The Bear Necessities

For our excursion, Team Silverware went to the Build-a-Bear workshop.  For those of you who don’t know, Build-a-Bear is a “teddy-bear themed retail-entertainment experience,” where each Guest follows 8 interactive stages, accompanied by their Master Bear Builder, to build their very own custom bear. 

During our time at the workshop, many similarities between New Student Orientation and Build-a-Bear arose. 

For example, Build-a-Bear is very process orientated.  At New Student Orientation, it is very important to focus on the process.  Ensuring that all students feel more comfortable about attending RU in the fall and have a positive first experience as a Rutgers student is the most important aspect of Orientation.  Giving students facts, figures, and resources is useless unless the students are comfortable enough to listen. 

Build-a-Bear prides itself on empowering its Guests.  This is done through allowing their Guest to be involved in every aspect of making the bear: stuffing, sewing, fluffing, naming, etc.    New Student Orientation empowers both its students and its employees.  The students who attend our programs are empowered by the way Orientation views and treats them.  For example, on last year’s campus tour, students choose the stops which they wanted to see.  Before each Super Fantastic Ultra Extreme Rutgers Challenge Gameshow, the students create their own team name and chant.  Most importantly, NSO builds a pride in the students for their university, empowering them in their decision and making them feel a part of RU.

 NSO empowers their employees by giving them the tools they need to succeed but allowing them to work and create on their own.  Build-a-Bear focuses on “reinventing ideas.”  Orientation does this by allowing the Orientation Team Leaders to head their projects, be creative, produce something new, and make decisions.  This employee-empowerment also applies to professional staff members.  For example, the Super Fantastic Ultra Extreme Rutgers Challenge, created by Matthew Ferguson, is a completely new, reinvented way to bring facts about campus to students.

Founder of Build-a-Bear, Maxine Clark, said Build-a-Bear is about “warm thoughts about our childhood, about friendship, about trust and comfort, and also about love.”  In a way, Orientation encompasses these same fundamental values.  For students, it is about warm thoughts about the future, making new friendships, trusting your Orientation Leader and your decision on a school, becoming comfortable in your new home, and loving RU.  For an Orientation Leader, NSO is about warm thoughts and memories from the summer, friendships that feel like family, trusting your other staff members, being comfortable in your working environment, and sharing your love for Rutgers with every one and anyone who will listen.