Starting next fall, Goshen College will return to a three day orientation for first-year students, paring down the full week model that started in the fall of 2021. An email went out to GC employees on Tuesday afternoon that attributes this decision to their continued effort to “decrease costs while maintaining high quality.”

The transition to a full week came in response to perceived loss of learning by high school students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While GC has seen an increase in retention from first-year students during this period, Academic Dean Ann Vendrely told The Record that the rising rates of retention shouldn’t be only attributed to orientation week, but rather to the whole host of changes made by the college in an effort to make the experience at GC better — things like improved counseling and facility upgrades. 

Vendrely is the vice president of the finance and planning committee, a subcommittee of the President’s Cabinet, and the group who made the decision to cut the full week. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” Vendrely said. “I think it was a good move for us to expand it into a week after COVID, and to address some of the challenges of high school. It will give us some savings as well, which are really important with the way our budget is.”

“We have been spending more than we bring in for the last two years and even though we’ve got really robust fundraising, that’s not the answer to everything,” Vendrely said.

Adela Hufford, director of orientation, transition and retention, said that her largest expense during welcome week is food. She said, “If we are asking students to be here all day, they need to eat and we have plenty of students that aren’t going to be on meal plans and that shouldn’t be the barrier.”

“I know why decisions are made and I feel like I have a good enough working relationship with my Dean, and with Ben Bontrager [vice president of finance and operations] where I was able to name — I don’t agree, necessarily, with the decision, and it does make me sad,” Hufford said.

While the decision to change welcome week may have been isolated, Hufford said it also impacts the format of new student orientation, online orientation, introduction of the first year class; Identity, Culture and Community and how things operate in the Academic Success Center. Hufford said, “I’m not allergic to change. I don’t mind changing things but it needs to serve a purpose and it needs to be because we’ve received feedback that it needs to be different.”