MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia University is ready to welcome back students for the 2023 fall semester with a combination of new traditions and the return of popular events.
Student Move-In Weekend will officially kick off on Thursday, August 10, when residence halls will officially open for incoming freshman and returning students. This will begin a weekend of activities and events as part of Welcome Week festivities that will include opportunities to meet WVU students and staff and outdoor pep rally-themed festivities that will get the over 25,000 students enrolled for the semester ready to start the year.
“We will be welcoming 4,500 or so freshman students back to campus,” said WVU Dean of Students Corey Farris. “They’ll be moving to the residence halls; we’ll have University Police and others directing traffic, and we’ll also have volunteers to help students and their families move into their residence hall rooms,” he said.
Residence hall move-ins will take place in two-hour increments from Thursday through Saturday as part of a fairly new protocol for WVU. Each of the twelve residence halls will begin the daily move-in process at 8 a.m. and continue through 6 p.m. to allow registered students to set up their dorms and get familiar with their surroundings. Farris stated that the university’s goal for the relatively new check-in process is to avoid massive traffic jams due to a large number of students moving into dorms located around downtown, Sunnyside, and Evansdale.
“We do that just to help manage traffic around the residence halls so there’s not a backup, not only of backup on the roads but also of traffic at the elevators and things like that,” said Farris. “So we just try to spread it out and help people move in with minimal back-ups and minimal waits,” he said.
Activities for students will begin on Saturday with Welcome Week Cookouts that will take place from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. That will be followed by the first Up All Night of the semester, which will include free snacks and entertainment from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. On Sunday, about 100 student organizations will be set up at the Evansdale Recreation Center for the Student Organization Fair, starting at 4:30 p.m. This will be followed by evening activities hosted by organizations around downtown and Evansdale starting at 7:30 p.m.
“Students will be able to visit representatives from those student organizations; those student organizations will be able to talk about what they do, whether it’s a video game club, one of our club sports, or one of the academic clubs,” said Farris.
Welcome Week festivities will begin on Monday with the Freshman-only tradition of Monday Night Lights, which will take place on the field of Mylan Puskar Stadium, followed by FallFest on Tuesday at the Evansdale Recreational Fields. As students begin to move in from Thursday into the weekend, WVU officials advise Morgantown residents to be cautious of traffic delays around downtown, Sunnyside, and Evansdale as out-of-state students navigate around the city. Despite a turbulent summer for the university, Farris and the rest of WVU are ready to welcome students back onto campus for the 2023 fall semester.
“Welcoming not only our new students but our returning students back to campus is always fun,” said Farris. “The energy and excitement are over the top, and it certainly reminds those of us that work at WVU why we love what they do,” he said.