Updates all over the place

All – I hope our P’21s-’23s were able to join us lastnight for our returning student town hall. If you were not able to watch it live, you can watch it here, and read a transcript of the chat.

First-year students received an email this morning about updates on registration and their schedules. Do read the whole message, but I want to draw attention to this section in particular:

We have spent this week working with incoming students and concerned parents, noting where the greatest demand for courses is occurring, advising students about existing courses and requirements, and placing requests to our various departments and programs to increase seats and/or create new sections. Over the remaining days of registration, we believe you will see the impact of those new seats and sections on availability, continuing through our add/drop period.

Additionally, from August 3 to 7, the Office of Academic Advising (OAA) will meet with colleagues in the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) to review every first-year student’s schedule and help them reach at least the minimum number of hours, adding in courses all week.

So if your ’24 is stressed about their schedule, please know the talented team in OAA is working and will continue to work to meet the needs of our students.

Also for ’24s: they received their housing assignments last night via email. You can see a generic version of the email here; if they have a roommate, that version of the email indicates they can see their roommate’s name in the housing portal.

And for our P’24s, a message was sent to you yesterday with an update on the fall. As part of that message, we announced that our virtual Parent and Family Orientation sessions are now available online. You will hear us say in the Just for Parents and Families presentation, that one of the benefits of this virtual presentation is that you are not having to sit through all of these sessions on the evening of move-in, when you are hot, sweaty, tired, and emotional at the idea of your student starting college. Now, you get to digest these in your own time and – we hope – have some time in the week or two to discuss the content as a family and talk purposefully about subjects like how you and your ’24 want to communicate once they are at school, what are your expectations for them to be safe (physical safety, alcohol, etc.), how to get connected with school resources, and more. These really are terrific sessions, so please do watch them when you can.

For international students and families, there is an email to undergraduate students about returning to the US from international travel, and an ISSS town hall that has helpful information.

A few of you have asked about parking registration; that info will be coming out shortly and I will post it here as soon as I have it.

Late yesterday, the ACC provided an update on sports; read more from John Currie (’93), our Director of Athletics. It outlines the framework for the resumption of ACC sports this fall.

We’re getting closer, friends! August is just around the corner and we can’t wait to have our students back with us!!

— by Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)