By Rachel Smith | Reporter
New Student Programs staff and student leaders are finishing training and proceeding to more technical preparations for 2017 Orientation and Line Camp.
During the fall semester, New Student Programs staff selected nine Student Leadership Team members and a large group of Line Camp leaders, who took a leadership development class during the spring semester. Coordinator for New Student Leadership Kimberly Black said New Student Programs staff recognizes that hosting Orientation and Line Camp is a university effort.
“Even though we’ve been tasked with the programming, it’s the campus community that makes it happen,” Black said. “It’s very sweet to be in a community that’s also excited about partnering with us. They’re Baylor programs more than they are [New Student Programs] programs.”
Black said she looks forward to extending hospitality to students who have never experienced the Baylor family and the opportunity to minister to various people.
“We get to embody a spirit of hospitality,” Black said. “I look forward to seeing our student leaders doing that really well.”
Black also said she hopes for incoming students to form points of significant connection during summer programs and to call Baylor their home afterward.
“For our leaders, my hope is that they learn more about themselves and, vocationally, that they see who God has created them to be in a space where they can live that out in a meaningful way,” Black said.
Snyder freshman Kaiden Johnson, who will serve as a Line Camp leader, is finishing the leadership class.
“It’s really been about how to foster good community, how to be a servant leader and how to love and lead well,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he applied to be a Line Camp leader because of the impact last year’s leaders left on him as well as the opportunity he saw to make a difference in incoming students’ lives.
“I look forward to pouring into their lives, hopefully to help them have as good of a Line Camp experience as I did,” Johnson said.
Orientation will occur in 10 sessions throughout June, with an August session available for students who received their class schedule through alternate registration, according to the New Student Programs website. Line Camp will occur in 12 sessions – eight traditional and four specialty sessions – from June to August.
Winchester, Va., freshman Caroline Lynch will also serve as a Line Camp leader this summer. Though Lynch did not attend Line Camp as an incoming student, she said she wanted to work with incoming students.
“It’s just really an awesome opportunity to be that first face when they walk on campus and encourage them that Baylor can be a place that can be their home for the next four years,” Lynch said.
Lynch said many students are ready to start over after high school.
“So many of us have been thinking of these students and praying for these students,” Lynch said. “I pray that Line Camp will be the first step for them to become the person they want to become.”
Lynch said her leadership style has changed through the class.
“I really believe everyone has a voice and can use that to make a difference in the world,” Lynch said. “I understand I can’t do everything now, but I can do what’s in my power to make people feel welcomed and loved.”
