Welcome, Class of 2013!

The weather was wet and dreary on Saturday, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the more than 1,600 first-year students as they moved into their residences and began their experiences as members of the University of Hartford’s Class of 2013.

Move-in day for first-year students went smoothly on Saturday, as “Howie’s Helpers,” clad in T-shirts with Howie’s picture and plastic ponchos, helped to unload cars and move belongings into students’ dorm rooms. The raindrops kept people moving efficiently from their piles of clothes and equipment to the residence halls or from the University Commons to the crowded bookstore and back again. Public Safety kept traffic moving and helped identify parking spaces for the SUVs and station wagons loaded with items.

The members of the Class of 2013 come from 33 states and 18 different countries. Fifty-two percent are women. While their expressed interests are distributed among 86 different majors out of the 89 offered by the University, the largest numbers are enrolling in business, engineering, architecture, health professions, biology, psychology, communication, and education.

The new class was selected from an applicant pool of approximately 13,000.

President Walter Harrison officially welcomed the new class during Convocation on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. in Lincoln Theater. (To read President Harrison's Convocation speech, check UNotes Daily on Tuesday.) After Convocation, members of the Class of 2013 enjoyed a barbecue at the Commons (moved indoors because of the inclement weather).

Upperclassmen returned to campus on Sunday, and classes will begin on Tuesday.