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WVU kicks-off Welcome Week events

WVU hosts Welcome Week cookout for returning students.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University kicks off Welcome Week with students arriving at residence halls this weekend ahead of the first day of the fall semester.

Students will be immersed in campus life and culture by getting involved in more than four dozen activities and events designed to showcase life as a Mountaineer with academic, service, and social elements highlighting the importance of working hard while having fun and serving the community. Saturday’s events featured a cookout on the Mountainlair Green and Recreation Field as well as a Student Recreation Center pool party.

WVU students return to Morgantown campus for the Fall 2022 semester.

“Welcome week is a bunch of activities where we are welcoming all of our students back whether they first time freshman or upper-class students, we’ve got lots of fun activities planned,” said Corey Farris, WVU Dean of Students. “We know our students are going to be here for nine or ten months this year and then they’ll be here four, or five, or six, graduate school, or professional school, and so our goal is to get them engaged right away to get back to the community where they are living and a part of their new home.”

Farris said that the university knows that during COVID the students were at home and not able to engage with classmates or able to engage with their friends like they were used to. He stated for WVU it is important to be able to bring events back to as close to the way they were prior to COVID where students can have fun, engage with one another, and get back into the classroom to learn in person the traditional way.

“Our goal is to help students become better, to better themselves, to better WVU, they better the state, and they better the world. And so, to me all of the things that we offer to our students whether it is in the classroom or engaging with each other in group activities, it’s to make them better because they are the ones that are going to solve cancer, cure cancer, or cure Alzheimer’s, or figure out the cure for the next pandemic,” Farris said. “We’ve got to give them that full well-rounded experience both inside and outside the classroom.”

On Sunday, events include Student Organization Fair, for all students at the Mountainlair Plaza and WVU Coliseum wrapping up the day with Mountaineer MovieFest at the coliseum.

“A lot of these students first time on campus or they’ve been away all summer, you know, or they are brand new coming from overseas. And so, part of the acclimation that we know we need to help them with is to get them connected with the campus as quickly as possible,” Farris said.

At Milan Puskar Stadium on Monday there will be Monday Night Lights with a performance from “The Pride of West Virginia” the Mountaineer Marching Band, and the taking of the official class photo of students