Move-in day 2014: Staff and volunteers greet new and returning students
2 p.m. — By this afternoon, Brennan Vote’s independent college career had already started.
“My son just said, ‘What are you guys going to do for the afternoon?’ and so I’m guessing (Brennan and his friends are) exploring or looking around,” said John Vote, Brennan’s father.
Brennan at least had lunch with his parents — who made sure to spend some time in front of Einstein Bros. Bagels mingling with three other parents — before exploring.
All five parents said they were glad to welcome their kids to the University of South Dakota. And they were shocked at how fast the move-in process was.
“You open the doors, and everything’s gone,” Dan Reinert said.
Reinert and his wife, Joanne, moved their second daughter, Eliza, into Mickelson Hall at 10 a.m.
They said the only letdown was they were told the move-in was only for first years.
“He’s only an hour-fifteen from Sheldon, and he has a girlfriend there,” Maribeth said. “I’ll see him.”
The Reinert’s said their first daughter wasn’t home for seven or eight weeks, but Maribeth said she’s doesn’t know how she’ll handle that if that’s the case with her son.
The university’s housing department has encouraged all incoming students to stay in Vermillion for the first four weeks of school. At registration sessions in the summer, they told parents and registering students that college experiences are more enjoyable if going home the first month is not a priority.
All five parents knew that and said they know their kids feel the same way.
“We had a friend whose daughter didn’t even make it to the first day of class,” Joanne said. “You haven’t even met anyone yet. Give it a week.”
1 p.m. — Excited to move into his dorm room in North Complex, first-year Jordan Holmdahl said he is ready to start a great year in Vermillion.
“I spent most of the day trying to get rid of my parents,” he said.
Like Holmdahl, many other students were excited to return to campus, including senior Clay Hoffman.
“It’s fun to come here and meet everybody,” Hoffman said. “ It’s the lifeblood coming back.”
Helping to move student’s belongings, Alpha Phi member Taylor Knecht said the tradition of helping students move in is rewarding.
“We like to welcome students to the community,” she said.
Knecht and other Alpha Phi members were busy moving fridges, rocket ship clothes hampers and everything in between from the parking lot into dorm rooms in North Complex.
Kevin Miles, older brother of University of Nebraska-Lincoln Head Basketball Coach Tim Miles, was busy moving his second child, Caelan, to campus.
“The process is streamlined and takes the headache away from parents,” he said.
12 p.m. — After a six hour drive, first-year Nicolas Tacheny was grateful for the help of the upperclassmen who moved him into his dorm at North Complex.
“It went pretty smoothly and I got in, got everything set up,” he said.
Tacheny is from the Twin Cities area and heard about USD at a college fair hosted at his high school. He said he has high hopes for the year.
“I just want to have the next four years of my life go pretty smoothly and have a good mix of having fun with this life and learning new things,” he said.
However, not all students who moved into the dorms Friday are moving in for the very first time.
First-year Katie Meirose was on campus during the summer for the Ambassadors of Excellence program last month and stayed in the room she’s currently assigned for the school year.
“It’s like a welcome home type of thing,” she said.
A few of the standard items most students bring are microwaves, mini-fridges and clothes hampers but for Meirose, one of things she brought along was a deck of Tarot cards.
“I’m learning (to read them),” she said.
Affordability and the fact that USD offers majors and minors of interest to Meirose are what brought her away from her home in Sturgis.
While the majors and minors that Meirose wanted brought her here, for first-year Ashley Sorensen, from Vermillion, the Honor’s Program and the size of the school are what kept Sorenson in town.
Sorensen and her friend Shelbie Walker, also a first-year, moved into the dorms early on Tuesday. Both students moved into the dorms early to participate in sorority recruitment.
“We got A Xi,” Walker said.
11 a.m. — Micaela Josephson did not have far to travel for move-in Friday morning. Coming from Tea, S.D. she was well prepared for the big day.
The night before, last-minute belongings, including a quilt made by Josephson’s mother, Robin, for her extra long twin bed, were organized.
They were then packed into two vehicles to make the short trek to Vermillion for a smooth, yet hot, move-in.
“We loaded the truck this morning and the car,” Robin said. “So she’s got her car here, too.”
Josephsen chose USD because the education program appealed to her and followed in the footsteps of her uncle, cousins and others she knew.
