Orientation week, dubbed O-Week, starts for incoming Dalhousie University students this Thursday, Aug. 29. It’s a jam-packed week deserving of its own website.
Last year’s O-Week saw over 2,000 students attend its larger events, the vice president of student life for the Dal Student Union, Ana Patton, tells The Coast. “This year, we’d like to see that many, or even more,” says Patton, who has been key to planning this year’s events. Nothing overlaps, so if you want to max out on O-Week, you really could.
“We’re looking to foster community between all the incoming students and our current community,” says Patton, “and to set the tone for what their experience at Dal can look like by having these community-oriented events, allowing them to make friends, learning about who’s in leadership and who they can go to—by putting my face and all my colleagues’ faces everywhere.”
When Patton started at Dal in 2020, there was no in-person O-Week due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Having that vibrancy and the liveliness of campus is really something that I’d like to see and that I would have loved to have had,” says Patton. For this upcoming week, “having fun, community building and creating an exciting and lively campus is most valuable to me.”
Geared towards first-year students, this year’s O-Week has a full schedule across its 10 days, including a carnival, an outdoor movie night, a home-cooked meal and smudging ceremony at the Indigenous Student Centre, sports to watch and play, a Point Pleasant Park bike ride, a block party organized by the Black Student Support Network, an International Student Orientation scavenger hunt and much, much more.
All of the larger, ticketed events will be held on the Studley campus quad, where a stage will be set up for the first weekend of O-Week. The carnival, which Patton says is not a ticketed event, will also be held there.
Ticket packages for the bigger “main stage” O-Week events happening over the first weekend are available for purchase at the Dal Student Union Building (6136 University Avenue) on Thursday and Friday Aug. 29 and 30, from 9am to 1pm. Ticket packages are $90 cash, and Patton says ticket holders receive O-Week schwag kits “with goodies inside.”
Because O-Week is focused on welcoming first-years to student life at Dal, all events are dry.
Patton says they’ve received a special event permit for noise allowances from the city so that events can run the first weekend—Labour Day weekend—until between midnight and 1am.
The DSU and fellow O-Week leaders will wear hot pink or teal t-shirts with “Executive” or “Staff” written on them. Patton says anyone with any questions can flag them down, and they’ll help you or direct you to what you need. Dal Security will also be present for the week.
The Coast has asked Dal whether Halifax Regional Police officers will be on site for O-Week or were involved in planning safety on campus, but did not receive an answer to either question. Instead, the university provided a statement saying Dal and the DSU have partnered for an O-Week “that provides numerous events for our students to engage with one another; while ensuring we facilitate a safe and welcoming space for all students” and that the university “encourage[s] our students to engage in these fun opportunities while taking care of themselves, each other, and our neighbours and community.”
The university’s statement lists support for students during orientation, including a Care Hub, which will be located on Studley Quad and will have snacks, water, charging stations and more; the student-led Dal Campus Medical Response Team that offers medical and mental health first aid and will be at the Care Hub during orientation; Dal Security which runs 24-7; the Dal SAFE app; as well as New to Dal online and in-person programming for incoming students and Together@Dal, which is a mentorship program that matches new students with current students.
“Our approach is always a harm-reduction approach,” says Patton, who couldn’t say whether Dal Security contacted the HRP to plan for O-Week, though not as far as she knows—and recommended Dal answer that question. “We want to keep students as safe and happy as possible in our community.” She says O-Week is about meeting your student union, building safe and inclusive communities—and having fun.
“We can get really caught up in the academic side of things—and I know I’m super guilty of this,” says Patton, “but student life, events and programming are really essential to creating balance in a place where our entire lives, as students, revolve around us being here.”
O-Week introduces students to this balance and tells them “early on, that there are supports in place, and we’re not just here to ‘do’ school,” Patton says. “Yes, it’s a university, but there’s much more here.”
Patton says community-oriented events, in partnership with faculty, residences, and student centres, are geared towards those students who might not be drawn to the larger parties happening during O-Week. “Everybody is welcome, even if you don’t want to come to a party—there is a lot of smaller programming, and there’s really something for everyone.”
Patton says anyone with questions on anything O-Week-related should contact her by email at vpstudentlife.at.dsu.ca@dal.ca. She also encourages everyone to come out to karaoke night on Saturday, Aug. 31, on the quad. “It’s a really underrated event,” says Patton, a self-professed karaoke-lover. “It’s super fun, super silly, and students can come and sing their hearts out in a place of no judgment—we’re just looking to have a good time.”
This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2024.