Students at Queen’s have all experienced an Orientation Week fragmented across two weekends. However, it has not always been this way, nor does it need to be.
Orientation Week has changed considerably over the years. In the past, Orientation Week took place entirely before classes, allowing students to meet people, settle in, and adjust to university life before academics began.
That changed in 2018, when Queen’s added classes on the Thursday and Friday of Orientation Week, moving the remaining orientation activities to the weekend. They then used the additional September teaching days to create a two-day fall break — four consecutive days off if you include the weekend.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Queen’s began classes on the Tuesday after Labour Day, rather than Thursday, and split most orientation activities between the preceding two days and the following weekend. Senate made that structure permanent starting in 2022, using those two days taken from Orientation Week to implement a week-long fall reading break, which students have now grown accustomed to.
Now, as we begin the 2026-27 fall semester, Orientation “Week” has gone from multiple days of back-to-back events before classes begin to a number of activities dispersed over two weekends. Rather than having a week to meet people and find one’s footing before school starts, incoming first-years now complete only two days of orientation before being thrown directly into classes.
This has turned what was once a cohesive, structured week-long event into what now feels like a string of disconnected activities.
Queen’s justified the initial change partly on mental-health grounds, with a Senate report concluding that implementing a fall reading week was worth the cost of restructuring orientation.
I can sympathize with this reasoning. Fall reading week provides a much-needed break for many students, and if it really were a choice between having a fall break or an uninterrupted Orientation Week, I would likely choose the break.
However, I don’t accept the premise that a reading break must come at the expense of a cohesive Orientation Week.
Other universities employ different schedules that achieve both a unified Orientation Week and a week-long fall break. At Dalhousie University, Orientation Week runs from Sept. 3 to 12, with classes beginning on Sept. 8. This gives incoming students five days of orientation before classes begin, while programming continues during the first week of the term. Dalhousie also provides students with a five-day fall break in November.
The University of Toronto (U of T) also runs some of their orientation events the week before classes start, giving students plenty of time to adjust to their new environments.
Both of these schools manage more unified orientation experiences, while still offering students a fall reading week. So why can’t Queen’s?
The Queen’s task force that recommended a fall break in 2017 explored keeping Orientation Week before classes, but raised multiple concerns.
Specifically, it worried that an August move-in would reduce students’ summer employment income, increase accommodation costs for those with September leases, and make it harder to recruit upper-year orientation leaders who would need to return by mid-August.
While these challenges are legitimate, Dalhousie and U of T demonstrate that they’re not insurmountable.
The task force also raised concerns about the additional operating costs associated with bringing students to campus a week earlier, should that option be explored. This is despite Queen’s Residences being projected to contribute an additional $9.7 million to the University and Student Affairs in 2025-26, while an eight-month stay in residence can currently cost students upwards of $20,000.
For that price, a few extra days of accommodation seem like a reasonable cost for a more cohesive orientation week and, as a result, better-prepared first-years.
Jonathan Reilly is a fourth-year Political Studies student and The Journal’s Editor-in-Chief
Tags
first year, First year experience, First Year in Focus, Frosh Week
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