Princeton Weekly Bulletin September 21, 1998
Orange Key opens campus
Nearly 30,000 visitors tour University each year with volunteer student guides
By Caroline
Moseley
It's 10:00 a.m., a typical summer day on campus. Undaunted by New Jersey heat and humidity, about 45 people gather outside the tiny Orange Key Guide Service office in Maclean House, waiting for an Orange Key guide to introduce them to Princeton University. Later tours, even more populous, will leave at 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 and 3:30 p.m.
This 10:00 a.m. group follows Marin Plank '99, a psychology major, into the Maclean House garden, where she greets them with an exhuberant "Welcome to Princeton University!" Visitors have traveled from Illinois, Nebraska, Virginia, California, Tennessee and Pennsylvania; all are prospective students or members of their families.
Orange Key guides are aware that first impressions are lasting impressions. Plank's demeanor is friendly, informative but not didactic, and always leavened with humor. "I'm going to be walking backwards," she says, "so if you see a truck coming, let me know."
Not just old dead guys
Plank takes the group through Nassau Hall, identifying the portraits in the Faculty Room. "These are not just pictures of old dead guys," she says. "These are a few of the fascinating people who have been important to us at Princeton." In Blair Arch she demonstrates the electronic entry system and the blue-light phone, because several parents have asked about campus safety. "It's a very safe campus," she assures them. "There are blue-light phones everywhere, and Public Safety is always cruising by." While in the arch, she encourages the group to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" so they can appreciate the acoustics.
All along the route, which continues by Cannon Green, Whig and Clio halls, Murray-Dodge and the Chapel, and ends near Firestone Library, Plank offers relevant information. For example, outside Mathey College she discusses residential life, and outside East Pyne she talks about Princeton's language requirement. She answers many questions about academic and residential life: "Can you study abroad?" "How hard is it to get on a varsity team?" "Can you switch your major?"
Most questions, says Plank, are "pretty reasonable. Once a person asked me why the doors of Dickinson Hall are blue. Why do you suppose he wanted to know that? Anyway, I had to say I didn't know. I never tease or make fun of people, just try to answer questions honestly."
Plank says the questions "help keep us alert. When you say the same thing over and over," she explains, "it's possible to get stale and kind of go on automatic. You have to keep reminding yourself that it's the first time the people have heard the information, and it may be all they ever hear about Princeton."
In addition, "I feel very lucky to be here, and I really want to share all the good things about Princeton with the people who come to visit. Also, my brother is a high school senior, and I treat our visitors the way I would like him to be treated when he goes to look at colleges."
What distinguishes Princeton
Len Teti '99, a history major, heads the summer Orange Key program. "Summer is our busiest time," he says, "because so many students are looking at schools." Many of the summer visitors, he observes, "are just plain tired. They may be looking at Harvard, Yale, Browngoing right down Route 95, with maybe a few other stops on the way. They can be exhausted and cranky, and the schools start to blend together in their minds."
Therefore, Teti's main concern is "to point out the things that distinguish Princeton from other colleges. On my tours I talk about the precept, the residential system, Firestone's open stacks, the independent work in junior and senior year."
He emphasizes Princeton's commitment to undergraduate education, usually while he leads the group through Nassau Hall. "I underscore this before they see the rest of the campus," he says. "It means a lot more to them then, when they realize every building, every facility they see, is one that will be used by them or their children."
Host, teacher, performer
Clearly, an Orange Key guide is part host, part teacher and part performer (not coincidentally, Teti is this year's Triangle Club president). It is not easy to become a guide. About 100 students apply and about 25 new guides are accepted each year for the volunteer position.
The first step toward becoming a guide is to study A Guide for Guides: Facts and Traditions of Princeton University, "the veritable Bible" for Orange Key guides, according to chair Simona Deutsch '99. While the book offers "a wealth of knowledge of Princeton history," Deutsch reminds guides, "Our goal at Orange Key is to provide informative and animated tours led by real human beings, not some sort of history-spouting auto- mated machine."
The Guide for Guides contains information on the University's leaders from Aaron Burr and Jonathan Dickinson to Harold Shapiro; campus buildings of note, from Nassau Hall, with its atrium and Faculty Room, to the new Woolworth Center of Musical Studies; and other features of the campus, architectural and otherwise, such as William M. Weaver '34 Stadium, Cannon Green and the Putnam Sculpture Collection. Also in the book is information about residential and academic life, including distribution requirements; the guides are familiar with much, but not all, of this material from personal experience.
After mastering the Guide for Guides, Orange Key candidates must go on several tours led by current guides, says Teti, as well as a "logistics walk. You show them, for instance, where the lights in the Faculty Room are located. Then they lead a couple of tours, observed by other Orange Key guides." The final decision is up to Orange Key officers.
28,762 visitors in '97-98
According to Orange Key administrator Joyce Shaffer, between June 1, 1997 and May 31, 1998, Orange Key guides led 1,286 tours that included 28,762 visitors to campus. This summer saw more than 13,200 people gathered outside Maclean Housefortunately, not all at the same time. Most of those who take tours are prospective students and their families, Shaffer says: of this summer's visitors, around 3,500 were prospective students.
Shaffer points out that Orange Key also offers tours to special interest groups, such as "senior citizen organizations, historical societies and museum groups." Such groups must schedule their visit with Orange Key ahead of time.
Shaffer, who has been with Orange Key for eight years, notes that Orange Key does not exist to serve only an off-campus population. "We are a wonderful resource for campus departments and for all University staff," she says.
So, when your 16-year-old nephew decides to check out Princeton University, or when Aunt Milly comes to visit, or when you decide you'd like to know more the University yourself, call Orange Key at 609-258-3060.