The more things change...

The first year students are moving in on campus today. It feels so good to watch the campus “come alive” again. Yes, there are people on campus during the summer, and the fall sports athletes and student leaders have been trickling in for the past 2-3 weeks. But it’s just different when all the students are back.

Walking across campus this morning, I couldn’t help think how much things have changed during move-in day – and how much is the same. There is the same nervousness and excitement in the students, the same nervousness, pride and near panic in the parents. Student life continues to organize a full week’s worth of orientation activities to create community, to introduce the new students to the campus, to the faculty and to each other. That’s not changed; just evolved.

Then: Who could forget President Elmer Neufeld in a toga bringing in the torch for the “Freshman Olympics?” (sorry- no photo of the toga - but here's one of Elmer at another student-life affair!)

Now: Faculty and staff show a different side of themselves at the Faculty Follies skit and “talent” show; including Vice President of Enrollment and Student Life Eric Fulcomer’s impersonation of The King.

Then: The majority of what I needed was packed in the back of a Pinto. Quit laughing - put the back seat down and there was a lot room in there. I loved that Pinto.

Now: I saw an UHaul Van driving onto campus.

Then: It was up to me and my family to carry belongings to the top floor of Ropp Addition.

Now: Faculty, staff, the fall student-athletes and members of local churches offer assistance in carrying things into the residence hall rooms. One church even offers beverages and sno-cones.

So this post is obviously from my vantage point as a new student back in the '80s. What are your memories from orientation?