Week of Welcome prepares freshmen for college life

Marshall University's first Week of Welcome offered a chance for first year students to get comfortable on campus before classes started and the upperclassmen arrived.

WOW drew an estimated 1,800 freshmen and included a convocation, class sessions to acquaint students to university life, and various welcome activities.

Marshall University's Retention Committee planned WOW, and Corley Dennison, a committee chairman, said the most critical component of the week's success was giving freshmen a few days to get the feel of campus.

"I just think the opportunity to come to campus, to get settled in, to meet a few people and to get situated before classes start on Monday, is a big step toward getting off to the right start in school," Dennison said.

Being on campus a week before school started allowed students to find their classes, move in and buy their books.  However, getting students to bond with one another was the main goal.

Freshmen wore different colored shirts to represent each major.  This gave them conversation points they used to meet new people.

"I noticed by Friday afternoon at lunch there were little clusters of students sitting around eating. Red t-shirts were sitting together and yellow t-shirts were sitting together. You know those people probably did not know each other before this whole thing started," Dennison said.

The students also got a head start by being on campus ahead of time without having their parents to guide them around, said Frances Hensley, dean of Academic Affairs.

"Because classes started the next day, the parents left them and they immediately got into their role as college students," Hensley said.

"In West Virginia, we tend to have a student population that comes to college with issues that do not favor graduating in four years or even completing a college degree," Dennison said.  "Four year completion rate is very low throughout schools in West Virginia, and our six year graduation is just under 60 percent."

A session on academic engagement was held to show the importance of getting involved with organizations on campus, Hensley said.

"We were trying to get students to understand that to be successful in college, you must be engaged in the classroom, but you must also be engaged outside of the classroom," Hensley said.   

"From our perspective, everything in ‘Week of Welcome' was deliberate," she said.  "Everything was created with retention in mind."

After WOW, the Retention Committee had a meeting to discuss what worked and what did not.

"We are very open to change," Hensley said.  "The basic idea of WOW is something we definitely will do again."

The committee is already planning for the class of 2015 and working out issues such as accommodations and the ability to move large groups of students more effectively.

Leannda Carey can be contacted at carey33@marshall.edu.