MBCNews - Start Scheduling: Students Hit Campus This Week

Start Scheduling: Students Hit Campus This Week

2009-08-17

The annual population explosion is about to happen on college campuses nationwide as students return in droves. Suitcases will be unloaded. Posters affixed to walls. Pens tested, cell phones tested, and laptops booted. Minds opened. At Mary Baldwin College that means a rolling schedule of move-in dates, which now includes differentiated orientations for each of seven Leadership Gateways before the incoming class of 2013 combines for Weekend of Welcome. Here’s your guide to the first few weeks of the 2009–10 academic year:

August 17-21: ACCs, RAs, OLs, SGA EC — selected student leaders whose titles make fun acronyms (Assistant Community Coordinators, Resident Assistants, Orientation Leaders, Student Government Association Executive Committee) start preparing for the year by moving in extra early. The Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership cadre (upperclass officers) are unpacking, too, to get ready to train the new cadets in the corps.

August 18: Teachers teach teachers as new graduate students attend Orientation for the Master of Arts in Teaching program.

August 19: Watch for green-clad students in uniform marching on campus: “leeft, leeft, left-right-left” when new students (nULLs) in VWIL move in … and on to Wilderness, a week-long team-building adventure in the rough.

August 20: Is that the echo of a long pass on the soccer field or the smack of a ball hitting a forearm in the PAC gym you hear? It might be — volleyball and soccer student-athletes start moving in and begin practice. Cross country runners move in August 23 and begin practice that week.

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Leadership Gateways orientations for incoming students:

August 19: VWIL (see more information above)

August 23: African-American freshmen in the Ida B. Wells living-learning community move in and receive an introduction to Orientation that includes learning about the civil rights and women’s rights figure for whom their group is named.

August 24: International students, including nine from Mary Baldwin’s new partner university, Sungshin Women’s University, in Seoul, South Korea, arrive stateside and begin making international connections.

August 25: New students who selected Spencer Citizens, Global Honors Scholars, or Women for Healthy Lifestyles as their introduction to college get settled and begin their orientation with community service, exploring the American Shakespeare Center, and activities at the Physical Activities Center.

August 26: Nearly 50 new students in the Career Academy Gateway and more than 20 in the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted make their way to campus to start their tailored orientations. During the next few days, they’ll learn about visual journals, go bowling, and take a national college-student survey.

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August 26: Faculty and staff powwow at the annual opening meeting for the President’s state-of-the-college address. New dean of the college, Dr. Catharine O’Connell, leads her first faculty session after the president’s remarks.

August 27: New students in the college’s unique graduate program in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance (MLitt/MFA) attend Orientation, asking, methinks: “Wherefore art thou a student of the Bard?”

August 28: After getting to know more about the college and each other in Gateways Orientation, the excited members of the Class of 2013 meld together for Weekend of Welcome. Their comprehensive three-day orientation, with its theme, Hearts on Fire, nods to the college’s cross-curricular theme Heart and includes a Know the Codes session and concludes with a candlelight ceremony August 30.

August 28: New students are officially welcomed to the new year by President Fox and student leaders at Opening Convocation at 10 a.m. on Page Terrace. Rain location: Francis Auditorium.

August 30: All the marching practice is tested for the first time in public at the VWIL nULL Induction Parade, the first parade of the academic year.

August 30: A candlelight ceremony, 8:30 p.m. on Page Terrace, and singing of MBC's hymn will conclude the weekend.

August 31: And so begins the 2008-09 academic year as first classes are called to order. Returning students to the Residential College for Women will have been streaming into residence halls and houses in the day or two preceding the start of classes.

August 31: Hunt Dining Hall has been open for limited hours for the past few weeks, but a joyful noise spreads across campus as the Dining Hall opens for full service once again with its tasty meals morning, noon, and night.

September 2: Show your Fighting Squirrels spirit: The first sporting competition on home turf this fall is a volleyball game versus Bridgewater college at 6 p.m. in the PAC.

September 2: “Believing in the principles of student government, I pledge myself … ” Freshmen recite the time-honored MBC Honor Pledge and sign their names in covenant to the charter during the annual Charter Day ceremony.

September 9: Students rush, don’t walk, to Club Rush to find out more about MBC’s varied offerings of clubs and organizations.

Dates to Note in Your Planner

October 1
Founders Day

October 2–4
Plan to register and attend Family Weekend

October 7
A revered MBC tradition, Apple Day