By Hailey Heinz
When the Catarella family arrived on campus last Saturday, they were expecting to have a terrible day.
“I thought I would be here screaming at people,” said Peter Catarella, who was bringing his daughter Carissa to college for the first time.
Instead, the Catarella’s found the process surprisingly painless. In fact, they raved about it.
“I loved it. I have been telling everyone all day how great it was. It was so organized, they even had free waters,” said Gail Catarella, Carissa’s mother. “I had heard that it used to be a huge traffic jam. I’ve been telling everyone that a woman must have changed it. She must have said, ‘Let’s get organized, do it over three days, assign times.’ She deserves a raise, God bless her.”
In fact, the move-in process wasn’t overhauled all at once, but over several years, said Dawn Eades, assistant director of residence life. Although this is the first year Eades has been involved with move-in, she said one of the key improvements this year was moving the freshmen in over four days instead of just over the weekend.
Eades said the other key factor that made move-in run smoothly was the number of volunteers. There were over 600 student volunteers, including student groups, individual students and even some incoming freshmen. Freshmen who moved in Thursday and Friday were invited to help their peers on Saturday and Sunday, when the majority of the freshmen moved in.
Eades said about 50 freshmen volunteered, and she was surprised by how many of them there were. She was also pleased by the overall number of volunteers.
“I wasn’t expecting the entire football team to show up,” she said.
The sheer number of volunteers did not go unnoticed. Freshman nursing major Brooke Norris, who moved into White Hall on Saturday, said the most helpful thing about move-in, besides the bins, was the “billion people” helping out and making things run smoothly. She said as soon as she arrived there were volunteers ready to help, which generally moved the traffic through quicker.
Eades said planning for fall move-in began back in March, and meetings were held every other week with representatives from Residence Life, Housing Services, Facilities and Public Safety. When they reconvene this March, she said she doesn’t think there are going to be any major changes for next year.
“I think anything we’re going to change will be so minor it won’t be noticeable to anyone but us,” Eades said.
She said the only negative feedback she got was that traffic bottled up right before the Red Sox game, but until then, everything flowed smoothly.
Throughout freshman move-in, President Richard Freeland circulated among the freshman residence halls, greeting the students and their families. He said he has done this every year, and likes to stop by, “just to say hello and greet them.”
“I think it’s great he’s meeting with all the parents. I’m very impressed,” said John Capalbo, who spoke with Freeland as he walked around Speare Hall on Sunday.
Capalbo was dropping off his daughter, who is his first child to go off to school.
“This seemed like a good place to leave my baby,” he said.
