As a sea of students fill the walkways and quad, specks of light blue can be seen. Students in blue t-shirts are mixed in with the crowd, ready to help any lost students find their classes or answer their questions. Booths are scattered from The Bookie to the cafeteria, tasked with directing students to buildings, handing out snacks and chatting with new students.
The annual Week of Welcome is meant to introduce students to the WSU Vancouver campus with events like the Back to School Barbeque and movies on the lawn. This week comes across as seamless to the students on campus, but it takes a lot of planning.
questions and giving out free swag
(Sydnie Kobza/The VanCougar)
According to Sarah Martinez, a junior marketing major and lead student ambassador, planning for the Week of Welcome starts in early summer to ensure everything is ready for the start of the semester.
“We get spirit gear ready to go into all of the different resource centers on campus, we get the materials and snacks needed for the Week of Welcome table staffed by our student ambassadors and we have a majority of the staff within student affairs that are available to answer questions for students throughout the week,” Martinez said.
Caitlyn Schock, coordinator of new student programs, also contributes to the Week of Welcome process. “OSI [Office of Student Involvement] and SAB [Student Activities Board] have signature events that they hold during the first week of classes, so we know those will definitely go on the Week of Welcome calendar,” she said. “Then my job is to talk to other offices on campus to find out what activities are being planned that week and I add them to the calendar.”
“I had been working with SAB, OSI, and CILA[Center for Intercultural Learning and Affirmation] for a couple of months to gather information about their events as they planned,” Schock explained. “Then I sent that information to the WSU Vancouver marketing and communications team.
Schock credits the student organizations with the success of the Week of Welcome. “We wouldn’t have Week of Welcome without student organizations,” she said.
– Caitlyn Schock
The coordination between OSI and SAB contributes to the success of the week. They provide the manpower needed for the week to run smoothly.
Betsy Hanrahan, a junior digital technology and culture major and student ambassador, said student ambassadors sign up for shifts at the Week of Welcome and undergo training throughout the summer to prepare.
“We met with a bunch of people on campus,” Hanrahan said. “We had department heads come meet with us, all the resource offices from campus.”
The collaboration between many student-led organizations combined with a couple months of planning and preparing leads to the success of the Week of Welcome.