Campus will be bustling next week with 7,200 students heading to Big Orange Country to move into residence halls for the fall semester.
Residence halls will begin welcoming new residents Monday, when incoming students arrive for the Ignite Knox and Ignite Serves programs. Female students participating in Panhellenic sorority recruitment will arrive Wednesday. Members of twenty living and learning communities will move in Friday.
Move-in day for most first-year students begins at 8:00 a.m. Saturday, August 13. Classes start Wednesday, August 17.
Hundreds of volunteers from the campus and community will be on hand Saturday to welcome new Vols to campus and help unload vehicles. University staff will be stationed at various spots around campus to answer questions and assist arriving students and their families.
See next week’s campus move-in traffic recommendations.
Welcome Week activities begin Sunday, August 14. New and returning students can enjoy more than forty events throughout the week. Welcome Week gives students a chance to settle in to life on Rocky Top and make connections with other students, faculty, and staff.
Students will share in university traditions like Torch Night and the Life of the Mind celebration, which this year will feature astronaut and alumnus Scott Kelly, who recently returned from a record-breaking year in space.
An annual tradition since 1925, Torch Night will formally welcome all new students to the Volunteer community. Upperclassmen will symbolically pass the Torch of Preparation to first-year students. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, August 14, in Thompson-Boling Arena.
Life of the Mind is a component of First-Year Studies 100 that gives students their first taste of college studies. The celebration event, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Monday, August 15, in Thompson-Boling Arena, will be a discussion between Kelly and UT Associate Professor of English Margaret Lazarus Dean, who authored this year’s Life of the Mind freshman reading selection, Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight. The discussion will be moderated by WUOT’s All Things Considered host Brandon Hollingsworth. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are necessary. UT faculty and staff can pick up tickets for the event in the First–Year Studies office, Room 217 of Greve Hall. General public tickets will be available from the ticket office in Thompson-Boling Arena and at Union Avenue Bookstore, 517 Union Avenue, Knoxville.
Other events that students can experience include the Multicultural Student Life Welcome Back Celebration, the Student Engagement Fair, Experience KnoxVOL, the International House Beyond Borders Dance Party, SGA Presents Slap the Rock, and Vol Night Long.