Welcome Week begins

Welcome Week begins

As the 2007-2008 academic year begins, welcome to new students, faculty and staff, and welcome back to all returning community members of the University of St. Thomas!

As in previous years, the university will inaugurate the academic year with Welcome Week events to launch the year and get (re)acquainted with friends and colleagues.

A complete list of the week's events is available at the Department of Residence and Campus Life's Welcome Week Web site.

Listed below are several traditional Welcome Week events and a new feature – the game show "Are You Smarter Than an Administrator?"– at this year’s picnic on Tuesday, Sept. 11, on the St. Paul campus. Students are invited to match wits with administrators on “elementary” Tommie truths and trivia. Prizes will be awarded. Sign up here to be a contestant.

March Through the Arches
9:30 a.m. today Tuesday, Sept. 4

Welcome the University of St. Thomas' newest students to campus. New first-year students, transfer students and international students will gather on the Summit Avenue side of the arches at 9:15 a.m. and, after a welcome from Father Dennis Dease, university president, they will walk through the arches and into Schoenecker Arena for the New Student Convocation. As students walk through the arches, they are applauded by faculty, staff and students. Returning members of the community also are invited to gather at the arches to say “Welcome!”

President’s Convocation
1:30 p.m. today, Tuesday, Sept. 4
St. Mary’s Chapel, St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity

Dease welcomes new faculty and staff and gives his “State of the University” address.

Opening Mass and Reception
11 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 9
Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas

Dease will be presider and homilist for this Mass. A reception follows on the chapel grounds (rain site: Murray-Herrick Campus Center, second-floor atrium).

Interfaith Blessing for the New School Year and Picnic
11:45 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11
Lower and upper quads, St. Paul campus
Rain site: Schoenecker Arena and Coughlan Field House

Community members of all faiths are invited to meet on the lower quad to ask for blessings on the new school year and to celebrate afterward with a picnic on the upper quad.

Interfaith Blessing for the New School Year and Picnic
Noon Wednesday, Sept. 12
Terrence Murphy Hall atrium, Minneapolis campus

Minneapolis students, faculty and staff will gather to ask for blessings on the new school year and celebrate with a picnic lunch following.

It is a tradition that university offices close (if possible) on both campuses during the Interfaith Blessing for the New School Year and Picnic so that all faculty, staff and students can attend.

Offices are asked to make arrangements to close and encourage everyone to attend. If you are able to close you are encouraged to post signs on Monday, Sept. 10, and keep them up through the celebration so that visitors will understand your absence.

Fall Welcome Keynote: "Can I Kiss You?" by Mike Domitrz
Monday, Sept. 10
O'Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium

4-5:30 p.m. - Group 1
All commuter students (students not living in university housing), and residents of John Paul II, Murray and Brady halls.

7:30-9 p.m. - Group 2
All residentsof Dowling, Ireland, Cretin and Grace Halls.

College students love Mike Domitrz’s hilarious, high-energy, interactive program on healthy relationships, dating and intimacy. Domitrz was so well received last year he is returning for an encore performance.

Do you get fed up with all the "games" people play in dating and with hooking up? "Can I Kiss You?" will show precisely how to eliminate the games by saying exactly what you want. Discover how raising the level of respect between you and your partner actually heightens the romance.

This program is open to everyone on campus. Students unable to attend their assigned session are asked to attend the other session.