Bleeding Purple and Gold

Who assists a prospective student or a first year? At James

Madison University the Office of Admissions and Office of Orientation
provide these possible and current students with a JMU student who
volunteers to guide them, help them, and mentor them during their
time at JMU. Every year these offices provide these students with OPAs,
FrOGs, and Student Ambassadors. This situation reoccurs every year,
which then brings about a generic quality.
According to Sonja Foss, The generic critic seeks to discover
commonalities in rhetorical patterns across recurring situations (137).
The Office of Admissions and Office of Orientation develop these
activities every year so that the new freshmen have a better
understanding of the school and relationship with JMU. They created
these three volunteer programs as a way of student outreach. These
upperclassmen help the underclassmen better acclimate to campus.
The two offices see how successful these programs have been and
continue to use them. Tour guides keep returning and are involved in
the prospective students lives. They impact them and influence the
students choice. Its a cycle, new students come to tour campus either
their Junior or Senior year. After they made their decision they go for
Summer Springboard where their OPA helps them. After that a month
or two later their FrOG helps them navigate around campus and make
them feel like they are a part of the JMU community. All three of these

volunteers will be present to welcome the new students; it is inevitable

these volunteers will reoccur every new year in order to help the
incoming students.
Foss states how genre refers to a distinct group, type, class, or
category of artifacts that share important characteristics that
differentiate it from other groups (137). These student volunteers who
work through the Office of Admissions and the Office of Orientation are
under the same genre. The genre is student volunteers for prospective
students. Under that genre are three sub-genres: Tour guides, OPAs,
and FrOGs. All three of these are distinct groups who have gone
through an application and interview process to be where they are
today. They volunteered to be a part of these organizations. It sets
them apart from other students making this group similar in the fact
that all three help freshmen choose JMU and become more comfortable
with living and being a part of campus.
Student Ambassadors, also known as tour guides, volunteer to
assist these students in helping them make their choice to attend JMU
during an on campus tour. The tour guides walk a group of prospective
students and their parents all around JMUs campus, informing them on
everything, from names of buildings, to how dining halls work, to what
to expect living in a residence hall. Student Ambassadors can shape a
prospective students decision and may be a factor in them choosing to
attend JMU.

Orientation Peer Advisers, also known as OPAs, are JMU students

who work with the freshmen during the First-Year Summer Springboard
days and during 1787 August Orientation program. During the
Springboard days in June and July freshmen get to know their OPA and
spend the day with them along with other freshmen. The OPA will give
students advice and tell them what it is like to be a first year,
explaining what to expect. During the day freshmen create their
upcoming fall schedule.
First Year Orientation Guides, also knows as FrOGs, begin
assisting students the day of move in. They help unload all the vehicles
and get kids settled in. Then they are with the freshmen for the rest of
the week. FrOGs take students to certain activities that JMU provides
for the roughly 5,000 freshmen. They are terrific at answering
questions and making students feel comfortable in their new
environment. They act almost as the freshmens parents for the first
couple days of the school year. Icebreakers are very common among
activities that help make freshmen feel more comfortable with their
hall mates. A good FrOG will last throughout their entire year, not just
their first week. FrOGs are a great way to help freshmen get to know
their campus and to make them feel extremely comfortable and cared
for.
Each of these distinct groups has a certain appearance to them
that allows people to recognize what they are a part of. The FrOGs

wear khaki shorts, a yellow-orange t-shirt, with tennis shoes. The OPAs
wear khaki shorts paired with their OPA purple, collared shirt that
models the OPA logo. The tour guides wear khaki shorts or pants along
with a purple, collared shirt that models the Student Ambassadors
logo. If I were to see either shirt I would know what organization this
student is a part of.

My OPA
Kerry
wearing
the OPA
shirt.

My friend
Savannah, a
Student
Ambassador,
wearing the tour
guide shirt.

My FrOGs, Marc
and Michelle
wearing the
FrOG t-shirts.

The Orientation Offices webpage states their main objective;

The Orientation Office provides a variety of opportunities for current
students to serve JMU through assisting first-year and transfer students
in their transition to campus. Peer connection is a powerful means to
show an authentic and dynamic view of the JMU community. Student
staff contributions give life to the Orientation programs and leave
impressions on incoming students, guests, and one another that last a
lifetime. Orientation seeks a group of individuals who embody
characteristics that represent the diversity within this community
(JMU). This is what JMU is looking for when they are looking for
prospective OPAs and FrOGs.
The Student Ambassadors site through the Office of Admissions
states, Student Ambassadors positively represent James Madison
University to prospective students, guests, and current students
through service to the Office of Admissions and the JMU community

(JMU). This is what JMU is looking for when they are looking for
prospective Student Ambassadors.
From holding a college orientation program, it can be viewed as
a form of anticipatory socialization. Anticipatory socialization is a
process or set of experiences through which individuals come to
anticipate correctly the values, norms, and behaviors they will
encounter in a new social setting. To the extent that such anticipatory
socialization is effective, the individual should become more
successfully integrated into the new setting and function effectively in
it. Thus, precollege orientation experiences may be one mechanism
whereby colleges positively influence the anticipatory socialization of
incoming students. It would follow that students exposed to such
orientation experiences would be some- what more successful in
becoming initially integrated into an institution's academic and social
systems during the freshman year than their counterparts not exposed
to orientation experiences (Orientation). This excerpt from the Ohio
State University publication states that this socialization is effective
and works well for helping freshmen transition into college.
The three sub-genres, OPAs, FrOGs, and tour guides all make up
the genre of student volunteers at JMU. The Office of Admissions and
the Office of Orientation provide these prospective students and
freshmen with upperclassmen that positively reflect JMUs way and
values. Each individual impacts and helps shape that freshmans time

during orientation week and makes an impression on that student they

will remember forever.

Works Cited
Ernest T. Pascarella, Patrick T. Terenzini, Lee M. Wolfle. The Journal of
Higher

Education, Vol. 57, No. 2. Orientation to College and

Freshman Year

Persistence/Withdrawal Decisions. Ohio State

University Press. 156-157.

Foss, Sonja. Rhetorical Criticism. Long Grove. Waveland Press, Inc.,
2009. Print. 137.
"Orientation." James Madison University. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
Student Ambassadors. James Madison University. N.p., n.d. Web. 09
Oct. 2013.