Ah, that yearly ritual of moving college students into their dorm rooms....remember the overloaded cars, the tired Dads, the tearful Moms, the excited friends. This year Move-In Day at The W is August 15. If you are in the area,
Wesley is looking for volunteers, and for water. The MUW Alumni Association (the official affiliated group) has said it will be helping students and giving out water as well. The photo is Madeleine Gardiner, who will be a Sophomore this year, on last year's Move-In Day.
I asked for people's memories of Move-In Day when they were students.
I moved to MUW with a friend from high school - we were roomies in Calloway Hall. I remember thinking when we packed up a trailer with our stuff that we'd brought far too much, but then was stunned to realize that some girls had brought a trailer full of just their own stuff.
I was an Orientation Leader my Sophomore, Junior & Senior years at The W, and those years, just like my own Freshman Move-In Day were memorable for the constant buzz of excitement across the campus. Meeting new friends, starting off on new adventures, bridging that gap between childhood and adulthood, created a palpable energy that I always found invigorating. Neely Woods Hunter, '95
Wow...so long ago yet seems like just yesterday!
I went to the W in the fall of 1983 with my dear friend from high school. I don't know how I would have made it without her.
It didn't take us long to move our stuff into our room in Calloway on the 3rd floor. Home for us was just up the road in Monroe county so we knew we would be going back almost every weekend.
We were very coordinated with matching bedspreads and curtains. We had a large piece of pink carpeting that was a scrap given to us by our small town flooring guy. We had a full size refrigerator in our room - an old one my dad repainted. It seems like lots of folks on the hall keep stuff in that refrigerator. The room was huge.
We got rid of the refrigerator the spring semester so we could move into a small room with a private bath!
I have great memories of those sweet girls from Calloway and the fall of 1983. Michelle Byars Gray '87
My freshmen year I had an entourage come to help me move in: My mom with her Durango loaded down, my grandparents bringing a few things in their pickup, a couple of my guy friends from high school coming to help and me with my car loaded. My grandparents beat me by about ten minutes and Mom was a little bit behind me. Since Mom and Grandmother were W girls and I had been there the week before to paint, we had no trouble finding where we needed to be, but the boys got so lost that I had to run out to the car to get my new Columbus map so we could tell them how to get to campus. When we started to unload in front of Callaway, a swarm of Lockharts just descended and started helping take my stuff up to the 3rd floor. Between all the help from campus and my folks, we had everything unloaded in about 30 minutes. After that was the requisite trip to Walmart for groceries and supplies.
I was in SAA every year I was at the W which came with the perk that I got to move in early so we could help with official Move In Day. I think we got more organized as time went on with unloading zones around the buildings so we could keep things moving. Erin Gioia 2007
The big thing was that it was beastly hot and I had to move to the second floor of Peyton. My dad and mom came to help, and I was afraid my dad was going to have a heart attack from carrying all my heavy stuff since there wasn't an elevator. I was happy to be coming to school, but it was much harder on my parents. They had collected all my stuff for months in the "room that was too good for anybody except company." My dad called it "the staging area." I think it was difficult for them because I was only 16 at the time. My 17th birthday was in a week. Part of the reason they wanted me to come to the W was to keep me away from boys . (They weren't counting on Sandra Day O'Connor!)Laura Amundson 1984
When I think of Move-In Day, I remember two in particular. My Freshman year my dad brought me and my stuff up from Long Beach. No one I knew was going to The W and while in some ways I liked the idea of a new start, it was kind of scary once he left me alone--but it didn't take long for me to realize that there were people who cared. Before dinner than night I had messages from my admissions rep and from Marian Lion, who had been my Beta Club sponsor in junior high, and who was then working in the Alumnae Office. Linda Elliott, who I did not know, but whose mom was friends with my parents, banged on my door and told me to call her if I needed anything. Shortly thereafter, my SIA big sister showed up.
The next year I volunteered to be a big sister and was given the name of Laura Amundson from Brandon Mississippi. I sent her a letter during the summer, and then on Move-In day, dropped by to see her. As she said, both her parents were there and they were all talking. They seemed nice enough, but they sure didn't sound like they were from Brandon, Mississippi, and I told them so. They said they were from a small town in Wisconsin, a small town just down the road from the small town in which my Mom was raised, and where I'm related to half the town. I told them that my mother was from Durand, and Laura mentioned that her uncle married a woman from Durand. It turns out that woman was my mother's first cousin and one of the few whose name I'd know. Ruth Wilz Curcuru '83
