Megan Hayes | Editor-in-Chief
A view of Eugene J. Smith Library at Eastern Connecticut State University, and the beautiful weather on upperclassmen move in day.
This past Monday, August 26th, students of Eastern Connecticut State University flooded into Willimantic to tackle the typical stress of move in day, and were met with an experience that can be described as 'oddly organized'. Students and parents alike were surprised by how different move-in day was compared to other years -- and this can be attributed to new organizational methods, more options of accessibility for all different types of students, and an ever-receptive housing and welcoming staff.
In typical years, move-in day can bring about a lot of stress, especially for new students, incoming freshmen and parents. On top of factors such as moving all of your belongings to a new place, there are often many unsaid or unclarified rules on campuses - one of which is parking bans. In prior years for freshman move-in day, there was a type of "parade" of cars, one that reached all the way down the length of High Street (stretching the width of the entire campus), and backing up the highway exit ramp. This year, Eastern has taken extra precautions to make sure this is not the case.
Mackenzie Sheldon, a senior student at Eastern who works as a Summer Orientation Counselor, has been on campus for a week and a half leading up to move in working with the housing department to make freshman move in as smooth as possible. Differences are very much present from her past years at Eastern, as she says this year's smooth move in can be credited towards the "very clear process" orchestrated by the "Warrior Welcome crew, police officers, and the SOC's (Summer Orientation Counselors)... they killed it!"
Sheldon shared that part of the reason why the parking aspect of move in being so smooth was because of lots of signage around campus, and a very clear rule of unloading being available on sidewalks and the first floor of the parking garages only, and parking being available on floors 2+ of the garages. This allowed for a smoother flow of traffic, where one could unload their belongings, park their vehicle and then attend all at once to moving into the dorm. This combats a lot of the issues similar to the car parade experienced in previous years. Along with this, a campus-wide parking ban being put into place and there being a one-way traffic flow for the upper level residence halls helped to alleviate a lot of the traffic typically experienced.
Parking was available at Windham Technical School as well, which neighbors Eastern on the west side of campus near the science building and High Rise apartments. One of the main contributions to the smoothness of move in day, Sheldon shared, was heavy police involvement all across campus directing parents and students where to park and drive to ensure the process was as smooth as possible.
Marieli Mendez-Benitez, a residential student at Eastern who lives in Georgia, commented on how easy moving was compared to other years, especially from the perspective of someone who flies in to campus and keeps her belongings in a storage unit. She attributes the smooth move to "check in times, police officers outside of the buildings to help traffic... [as well as] movers following the rules with dropping their stuff of and moving their cars... I could actually walk around".
Mendez-Benitez, a junior at Eastern, shared that she had not had an easy time in the past when attempting to retrieve her belongings from the storage unit. This year, however, multiple different schedules of transportation offered by campus to ensure residential students with items in storage units made this process smoother. She stated that she was able to retrieve her things without problem, and smoothly unpack them the next day.
Eastern Resident Assistant Mia Totino commented on the differences of this year's move-in day being smoother because of several factors. She said that in prior years, "a lot of students didn't know they had the option of scheduling an earlier move in date... which wasn't the case this year. On actual move-in day we had fewer students moving in all at once," which helped to streamline the process.
Alongside this, she said that more students took advantage of early move in due to it being sent out over Eastern email. More communication with students was also maintained over the summer compared to previous years. Consistent emails were sent out by the housing department over the summer, with updates coming to students about the easiest ways to access their mailboxes, connect their devices and receive mail upon moving to campus. Additionally, as Totino mentioned, the option to pick a move in "time-slot" appeared on Eastern's housing portal, which is where students apply for housing and manage their housing needs such as work order requests for broken utilities in the dorm, and room change requests.
From this being advertised and pushed to students time and time again in enthusiastic emails, it seemed to have a large effect on reducing the flow on move-in day, making it easier for everyone.
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