A Brief Account On The Madness Of New Student Orientation ‘25
It all started the morning of Tuesday, August 19th, 2025. I had awoken, or rather I opened my eyes, as I hadn’t slept a second that night. I sat up in my bed, and after encountering the spider that lives in my window, I groggily checked GroupMe for where I was supposed to go. I was told to meet in front of the elephant statue outside of Kerwin. It took me longer than you would probably expect to actually figure out where Kerwin actually was on campus. I, for one, never heard the School of Public Affairs be referred to as such in my life until my Orientation Leader (OL) texted it in the GroupMe.
After standing outside Kerwin on that somewhat dreadful, misty Tuesday morning, we were directed to go to the Bender Arena for some sort of presentation. No one, including the OLs, knew what to expect within this presentation. After filing into those freezing cold, blue seats, the presentation started with attempting to hype us up:
“You’re all beautiful!” cried the man in the light gray suit. “Repeat after me!” The man in the light gray suit led us in a cult-like chant:
Man: Students:
“A!”
“U!”
“A!”
“U!”
“New Eagles!”
“New Eagles!”
“Talons up!”
“Talons up!”
“Take flight!”
“Take flight!”
It was not lost on me, and undoubtedly many others, the irony of these chants considering the summer reading, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. For those who don’t know, the summer reading was essentially about how cults manipulated people through language, with lovebombing being a particularly popular method, cough cough. Anyway, this whole “pep talk” section of the rally (I still don’t know what to call it really) would suddenly take a bizarre turn…
From my warped memory, a professor of Jewish Studies came out onto the floor of the Bender Arena. I did not think anything of it; it just seemed like another motivational or informational thing as practically everything has been up until this point. Dear reader, let me tell you: I. WAS. SO. SO. SO. WRONG. Every student and OL in the Bender Arena would, in sheer confusion, listen to this professor talk about antisemitism. When this tonal shift became apparent to me, all I could think was, “What?” Honestly, I don’t know what else my sleep deprived brain could’ve thought at that very moment. Really, what else could any freshmen or OL think at that moment? After this disassociation, I reoriented myself towards the presentation, finding the professor now speaking how since the October 7th attacks, that there has been a rise in antisemitism on college campuses around the nation. Another thing that I vividly remember was her mention of the shooting of Sarah Milgrim, an AU alumni, earlier this year. And after she finished a slide, she would, with perfect inflection, announce “NEXT SLIDE.” Towards the end of her presentation, she talked about the rise of Islamophobia. This was just tacked on at the very end. It was an extremely poor attempt to hide the Trumpist boot so willingly lapped up by this institution, besides all the funding that (allegedly) goes from the higher ups here to Israel. Had they really cared, they would have discussed it a lot more in depth than essentially saying, “Yeah, it happens.” Anyways, enough of my soapbox. NEXT PARAGRAPH.
The presentation by the professor morphed into a panel. Said panel involved several figures from the Kay Center, the professor, and the man himself: Jon Alger. I think the whole panel was about antisemitism, treating people fairly, hippie stuff like that. Now, I say “I think” because by this time, I had zoned out into another dimension. Remember: I did not sleep at all the previous night. And in my defense, I was not the only person completely taken away from this panel. Several of my Sea Eagle compatriots had taken to playing Clash Royale on their phones. I, the sophisticated man I am, played Block Blast. That, and staring pensively at my watch waiting for this panel to JUST END ALREADY. It did, somehow, but I’m still not entirely sure if I’ll wake up and be back sitting in that damn arena. END PARAGRAPH.
With all of that being said, I think that discussing topics like antisemitism and tolerance are important. However, it should be done in a better way than having a pep rally and immediately transitioning into a major conflict especially for this campus. You should really warn people that you’re going to talk about heavy topics like hate crimes and violence. Whoever was involved in planning the Bender Arena panel must have been living under a rock. I know AU is capable of planning something that is meant to be exciting for new students.
Looking toward the rest of the week, nothing particularly out of the ordinary would happen between Tuesday morning and Friday. Well, nothing like getting an unexpected talk about hate crimes when you feel like a school lunch left out in a hot car. Anywho, Father Time had decided to drag himself to Friday. Finally! We are so tired of getting talked at for days on end! What is going on today? Class picture? That sounds good! And it was, but it felt kind of boring just standing there before they took the goddamn thing. What else? Convocation? Super! At least I got talked at by Jonathan Alger and goddamn, he’s too sexy. He can terrorize Letts terrace as much as he wants to in my humble opinion. Yadayadayda, go tour your school and boom we’re done.
So class, what did we learn? Yes, Billy?
That The American University™ is a bastion of Zionism?
N- . . . well maybe. What else did we learn? Yes, Martha?
That my parent’s hard earned money is going to this mess.
HAHAHA, oh dear Martha, you chose this fine fine establishment!
Well actually I wanted to go t-
Yes yes, we know you wanted to go to Georgetown, everyone wanted to!
END ARTICLE