As the 50th Orientation Program & Career Forum approaches, we’ve taken time to look back on The Consortium’s history since its modest inception in 1966 and its first OP with 21 students in the summer of 1967.
Part of the process includes pulling together our archive of past Resource Guides from OP. The oldest one we’ve found is from the seventh OP in 1973. It includes a handy guide to eating and drinking establishments in the St. Louis area, complete with driving times from the Washington University campus, where OP was staged regularly for most of our first two decades.
Here’s a slideshow of the Resource Guide covers we’ve found.
7th-OP1973
The earliest OP Resource Guide we have in our archives at the moment. This was at Washington University.
15th-OP1981
The 15th annual Orientation Program, at Washington University.
25th-OP1991
The 25th annual Orientation Program, in Austin, Texas.
29th-OP1995
The 29th annual Orientation Program, in Washington, D.C.
30th-OP1996
The 30th annual Orientation Program, in Atlanta.
31st-OP1997
The 31st annual Orientation Program, in Minneapolis.
32nd-OP1998
The 32nd annual Orientation Program, in New York City.
33rd-OP1999
The 33rd annual Orientation Program, in Orlando.
34th-OP2000
The 34th annual Orientation Program, in Chicago.
35th-OP2001
The 35th annual Orientation Program, in Cincinnati.
36th-OP2002
The 36th annual Orientation Program, in San Francisco.
37th-OP2003
The 37th annual Orientation Program, in Atlanta.
38th-OP2004
The 38th annual Orientation Program, in Minneapolis.
39th-OP2005
The 39th annual Orientation Program, in Philadelphia.
40th-OP2006
The 40th annual Orientation Program, in St. Louis.
41st-OP2007
The 41st annual Orientation Program, in Indianapolis.
42nd-OP2008
The 42nd annual Orientation Program, in Dallas.
43rd-OP2009
The 43rd annual Orientation Program, in Charlotte, N.C.
44th-OP2010
The 44th annual Orientation Program, in Orlando.
45th-OP-2011
The 45th annual Orientation Program, in Minneapolis.
46th-OP2-12
The 46th annual Orientation Program, in Minneapolis.
47th-OP2013
The 47th annual Orientation Program, in New Orleans.
48th-OP2014
The 48th annual Orientation Program, in Austin, Texas.
49th-OP2015
The 49th annual Orientation Program, in Phoenix, Ariz.
Our collection includes the covers of 24 of the 49 OPs The Consortium has staged. In addition to the 1973 volume, we have the 15th OP guide from 1981; the 25th OP guide from 1991; and all the guides from the 29th OP in 1995 forward.
NOTE: We’d love to flesh out our collection with the guides we’re missing. If you attended an OP that’s not represented here, and you still have your Resource Guide, please contact us at communications@cgsm.org. We’d love to make arrangements to get a copy!
A feature of all the Resource Guides is the collection of biographical information on members of the incoming class. For several years, the Resource Guide was also split into two volumes—one, including the program, published inside the Consortium’s “IN” magazine or earlier publications, the other a separate collection of those bios. (In those cases, we’ve only reproduced one cover in the slideshow above, although they often mirrored each other.)