For the first time in Mississippi State University history, MSU’s Student Affairs will host New Maroon Camp for the incoming fall 2014 freshmen on Aug. 6-9.
The location of New Maroon Camp is undecided, but tentative plans of location are set for Florence, Miss., at Twin Lakes for the first two days of camp, and the last two days will be held on campus.
Andrew Rendon, faculty staff adviser of New Maroon, said the camp will present activities for pre-freshman students, a learning experience that will not only educate the students about their academics, but assist in providing them with a school spirit to become True Maroon.
“We’re still in the development stages of ‘New Maroon,’ so we don’t have specific activities yet for the pre-freshmen,” Rendon said. “However, the activities will be designed to work on team building, designed to encourage students to embrace programs and activities and organizations here on campus. They will be geared towards teaching them things that, at the end of the day, will help them be successful students here.”
Rendon said New Maroon will essentially host a camp-like setting, in which counselors will assist and provide the future Bulldogs with guidance.
“We are modeling this after a camp, and when you have a camp, you have counselors, and one of the things we’re emphasizing to the counselors as we do the training is trust,” Rendon said. “The campers will be more comfortable with you if they trust you. We have a lot of work to do and decisions to make, but I think we will be extremely successful this summer.”
Taylor King, director of transfer student affairs, said after reviewing freshmen camps hosted by Auburn University and the University of Texas, it was noted that MSU was lacking in certain areas.
“We lacked in the area of having students learn the alma mater and other school songs or cheers,” King said. “The goal of the camp is to provide incoming freshmen with campus tours, Olympic games and other activities that will increase students’ knowledge and school spirit for MSU.”
King said in regard to this being the first year MSU will host the New Maroon camp for incoming freshmen, only 100 freshmen will be selected to attend the event out of the group of freshmen who attend this year’s orientation.
“We plan to make this a yearly thing, and each year more students will be allowed to attend,” King said. “When students come and meet with their peers, we hope to reduce attrition.”
According to Rendon, New Maroon camp differs from freshman orientation in that orientation is geared toward administrative entities such as registration for class, housing and academic programs.
“The New Maroon camp will go into more detail and description, and the idea is for students to have more opportunities. The students selected will most likely have already been to orientation, so one is not going to replace the other,” Rendon said. “New Maroon and orientation support each other in terms of the objectives and goals we are trying to accomplish. The last day will be the day the remaining freshmen come and move in, the week of which ‘Dawg Daze’ is hosted. Then students will make the transition from New Maroon to True Maroon, and they will officially be students just like everyone else on campus. “
Bill Kibler, vice president of student affairs, said the importance of New Maroon lies in the fact of the camp being student-led. 
“This isn’t me bringing new freshmen in telling them ‘Here’s what it means to be a Bulldog.’ This is being done by upper-class students who have been at Mississippi State for a while and love this school,” Kibler said. “What we really want to do is accelerate the speed with which we expose our brand-new students to fall in love with Mississippi State. We will be exposing them to the traditions, legacy and academic components as well.”
Kibler said new students who attend the camp will be introduced to a world of resources and people who they can tap into for information.
“We want students to know that they will never find another community in their life that’s more supportive and willing to do just about whatever they can to help them be successful,” Kibler said.
Aware that providing a student with everything he or she will need will not be accomplished in the three days of camp, Rendon said the main goal is to push and plant the seed from which the students will grow.
“Hopefully the freshmen will go out and embrace what they’ve learned during New Maroon,” Rendon said. “It’s important to teach them about traditions and university history, leadership, presidents and what they can do to be successful. We will also highlight Dawg Daze. Dawg Daze will present the opportunity for the pre-freshmen to engage the experiences and what they learned during New Maroon camp. A lot of organizations and departments are represented during Dawg Daze, so that’s kind of the whole idea. If you think about it, there are certain pieces to the puzzle we are trying to fit together.”
Rendon said placing the camp’s construction and structure in the hands of students is what makes New Maroon camp special.
“I’ve always emphasized that this has to be student-led and student managed because in 20 years when we look back and this thing is huge, we can say that this truly came from the students,” he said.