Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508140006
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST
DATELINE: WILMINGTON, N. C. LENGTH: Medium
"Been there, done that," chirped my wife, ducking out on the deal. Although between us, we've seen four young women off on the journey to higher education, I had managed to escape orientation - until now.
To avoid boring folks before the fact, schools now christen their orientations with catchy names like "Perspectives" or "Directions" that hint at wide-eyed freshmen scanning the horizon of the future. At the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, it was "Visions."
More on boredom later.
Cheery Visions volunteers checked us in and gave us name tags, which my stepdaughter Lesley and I eschewed.
At Visions, I opted to stay in the dorm my stepdaughter likely will occupy, assuming finances miraculously come together and/or we don't exceed the limits on the six credit cards pressed into the service of fulfilling her desire to become a marine biologist.
Stripped of homey touches - like carpets, a TV and posters of Jimi Hendrix or whoever is "hot" these days - a dorm room is not a hospitable environment. Very likely, it bears a strong resemblance to accommodations typical at an institution for nonviolent, first offenders.
Fortunately, I'd packed a small TV, on which my roommate and I watched one of the better "Saturday Night Live" re-runs.
My "roomie" was a commercial real estate broker from Atlanta named Paul, who told me Visions was giving him a chance to spend some quality time with, get this, his ex-wife, staying one floor up, thanks.
At the least, they seemed to agree on their daughter.
For some reason known best only to the Visions planners, the men's room was in the other wing, necessitating trips through the lobby in flip-flops and towels in full view of a female front-desk Visions staffer who seemed permanently affixed to the telephone.
For some equally inexplicable reason, the women's room was in our wing, where fathers whose wives wisely opted to stay home were put up.
If nothing else, we parents who became dorm rats for a weekend came away with a sense of what campus life is like, sans cozy accoutrements: Sinks that don't drain, showers with missing handles, plastic-covered bed pillows, institutional food (not bad, really), chronic athlete's foot and buildings situated to ensure the longest possible distance between the entrance and the parking lot.
Of course, UNC-W is like all college campuses: There is no parking, often because they're putting another building where there used to be parking.
Couple that with the speed bumps every 50 feet and it makes walking or cycling a better bet.
A young woman I recognized as a former staffer for Radford University's dean of students, now at Wilmington, assured us UNC-W is not a party school (either). Same refrain, different campus.
Lesley "visioned" in another dorm and got acquainted with her future classmates, many mortified even to be in the same locale as their parents.
We spent most of Visions indoors in a big multipurpose room, where various college officials told us our offspring would be safe, well-fed and well-educated and, if needed, well-tutored and counseled.
As we learned at the session, some parents have a hard time "letting go." One young woman, apparently the first on her block to go to college, told Lesley how her folks discussed getting an RV to visit her during the school year. She threatened to drop out of college.
Two daughters approached awaiting moms after yet another presentation on academic expectations.
"It was sooooo boring!" the one likely future ex-student exclaimed.
I remarked (unsolicited) that a boring session was part of acclimating them to the typical college experience, of sitting quietly while a professor drones and doodles on the overhead screen.
OK, forget that it rained most of the weekend, and Wilmington is only minutes from the beach. Even at my advanced age I recognized the onset of possibly terminal boredom and spent part of the second day soaking my "free" Visions T-shirt in the surf. With winds pushing 30 mph and the seas running two to four feet with dangerous rip currents, it was a wild ol' time.
Visions highlight: Getting a $25 gift certificate from the bookstore for being on our fifth (jointly speaking) college-bound kid. Visions bummer: Finding the cheapest sweatshirt in the bookstore was $40.
Good luck, freshmen. Leave your cars home and enjoy those plastic-covered pillows.
I'm going to arrange to be out of town when the final orientation rolls around.
Rick Lindquist is a New River Valley bureau editorial assistant.
by CNB