Helluva Welcome honored as 2025 Innovative Orientation Program
Weeklong orientation brings multiple programs together to give all first-year students same shared experience as they begin their Mines journey
Incoming students perform a skit together during Oredigger Camp at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. All first-year students now get to participate in Oredigger Camp as part of the Helluva Welcome program.
Helluva Welcome – the weeklong August orientation program for all first-year students at Colorado School of Mines – has been named the 2025 Innovative Orientation Program award winner for Region III by NODA: Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention.
The annual award recognizes innovative and effective approaches to orientation programming, highlighting good administration and practices that meet the changing needs on college and university campuses.
Launched in 2024, Helluva Welcome brought together multiple spring and summer orientation programs at Mines into a single weeklong experience for all incoming students right before the start of the fall semester. As part of Helluva Welcome, students move into their residence hall, spend time getting to know campus, and build connections in the Rocky Mountains at Oredigger Camp as they take their first steps in their Mines journey.
The program and Mines’ Office of New Student and Transition Services were honored during the 2025 Regions III & IV NODA Conference at the University of North Texas in March.
As a regional award winner, Helluva Welcome is also in the running for the 2025 Innovative Orientation Program Award on the national level. Each of the nine regional winners will be considered for the national award, to be given out at the annual NODA Conference in October.
Founded in 1976, NODA: Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention is an international association dedicated to the enhancement and elevation of orientation, transition, and retention practices in higher education that cultivate the professional development and education of student leaders, graduate students, practitioners, and scholars.
About Mines
Colorado School of Mines is a public R1 research university focused on applied science and engineering, producing the talent, knowledge and innovations to serve industry and benefit society – all to create a more prosperous future.