First-year Hans Lundquist, from Sioux Falls, came to USD as a third generation student on one side of his family and a fourth on the other.
Among other draws, having his great grandmother as one of the first women to graduate from the university’s law school gave it an edge over other universities, Lundquist said, along with some convincing from his father, Mike.
Mike was prepared to save some of the day’s precious moments on his camera.
Of those moments included Lundquist hauling his guitar, one of nine instruments he plays, to his room in Coyote Village.
Lundquist said he packed that and other necessities in four hours Thursday.
“I figure if I really need anything, I’m an hour away,” he said.
Lundquist did not mind the heat and brushed off the temperature of the day.
“It’s hot,” Lundquist said. “(But) it’s fine. It’s a normal South Dakota summer.”
10 a.m. — As a flood ravaged Delina Gardner’s Harrisburg, S.D., home, the rising water ruined hundreds of family photos. Images of her childhood were gone, reduced to memories that couldn’t be carried away by the flood.
New photos — filled with grins and goofy poses shared between friends — line the 18 year old’s dorm room in Mickelson’s residence hall. The first-year student kept her photos close when she arrived at the University of South Dakota Tuesday for sorority recruitment.
“I don’t think of myself as a photographer, but I always end up being the one with the camera now. Maybe I’m just trying to make up for the fact that I can’t look back through old photos,” she said.
The images are a reminder of her loss, but the pink pig pillow pet brings back better memories from her high school volleyball team. Gardner said she received the furry pillow from her teammates in part because of a tradition where she would turn the lights off in the locker room and sneak up behind teammates making pig noises to scare them or make them laugh at her upturned pig-like nose.
Gardner is not the only first-year who brought creature comforts from home to their first dorm room. Fellow North Complex residents had their own quirky dorm accessories.
Some students might have stuck to the standard black trash can available at Walmart, but first-year Jamie Bryan prefers to dump his trash in R2D2 – one of the iconic Star Wars robots. Bryan, 18, said he is a fan of both trilogies, and made sure his R2D2 trash made the cut for move-in day.
Bryan moved into the Beede residence hall Friday with first-year Nick Hoflock, 18. Both grew up in Sioux Falls and have remained friends since they were five years old. While Bryan brought the themed trash can, Hoflock brought his collection of Nike shoes that now sit stacked in boxes in his closet.
Some first-year students did not get to choose what items made their way into the dorms. Summer Ulrich received a lava lamp from her parents, Rob and Nina, as she moved into her Mickelson room Friday.
Nina Ulrich said the lamp is a reminder for the first-year that her dad also lived in the dorm as a first-year student in the 1970’s.
“It was a different time then, a lot crazier for sure,” Nina Ulrich said.
9 a.m. — While new and returning students flocked to campus early this morning, vehicles packed and ready to move into their designated living spaces, more than 700 University of South Dakota staff, students and volunteers were working by 6 a.m. to meet the first students at 7 a.m.
USD Safety Officer Hunter Smith, who directs incoming traffic into the DakotaDome parking lot for further instruction, is one of the first university officials students see when arriving to campus.
“By 8 a.m. it was a little bit of a traffic jam, but we’re always making improvements and it works pretty well,” said Smith, who has been directing move-in day traffic for three years. He added at one point traffic was backed up all the way to the Holiday Inn on N. Dakota Street.
The first move-in time was scheduled for 7:30 a.m., but Jackson Freidel, a graduate assistant for Student Services, said the first cars began arriving around 7 a.m.
Freidel and two other graduate assistants from Student Services anticipate to hand out more than 1,000 welcome bags to students until about 3 p.m., when the last group of students are expected to arrive.
“We’re trying to be as efficient as possible to keep everything moving,” he said.
First-year Alyssa Schild and her mother, Tanya, were among a long line of cars inching along the various move-in stations set up within the DakotaDome parking lot.
“I’m just ready to get in (to my dorm in Beede),” said Schild, who is moving from Yankton.
Dean of Students Kim Grieve greeted incoming students at the admissions station alongside other university officials.
“This is how I get my energy,” she said looking onto the line of cars filling the DakotaDome parking lot. “I woke up this morning with goosebumps.”
MAIN PHOTO: Graduate assistants for Student Services Devyn Sponder (left) and Jackson Freidel give students and parents directions and welcome bags Friday morning in the Coyote Village parking lot. (Emily Niebrugge/The Volante)
