New Student Outreach Ideas (Summer 2004)

PLANNING NSO
Oberlin College (OH) by Marc Davidson

Who plans New Student Outreach in your chapter? At Oberlin College, NSO events are planned by students who are not on the exec team because those leaders already have plenty on their plates. Each year NSO is carried out by students who had experience helping out with NSO the previous year. This also helps extend leadership to other members of the fellowship.

A key element of our NSO is that we do the same thing every year, so that NSO becomes second nature and is easily passed on to the next student generation. We found that having traditions is important and makes NSO less stressful and more enjoyable for the chapter.

It’s important to get a freshman orientation calendar for your school and, if possible, talk to the administrators who are planning freshman orientation week so they know who you are and what activities you want to do. This is helpful because it ensures that you won’t be holding events when there is a mandatory meeting that the freshmen have to participate in. Also, we sometimes get free publicity for our events because many administrators want to make sure that the spiritual and religious needs of first-year students are not only respected but also fulfilled.

A big reason that NSO at Oberlin was so successful last year is that the student leaders returned to campus early and had a planning retreat that was led by the non-exec member in charge of NSO. This really focused the team and helped build a sense of esprit de corps for our campus outreach.

FIRED UP
UC-San Diego (CA)
by Jeff Pearson

When 3,800 freshmen showed up at UC-San Diego last September, our chapter was ready and excited to greet them. A group of student leaders realized that the first night in the dorms is a very critical time. Freshmen are eager to get out and make friends. So InterVarsity students planned a last-minute bonfire down at the beach and began inviting all the freshmen they had met while helping with move-in. We wanted to provide an alternative to the typical parties in the dorms that center around alcohol. Some student leaders spent most of the night driving back and forth from campus to the beach to get freshmen there. More than 100 students showed up to the bonfire, most of them not yet Christians.

A few days later we threw a free barbecue for new students in the center of campus. With three grills working constantly for more than three hours, we managed to feed over 600 students. It was a great week of inviting new students to the abundance of God’s party. All of the hard work paid off when 375 students showed up for our first large-group meeting later that week. We had a wonderful night of worship and calling students to pursue God in the context of community.

TRY A BIBLE STUDY
Rochester Institute of Technology (NY)
by Beth Cruz

It’s Thursday evening during NSO week at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). A group of ten faithful students gathers in a circle and prays as they prepare to visit students and invite them to something we’ve never done during NSO: a Bible study. We have stiff competition on campus tonight! A “root-beer kegger” is being held by another group, and the school is sponsoring the ever-popular Vegas Night. In addition, RIT’s orientation schedule has had the freshmen running from early in the morning until late at night all week. To be honest, we expect maybe 15 people will show up. Nevertheless, we hope and prepare for more. Seven small group leaders are ready to lead studies if they are needed.

An hour later, we’re in the conference room in Nathaniel Rochester Hall and the place is packed out! There are seven small groups of at least ten people each that have formed and the room is buzzing as students discuss 1 John 5. In my small group I meet Austin, a charismatic photo major who takes off a knit cap to reveal his long braids, and Jess, a transfer student from Kentucky who is looking forward to being involved in an active fellowship. In all, about 50 freshmen have come to our Bible study, and all of a sudden we realize we’re in need of more small groups! Praise God for blowing away our expectations!

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM IN THE QUAD?
DePaul University (IL)
by Ann Boyd

One of the most creative NSO ideas at DePaul University was a plan to read Dr. Seuss books out loud in the Quad. Kirra dragged her inflatable purple chair over to our assigned location in the Quad where we spread out on blankets, ate lollipops, and took turns declaiming classics like Green Eggs and Ham. We handed out lollipops (with our meeting info attached) to passers-by.

Was the event successful? Not particularly, in terms of meeting new people. But the students had a blast. When asked if they should do this again next year, Kirra said, “I think we should do this every quarter!” Others thought it would be too uncomfortable with snow on the ground, but Kirra was unruffled.

UNIQUE IN IDENTITY, UNITED IN PURPOSE
UT-Austin (TX)
by Sabrina Chan

InterVarsity at UT-Austin is a family of five fellowships. To serve a school of 52,000, there is one graduate fellowship, one undergraduate multi-ethnic fellowship, and three ethnic-specific fellowships (African American, East-Asian American, and South-Asian American). Last year, staff and students wanted to create an all-fellowship NSO event. It was challenging to decide on an event that would serve all the different communities at the same time, but the planning team came up with one unifying theme: Free Food.

