Several universities around the nation welcome their freshmen and returning students to campus with elaborate events and flashy merchandise, and Alabama State University is no different.
Welcome Week is a student’s first opportunity to get acclimated to college by discovering opportunities to connect, learn, laugh, reflect, and grow through social and academic programs. Welcome Week is designed to deepen a student’s understanding of what makes the university community unique—and quite simply, to just have fun.
This year, the Student Orientation Services (S.O.S.) and Student Government Association’s (SGA) executive branch combined their energies and knowledge to become the architects of Welcome Week.
From August 10 to August 20, ASU’s 2021-22 Welcome Week included a gospel concert, girl code/guy code roundtable, lip sync battle, carnival, hot wings contest, Drip Wednesday, a pie contest, and a talent show.
For the many returning students and new freshmen, Welcome Week was a positive and fun-filled experience. Since some Welcome Week activities were virtual last year, due to COVID-19, the sophomores were just as engaged as the new freshmen. For many students, this year’s Welcome Week proved to be a nice taste of what college life would be.
“Welcome week was great, I was able to interact, and it was really fun,” said sophomore Kyra Allen. “This year’s Welcome Week was way better than last year, more people, more events.” Her favorite event was the carnival as she said, “everyone was together, lots of rides and fun.”
For some, Welcome Week is the start of an amazing adventure, while for others, it means merely enjoying the yearly tradition of book buying and schedule building.
There seemed to be a consensus that all the events had good student involvement and interaction which made some students appreciate it and consider it so enjoyable.
Sophomore Neveah Archer made the comparison between the previous Welcome Week and the current one.
“Last year, there was no excitement because of COVID-19, more interactions and stuff we’ll be interested in … plus for the sophomore class, this is really an XXL because it’s really their first welcome week,” Archer said.
S.O.S Leader Jeremi Moore, believes the events were good.
“It was positive and helped morale … as long as we’re making people happy, that is a plus. The talent show was the best. Little of what you like, little of what you don’t like. And how students can display their craft.”
Large numbers of students interacting amid the Delta and Lambda variants proved to provide a challenge but university administrators enforced mask mandates and health precautions at all of the events.
When staff member Orion Dubose was asked what changes he would make moving forward, he said, “Look for larger venues to allow social distancing and the limiting capacity.”