First Year Center

Across campus, students, faculty and staff are finding creative ways to welcome the Class of 2024 despite ever-evolving public health directives and university policies, said Katharine Pei, director of First Year Programs. There have been calls from WUSAs, peer mentorship programs, Spotify playlists and gooey butter cake. 

Jessie Lee, a member of the First Year Center executive board, is one of five students nationwide to win the Jordan Smith Undergraduate Fellowship from the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina. Lee will be formally recognized Monday, Feb. 12.

The lower level of the Women’s Building, on the Danforth Campus, is undergoing renovations this summer, so some offices are being relocated. Construction should be complete in October.

The First Year Center offered free snacks and school supplies to freshmen on the first day of class. Volunteers also snapped photos to send home.

4,000 glow sticks, 50 academic progams, 100 First 40 events make the start of the school year special for new students.

The annual Freshman Finale celebration will be held at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23 in College Hall on the South 40. All members of the university community are invited to attend. The event will includes remarks from College of Arts & Sciences Dean Jennifer R. Smith and a representative of the freshman class, as well as student performances and awards.

As an undergraduate pre-med student, Danielle Bristow worked as a tour guide for the University of the Pacific, welcoming prospective students and their families to her campus. The idea that Bristow would one day find a career in making people feel welcome didn’t occur to her. Not at first, anyway.