The Oracle
W E D N E S DAY, M AY 3 0 , 2 0 1 8 I VO L . 5 5 N O . 5 9
www.usforacle.com
U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H F L O R I DA
A new-look orientation for first-year students
By Josh Fiallo M A N A G I N G
E D I T O R
When future first-year USF students come to orientation in the summer of 2018, they will be exposed to a far different experience from years past. Opposed to long hours spent in the Marshall Student Center (MSC) Ballroom listening to speaker after speaker, students will now be led to different classrooms around campus to have more engaging meetings with their orientation leaders (OL). Some would-be powerpoint presentations will be now be replaced with mini-competitions among the individual orientation teams. Attendees will also be able to access an orientation guide and schedule through USF Orientation’s
brand-new application, USF #myOrientation Guide, which is available on Google Play and the App Store. “We’ve done a complete overhaul of what the (orientations’) content is,” Marnie Hauser, Director of Orientation, said. “We’re trying to reduce the firehose effect of information on new students.” Hauser said that orientation in 2018 will feature a higher emphasis on preparing future students for their first day of classes at USF, opposed to attempting to prepare them for all four years at once. “We’re looking more at what they (future students) need to know now,” she said. Hauser said that all orientation sessions will still start and finish in the MSC in 2018. The sessions in-between, however, will be
held individually in different locations around campus, with OL’s leading them. The purpose of this is to not only engage students more as they are hearing directly from another student in a small group, but to also help the future students familiarize themselves with campus. In an additional effort to make orientation more personal for first-time students, USF Orientation will increase the number of first-year student sessions in 2018 to 13, despite the same number of first-year students, 4200, estimated to go through orientation. To pair with the smaller sessions, Orientation also added a higher number of OL’s for 2018, while also increasing their pay from a onetime stipend to $10 an hour. “Orientation has changed a lot from last year,” Janel Ramos, a
second-year OL, said. “It’s under a completely new system. It’s all about interaction between OL’s and students, with team competitions and students being involved in discussion.” After serving as a student OL last year, Ramos is now a Family
and Guest OL in 2018. She said that last year, she would have 10-12 students in her first-time student orientation group. In 2018, OL’s leading students now have eight-10. She also said that the believes
the Gulf of Mexico. “No one had written a book on the history of the Gulf of Mexico and as someone who grew up (near) there, it was a good fit for me,” Davis said. “I had this wonderful opportunity to be the first to write one and bring it into the larger American historical narrative where it belongs.” Davis said winning the Pulitzer Prize came as a shock to him. “It was a total surprise,” Davis said. “I didn’t know whether the book had been nominated, but I had suspected it might have been. The Pulitzer folks
don’t announce the finalists until they announce the winner, so it’s very top secret. A lot of journalists know who the finalists are, but as far as the authors who are up for very literary categories, I don’t think anybody knows. I had no suspicion, I was stunned. It came as a complete surprise.” According to Davis, he began gathering research materials for his book during the same time as the BP Oil Spill, a major event polluting the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Wanting to educate the public, Davis feared
this incident would cover up the true history of the Gulf. “I wanted my readers to know that the Gulf of Mexico was more than just this oil spill and some vacation spot,” Davis said. “It’s a place with rich and wonderful history that’s very much a part of the larger American historical narrative. In college and high school textbooks however, there’s a good chance you won’t even find the Gulf of Mexico in the index.” Published in 2017, Davis’ book touches only slightly on the oil spill’s destruction.
“The oil spill has very little mention in my book,” Davis said. “I did not want it to dominate the story. One event does not define a place any more than one event does not define an individual. That was really a shaking force in the way I developed this book. When I write about the history of a place, it’s like a biography.” Growing up in the Tampa Bay area, Davis said his connection with the Gulf started early. “I’d spend all my time out on the
Orientation Leader Janel Ramos working the help and information desk. ORACLE PHOTO/CHAVELI GUZMAN
n See CHANGES on PAGE 3
USF alumnus and professor wins a Pulitzer Prize By Matthew Cutillo S T A F F
W R I T E R
Spending time at the Gulf of Mexico can be a great vacation spot for many, but there is more to the story than some may know. Jack Davis, a USF graduate and current history professor at USF St. Petersburg, won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in History on April 16 for his book, “The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea.” An environmental historian, Davis said he felt compelled to write the book to help restore identity to
n See PULITZER on PAGE 3