Before the Class of 2028 and new transfer students attend Wildcat Welcome this fall, 220 Northwestern students are spending Spring Quarter meeting the WW 2024 Board of Directors, attending retreats, and undergoing intensive training facilitated by the Office of Student Transition Experiences to prepare for their roles as Peer Advisers.

PA training includes a variety of activities and events designed to ready PAs to help new students acclimate to campus life, navigate NU’s social and academic landscape and find their place within the University community.

These activities make up the Peer Adviser Leadership Training Course, a seven-week program aimed at helping PAs become better leaders and prepare for leading conversations known as True Northwestern Dialogues.

SESP sophomore and second-time PA Sara Peña has, so far, attended two PALTCs and a PA retreat with her board group, made up of around 20 PAs led by a board leader. One focus of the PALTC this year is addressing different identities on campus, such as first-generation and low-income students on campus, according to Peña.

“PALTCs help us talk through the different identities on campus,” Peña said.“We’ve been talking about the wealth gap and how that’s something we should address at Northwestern more. If we did not address that, some people may feel invisible in that sense.”

This year, Wildcat Welcome was shortened from eight days to five, according to Merci Sugai, the assistant director of Student Transition Experiences. 

This change comes after OSTE received feedback from last year’s orientation, where new students expressed a need for more wellness breaks throughout the week.

“We always try to make sure that students can prioritize their wellness and well-being while still getting very acclimated to Northwestern campus life, traditions, history and academics,” Sugai said. “We found that it was possible to condense the schedule slightly for more down time, but there will still be just as many opportunities to experience all the same things that happened in the traditional eight-day Wildcat Welcome.”

Wildcat Welcome will start Sept. 17 and will end on Sept. 22, when the students will partake in the annual Wildcat Dash, a tradition where new students rush the football field with their PAs at the first football home game.

This year, with the demolition and rebuild of Ryan Field currently taking place and Martin Field having recently been announced as the football team’s temporary home, questions remain about how the changes will impact Wildcat Welcome programming like the Wildcat Dash. The OSTE team is working to address this change.

“We found that out (about Martin Field) at the same time as you all found that out, so it’ll be a good opportunity for us to reconfigure new spaces that we can do programming and for the students to fall in love with,” Sugai said.

Weinberg freshman and first-time PA Sarah Abdelsalam experienced Wildcat Welcome for herself this past fall. 

Abdelsalam said PA training has helped her familiarize herself with all the resources NU has to offer.

“(Training to) be a PA has taught me that it’s okay to ask for help or to not know something, because, for first time PAs as well, we’re learning too about the resources available to us,” Abdelsalam said. “It’s made me look at our campus with fresh eyes again.”

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