June 20, 2007
At Rollins College, Summer Orientation means incoming first-year students have the opportunity to immediately get out into the neighborhood and take part in community service projects. Rollins has been working with Fern Creek Elementary with a variety of service-learning projects for the last seven years. This year is no different.
“Fern Creek provides a safe environment for new students to start their journey of service learning,” said Director of First Year Programs Doug Little. “Before even going to school full-time students, our students are learning to be global citizens and responsible leaders. We hope this experience helps them develop a behavior of helping others, which will give them confidence to reach out to other communities and start initiatives of their own.”
During Summer Orientation, about 200 new Rollins students visited Fern Creek during four trips to help with everything from landscaping to replacing bulletin boards to painting to cleaning books. The school has more than 9,000 books in its Media Center and they had not been cleaned in several years. Students used soap, water and paper towels to wipe down every book in the Media Center.
“We want to provide our new generation of students with an experience that is near and dear to the Rollins community as a whole,” said Assistant Director of Community Engagement Meredith Hein. “Rollins reaches out to Fern Creek students in many ways all year long.”
Rollins also works with Fern Creek on a mentoring program where students, faculty and staff visit the school for 30-45 minutes each week to meet with kids. In addition, for the past two years, Fern Creek students have visited Rollins to see what it’s like to be a college student for a day.
For the third year in a row, Fern Creek Elementary has received an “A” grade, which is based on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Team (FCAT) scores.
Summer Orientation is part of Rollins Explorations. The program allows freshmen to control their own destiny and make the most of their college experience. The goal of the multi-faceted program is to integrate students into a curriculum of courses and programs both inside and outside of the classroom that help them learn, make connections and have fun. Current Rollins students serve as peer mentors to help guide new students through the process of starting college.
