Welcome to Ouachita’s world. After many hours of purchasing, packing and praying, you drive into Arkadelphia, pass Cliff Harris Stadium and head up the hill to a stop sign, where a few smiling students approach your overstuffed vehicle.
With a clipboard and umbrella in hand, they slap a colored sticky note onto the inside of your windshield and bid you farewell with a hearty, “Welcome to Ouachita!”
From there you are treated to great music, good food and a variety of events that help alleviate some of the anxiety of starting college. You develop relationships within your small group, receive your freshman beanie and maybe even participate in a little karaoke.
However, as you strengthen friendships and make memories, those students on the hill are working tirelessly to set up your next event. After you rock out to “Breaking Free” from “High School Musical,” those same students stay an extra hour to pick up the purple and gold mess you and your friends leave behind.
Known as the WOW Steering Committee, these nine students play an integral role in the annual success of Ouachita’s freshman orientation.
“Welcome to Ouachita’s World (WOW) has been impacting the lives of new students since the late 90s. It is designed to bring students from different educational backgrounds, different cultures and different worldviews to our campus and show them how they might fit into the ongoing story of Ouachita Baptist University,” said Tim Harrell, student life director at Ouachita. “Without the efforts of the WOW Steering Committee, this event would not happen. Plain and simple.”
Arriving on campus five days before move-in, the committee and Harrell set forth the basic vision for the weekend’s festivities. Each committee member is assigned one or two events that they are in charge of planning and overseeing.
“With Tim’s help, we keep all of the behind-the-scenes work functioning to ensure a successful WOW for the leaders and freshmen,” said Abby Root, senior speech communication and theatre education major from Arkadelphia. “We team up group leaders and assign them their freshmen. We plan all of move-in and run it. We plan and execute the WOW cup competition, tigers and torches, as well as the purple and gold party.”
Some events – such as coffeehouse – need little more than tablecloths, candy and votive candles, while preparation for family group time requires the grouping of WOW leaders, the assigning of freshmen to those groups and detailed work on spreadsheets to organize the information. The committee also makes necessary purchases if materials for events are not available.
Nearly 100 WOW leaders arrive on Wednesday, and the committee is responsible for training them. Most of the day is spent going over the schedule, answering questions and demonstrating games for the leaders to use in their family group times and the WOW cup competition.
However, even with the detailed preparation and effective training of the WOW leaders, something will always go wrong. Each committee member is prepared to respond to a situation in a timely manner, and this year that came in the form of a continuously changing rain plan.
To keep their sticky notes and clipboards dry on top of the hill during move-in, committee members came armed with ponchos and umbrellas. Rather than letting freshman family groups battle it out in the brown soup of the village circle, WOW steering sent them to vie for the WOW cup in the un-air conditioned hallways of SPEC, dodging slippery floors and human pyramids along the way.
“During my time on WOW steering, I learned how to think quickly and effectively,” said Alec Edmonds, sophomore worship arts major from Little Rock. “There were multiple times when we as a group had to quickly come up with a plan when things didn’t play out as expected. My experience has given me such an appreciation for all the people who were on steering my freshman year.”
WOW leader applications for 2017 will be available at the end of the fall semester. Next year’s WOW Steering Committee members will be chosen from those applying for WOW leader positions. The hours are long and the work can be difficult, but current members affirm that the end result is worth every minute of it.
“We have to work as a team for steering or WOW could not happen. While sometimes it gets very tiring, our reward comes from seeing the joy on the new students’ faces as they fall in love with Ouachita,” Root said.
Harrell added, “Our model is not completely unique to OBU, but I think the longer weekend with high impact events are the key parts to our formula. To me, WOW is a pivotal moment in the lives of new students, and I have the privilege of being a part of that. I get to work closely with some of the best students on campus. Yes, Ouachita is a great school, but it’s the people that really make her shine.”
From Their Perspective
McKenzie Wells, 2015-2016 Committee Member:
“There was a moment when we all changed from being just a group of students passionate about WOW to good friends – friends that are servant hearted, encouraging and who you end up missing like crazy.”
Candee Jo Bloxom, 2016 Committee Member:
“I barely knew any of the other members coming into the week, but they were all very welcoming and great to work with. I got less sleep during the week than I ever have, but it was so worth it for the memories that we made.”
Aaden Jones, 2016 Committee Member:
“My goal going into WOW steering was to create an event that was good enough to welcome such an amazing class of freshmen. In spite of set backs and tiredness, we pushed through and put something together that we can all be proud of.”
For more information about getting involved with WOW or Ouachita Student Life, contact Tim Harrell at harrellt@obu.edu.
By Evan Wheatley, features editor
