Photo by Philip Vukelich | Argonaut
Sam Roberts, freshman, receives help moving into the Theophilus Tower on Thursday. The arrival of residence hall students on Thursday follows sorority bid day on Tuesday and the start of fraternity rush on Wednesday as the migration of students to Moscow continues.
About 11,000 students flooded the University of Idaho campus this week to move into residence halls, Greek houses and off-campus housing for the upcoming school year — turning a dormant town into a thunderous one.
UI President Chuck Staben said the feeling associated with the end of summer break and the start of a new year is positive, thanks to an abundance of students buzzing around campus once again.
“Students are really the lifeblood of the university,” he said. “It’s almost like a rebirth when students come back to the campus. I think this is one of the most exciting times of the year.”
Returning members of the Greek system made their way back to Moscow about two weeks ago to prepare for formal recruitment, an annual event that brings in a new class of students to each Greek house.
Assistant Greek Advisor Megan Harre said about 600 students participated in formal recruitment this year, including 303 women and nearly 300 men.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback so far about the recruitment process,” she said. “Right now everyone’s just pumped up to be joining and for school to start this week, so there’s just been a lot of energy and excitement within recruitment.”
Sorority recruitment began last Thursday when participating students moved into the Wallace Complex with Rho Gammas — a group of current Greek members who served as recruitment counselors.
Harre said this year’s recruitment followed tradition and had a “conversation day” where students got to visit each sorority house and meet with current members, a “house tour” day for students to view the inside of each sorority, a “philanthropy day,” that further identified the missions of respective sororities, a “preference day” where participating students had to narrow down their favorite houses and then recruitment ended on Tuesday with “bid day,” where students filled out their bid cards and officially locked in with a sorority.
“The process was smooth and I think everyone came out feeling pretty happy and confident,” Harre said.
Fraternity recruitment is a lot more casual, Harre said. It started on Wednesday and will wrap up on Saturday when participating students fill out their bid cards.
On the other side of campus, University Housing staff and volunteers were hard at work on Thursday moving over 1,800 students into residence halls, including about 1,334 new students.
University Housing Spokeswoman Cara Lehman spent a portion of her Thursday driving a UI golf cart around campus bringing ice to the residence hall sign-in tables to help keep things cool.
“Something that Housing and Dining did this year was get water bottles for everybody,” Lehman said. “So just jazzing it up by having Vandal water bottles and just making sure everyone is comfortable while they’re moving into their new rooms.”
Lehman said the move-in process was successful and efficient thanks to about 200 community volunteers who came out to assist students with moving in.
The University Housing move in process centralizes each building so new students have an easier time finding out where they need to go and sign in.
“We also have a lot of engagement going on, on the (Theophillus) Tower lawn,” Lehman said. “We have a bunch of businesses out selling items specific students moving in, we have (Resident Hall Association) out here with some inflatables and just having a lot of energy out here for people to enjoy after they’ve moved into their rooms.”
A common word of advice from the president’s office, University Housing and the Greek office is for new and returning students get involved and engage with the campus community.
“I think the primary thing that a student should do when he or she is new to the university is really engage with the university,” Staben said. “Go to class, speak to the people that are in your class — the faculty and the students — engage in some activity that you enjoy, it could be intramural athletics, it might be a club of some sort and it might just be hanging out with your friends. But, do something that engages you with people on campus because there’s a lot of really interesting people and you can learn in the classroom and you can learn outside of the classroom here.”
Amber can be reached at [email protected]