Thus, F4 (Free Food Fun Fest) was born. After much logistical planning and prayer, on the day of the party we set up five tables across campus where students and staff passed out flyers for four hours. Everyone on campus that day seemed to have one of the flyers. Resting briefly, we moved quickly to set up a large dragon moonwalk, cotton candy machine, sno-cones, and a sound system. To be honest, most of us were apprehensive about whether people would come. We were planning for about 200 current I-V students and 200 new people. The flyers listed the party as 9 p.m.-1 a.m. At 8:30, groups of I-V students did a quick “dorm blitz,” going through dorms and inviting people to free food on the East Mall of campus.

New students started coming by 8:40 p.m. (we forgot that first-years come early!), and by 9:02 p.m. we ran out of the 100 free t-shirts. We also gave away 600 glow sticks, ate 100 pizzas, used 400 pounds of ice for sno-cones, and handed out over 5,200 fliers advertising the event. We estimated that 800 to 1,000 students came, with 635 requesting more information on contact cards. In addition, more than 50 people indicated that they weren’t Christian but had spiritual questions they wanted to talk about. The value of all our work? Immeasurable!

When the different fellowships come together to party, it’s usually characterized by dancing, and this was no exception. With many different types of music, we celebrated together and invited first-year students to party with us. The next day, teams of students followed up on those expressing interest with nearly a thousand home-made cookies and information on different fellowships’ NSO activities. Doing things in partnership takes extra thoughtfulness, work, and planning. But in doing so, we are able to live out our unity, and reach the whole campus far more than each fellowship could individually. We look forward to what God will continue to do as we seek to reach UT together and in each of our communities.

SUMMER PRAYER, FALL FRUIT
Union College (NY)
by Danielle Bailey

The prayer life in our chapter at Union College in Schenectady, NY, was not very strong last year. I pointed out to the leaders that the only way we were going to have a fellowship that prays is if we have a leadership team that prays. We challenged ourselves to consider what it would look like to spend as many hours praying for our freshman outreach as we spent doing it. And so we prayed all summer for the fall outreach. We asked God for a lot of new students, particularly freshmen, who would bring fresh life and passion into the fellowship.

For our outreach, we handed out 500 bottles of water to the freshman class on move-in day. The bottles had labels on them that let people know about our group, along with when and where our meetings were. We also attached a response card for people who wanted follow-up.

As students received these water bottles and saw the flyers that were hung around campus, they responded by coming to our meetings! Now there is more life in the fellowship, and some of the students who have sporadically come in the past are now more committed. It’s tempting to chalk it up to good advertising, but we know better. God answers prayer!

IMPORTED BAGELS
Vassar College (NY)
by Ginny Teeter

During NSO at Vassar College, the chapter put on a Bagel Brunch, with bagels driven in from New Jersey (they have huge bagels!). Freshmen were invited to stop by and grab a free bagel and mingle with upperclassmen who invited them to the weekly fellowship meetings. Many stopped by; it’s amazing what free food will do! Our students were very welcoming and friendly and helped new students feel a part of what was going on.

When Vassar held its first large-group meeting for the semester, there were close to 50 students there! This is an answer to prayer. Just a few years ago, there were only three or four students who would show up on an average fellowship night. God’s hand is definitely at work on the Vassar campus!

KICKBALL AND KRISPY KREMES®
UC-Berkeley (CA)
by Nikki Toyama

The kickball bumped unsteadily on the pavement of Underhill parking lot on the campus of UC-Berkeley. Two teams of 35 students on each side were running and yelling at each other, “Back up in the outfield!” Even though it was 10 p.m., people began to gather under the lights of the large parking lot to watch the kickers, runners and catchers. “What dorm is this?” one of the observers asked. It gave us a great opportunity to talk about God and the fellowship. We invited folks to come play. Many did.

In addition to a friendly game of kickball, we greeted students by distributing more than 2,000 fliers, blitzed the dorm with Krispy Kreme® donuts, and invited people to our barbeque (“Free steaks!”). We looked for opportunities to be friendly and welcoming, even offering rides to Target. The I-V students were excited as we met nightly to share stories and pray. People told stories of the risks they took, and how God had worked before they even took the first step.

—Has your school tried some creative New Student outreach ideas that have worked well? Let us know! Send your story to us. We’ll try to include it in our next NSO feature.