Orange Key guides vote uniforms optional, citing need for autonomy

A fast-talking, backward-walking Orange Key guide leading a tour is a common sight on the University's north campus. But the polo shirts and fleece jackets identifying the tour guides may be on their way out.

The independent student group of tour guides met Monday, for the first time in six months, to discuss uniforms and the group's autonomy.

The issue stems from an email from the group's new adviser, who asked the tour guides to wear the polo shirts and North Face fleeces originally purchased for them by the Frist Campus Center in the spring of 2001. The clothing bears both the Orange Key insignia and the Frist logo.

During Monday's meeting, the group voted to make the uniforms optional.

For some members the shirts were representative of a growing anxiety over the group's independence, especially after its move from Maclean House to Frist upon the opening of the campus center two years ago.

Cherie Fuhrman '03, Orange Key's chair, highlighted the group's independence from the admission office.

"The idea is when you come on the Princeton tour you get an unbiased view," she said.

Orange Key guide David Gail '03 said he thought the uniforms made "a lot of people feel uncomfortable looking as if they were employees of the school rather than objective tour guides . . . who want to give prospective students a full story and not sell the company line."

But Paul Breitman, director of Frist, said past Orange Key officers requested the apparel with the knowledge it would be worn as a uniform.

He has saved emails from Dana Mazo '01, chair of Orange Key at the time the clothing was bought.

"As any organization evolves, decisions made before by previous leadership aren't supported by current membership," Breitman said.

The student group remains totally independent and is free to make its own decisions, he said, but if the group chooses not to wear the items purchased, it may have to look elsewhere for apparel funding.

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Frist has been working to support, not usurp, the group, and hopes it will become more independent in the future, he said.

Karla Guido, the group's new adviser, emphasized that the group was student-run and that Frist was not trying to force them to do anything. She started work for the University this summer as the assistant marketing and communication coordinator for Frist and Richardson Auditorium. Guido also advises Orange Key and manages the Frist welcome desk from which all tours depart.

In her new capacity as adviser to the group, she assumed part of the role of Joyce Shaffer, who ran the group for more than 20 years but asked to resign this summer for undisclosed health reasons.

Since the departure of Shaffer, the group has been "try[ing] to get back the camaraderie that used to be a part of Orange Key," Fuhrman said.

At Monday's meeting — to be the first of regular monthly meetings — all members agreed that the clothing issue was a matter of maintaining independence. And as one step toward furthering that independence, the group may pursue the funding of a normal student organization, which it does not presently receive, she said.

Some sophomores understandably want their own jackets, but "they didn't join Orange Key to get the fleece," she said. "Our job is to give tours, and that's what we'll just keep doing."

Each year, Orange Key accepts approximately 25 new tour guides from a pool of roughly 80 students.

Since 1935, the group has led nearly 50,000 campus tours. Four per day are given Monday through Saturday, and two tours are given Sunday. The group offers more than twice as many daily tours as Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities as well as the University of Pennsylvania. Among Ivy League schools, only Brown University offers a greater number.

Above any temporary misunderstandings, Breitman emphasized his respect for the group of volunteers.

"They're some of our finest students, and we're very proud of them," he said. "I have every confidence that the organization will evolve, improve and reinvent itself."