The University of Chicago welcomes new students to campus this week, through unique activities and cherished traditions that encompass Orientation Week. O-Week is designed to help students get acclimated to their new home in Hyde Park, while introducing them to campus and the resources they’ll need for their intellectual careers.
On Tuesday, students moved into residence halls across campus, making rooms their own and meeting members of their new community. Transfer students and their families gathered in Rockefeller Chapel that afternoon for an official welcome.
New students of the College received a warm welcome to the University of Chicago with the Sept. 24 Opening Convocation in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.
President Paul Alivisatos, Melina Hale, dean of the College, addressed the undergraduates inside the chapel while the Harper Quadrangle hosted family and friends with a livestream broadcast.
In his remarks, Alivisatos reflected on the educational journey being put before this group of students—and how they should challenge themselves in their search for knowledge.
“You will find that things move faster when you ask questions sincerely, from a desire to understand and to seek truth, not the applause of unmerited confirmation,” said Alivisatos. “Probe with curiosity strong enough to survive your own favorite answers. Let your learning flow from curiosity, humility, determination and wonder. Let it be guided by joy, by discipline, by rigor.”
Speakers throughout Orientation Week also touched on UChicago's dedication to freedom of expression, a guiding principle of the University. Hale emphasized that free expression is a two-way process.
“The careful listener will understand that there is a broader context of the human that comes with the words,” Hale said. “That means taking care of each other in the times we disagree, which we can feel vulnerable and exposed. That means gratitude for the willingness of others to challenge our views and to be open with their own.”
When the ceremony ended, the Class of 2029 and incoming transfer students took part in one of the College’s most cherished traditions—walking in procession through the Main Quadrangles and Cobb Gate, cheered on by family, friends and members of the UChicago community, before taking their class photo at Stagg Field.
On Sept. 25, Prof. Peggy Mason delivered the Aims of Education address—a tradition where a UChicago faculty member is invited to address students in the College on the aims of a liberal education. Mason, a renowned neurobiologist and the director of the undergraduate minor in Science Communication and Public Discourse in the College, urged students from the College to embrace what most people try to avoid: discomfort.
The week was made possible by the College Programming and Orientation (CPO) office, whose staff coordinated both informative and social events for students.