telling them not to drink at all. NCHERM is very big on freshman orientation, and offers a number of programs specially shaped for freshmen and even for parents.

Risk management explains the presence of educational sessions on drugs, alcohol, and sex on orientation schedules. And, arguably, it helps explain the hyper-scheduled quality of so many orientations, which seem very eager to offer new students places other than frat parties to socialize, and which work hard to supply plenty of opportunities for good clean peer-chaperoned fun in the evenings. But risk management is not the only reason why freshman orientation has become so bloated. Socialization is just as important. In upcoming blogs, I'll look at some of the more troubling aspects of that socialization, paying special attention to the beliefs, fears, and fantasies that are contained within three particularly fraught aspects of orientation: the separatist culture of minority orientation, the feminist culture of the date rape workshop, and the sensitive culture of the classroom discussion.

More coming soon. I've got lots of fun facts and interesting links all ready to be lovingly crafted into hair-raising blogs: but that doesn't mean I'm not spoiling for more. So if you've got good, bloggable anecdotes or inside information about orientation at a campus near you, please feel free to pass your hardwon wisdom on.