Orientation Week Activity Includes “Find the Hit and Run Suspect in the Crum”

Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.

After a series of years in which each Orientation Week is stuffed with more mandatory workshops and fewer Swarthmore traditions like the trust walk, the class of ‘18 will enjoy a reversal of this trend. The Daily Gazette intercepted an Orientation Week schedule hot off the presses from Office Services and discovered all events have been canceled to make way for one week-long event. Entitled “Find the Hit and Run Suspect in the Crum”, the event lasts from “00:00 Tuesday – 17:30 Sunday” and is followed by pasta bar.

Students will be given colored patches in their orientation folder to divide them into squads. The Orientation schedule details what sections of the Crum are to be patrolled by which squads at any given time, as well as which squads are off-duty for meals and sleep. There will be at least one patrol at all times during the week. Other items in the folder include a flashlight, “Phineas Phlares”, short-wave radios, and a motivational letter from President Rebecca Chopp.

“The squads will be a fantastic opportunity to meet people outside of your dorm or the friends you made at Ride the Tide,” Dean of Admissions Jim Bock ’90 explained. “We’ve had lots of complaints about the awkward icebreakers that have become a stereotype of Orientation Week activities. The bonds formed through hunting down a felon are sure to outlast that moment when The Great Wind Blows for anyone wearing shorts.”