The Admissions Office is looking for tour guides, and will accept any applications, however they are hoping for more male applicants.

The reason for wanting more male applicants stems from a lack of male tour guides currently.

There are only two male tour guides out of the roughly 20 students guiding tours for Admissions.

Lou Hencken, the interim admissions director, said he was unsure of the reason why there were so few male tour guides but the female-to-male ratio probably had contributing factors. He added 60 percent of the student body is female and he thought it was interesting, not even 30 to 40 percent of the tour guides were men.

“I could very honestly say I want to hire 10 more tour guides and hope a number of them are men, and after doing the interviews, the best candidates are women,” Hencken said. “Everybody could apply and their best candidates were women.”

It does not matter in the end as long as the guides are the most qualified for the position, Hencken said.

Omar Solomon, an admissions counselor, said they are just looking for the best candidate.

“We are just looking for students who want to showcase our campus,” Solomon said. “They need to be passionate about the campus.”

Solomon said they want to advertise for more tour guides because some of the students are graduating. He added it is a normal process of tour guides leaving and tour guides joining.

Hencken said they want more guides to make the tour groups smaller and more personal. Tours normally have nine to 10 perspective students, not including the families who come with them. Normally, these perspective students have their parents come with them on the tours.

Hencken said one group could have up to 30 people in a group because of the amount of family members who come with. In those instances, admissions sometimes have two tour guides run the tour.

He said it was important to have smaller groups to make it a more personal experience. Many on the tour ask questions more because of the more personal touch.

Hencken said most of the students who go on the tours in the fall are deciding between three schools and in spring they are deciding on two. He added it competitive with over 100 colleges in the state and tour guides give a face to the campus.

Sometimes, the amount of people signed up for tours is overwhelming. For open house on Monday, they needed help from the New Student Programs Office and their tour guides to help out with the amount of people who came.

Solomon said in many cases, the guide is the first person the perspective students see.

“They are the ambassadors of the campus,” Solomon said.

The guides give tours during the regularly scheduled times at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. as well as help out with open house and other events like it on campus.

Students interested in applying should contact Solomon through email.

Jarad Jarmon can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].