It is pea soup fog on campus today. So thick, in fact, that you can’t see the top of the Chapel from the front of Reynolda Hall. That’s some fog.
Even though you can’t see much, there are intriguing sounds on campus. As I parked in the faculty/staff lot near Davis Field, there were odd sounds, which I believe are either tubas or sousaphones. In the foggy distance, I could vaguely see students with musical instruments – looks like it could be a band camp of some sort, and the brass section was warming up at the top of Davis. Between the fog and the toot-tooting of the tubas, low and plaintive, it felt a bit eerie.
Big event on campus that is happening behind closed doors today is the registering of the freshmen for the 2nd half of their fall coursework. We are doing something new this year – we allowed freshmen to register online for 1/2 their classes, and then they fill out a course preference worksheet about what they want to take for the 2nd 1/2 and they will have their classes slotted in. There are a couple reasons for this – when freshmen used to register at the end of Orientation/Move In, they were overwhelmed and stressed from all the move in activities and then to register at the end of that process made it really taxing. The other reason is that we will have a better sense of course management by registering them now – for instance, if there is a huge demand for Spanish 111, we’ll find that out this week, when there’s still time to add new sections and hire new instructors – as opposed to finding that out a day or two before classes begin.
I am one of the volunteers registering students – so I’ll report back later this week on the process (which should be completed by next Friday).
