Opening Days 2011
Willamette University welcomed more than 600 first-year undergraduate students and their families to campus for Opening Days orientation. With great excitement and perfect precision, current students, faculty and staff introduced our newest Bearcats to life at Willamette.
Here's the class of 2015!!
It was a bright, sunny day as the Willamette community welcomed hundreds of new undergraduate students and their families to campus.
The first order of business for new students was to check-in for Opening Days.
Opening Days student leaders are energized to help first-year students.
A new student is ready to start Opening Days with his schedule and a new Bearcat t-shirt in hand.
President Thorsett is out early with Opening Days student and coaching staff volunteers to greet first-year students and their families.
Son and father get acquainted with campus.
Willamette student-athletes help first-year students move into residence halls.
Opening Days student volunteers lend a helping hand to first-year students and their parents.
First-year students head to their new homes in Willamette's residence halls.
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Parents help their students get settled and organized in their new Willamette homes.
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Student-athletes are a great help to first-year students by assembling furniture.
Daughter and father make their way to the Opening Days welcome program.
Opening Days student leaders get ready to meet with their first-year student groups.
Opening Days student leaders are thrilled to be introduced to the first-year students and to teach them the Bearcat Rumble chant.
President Steve Thorsett is introduced to first-year students and their families at the welcome program.
Blitz was out and about spreading Bearcat spirit.
Opening Days student leaders guide first-year students across campus.
First-year students meet classmates in their first College Colloquium class meeting.
First-year students and Opening Days leaders get to know each other at a late afternoon picnic.
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Bagpipers lead the annual procession of the president and the College of Liberal Arts faculty to the Opening Days convocation address.
President Steve Thorsett introduces the Opening Days convocation speaker: Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet laureate.
President Steve Thorsett and Board of Trustees Chair Steve Wynne on stage during the Opening Days convocation address.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet laureate Robert Hass reads from the works of Greek playwright Aeschylus.
Tej Reddy '12, the president of the Associated Students of Willamette University, speaks to first-year students before the evening matriculation ceremony.
President Thorsett shakes hands and exchanges a few words with first-year students as they gather to participate in the matriculation ceremony.
During the matriculation ceremony, students place lit candles into the Mill Stream to signify the start of their journey at Willamette University.
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As part of Opening Days, first-year students fanned out across Salem for service projects.
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