By Larry B. Dendy
The university will begin the fall semester in August with a formal academic convocation to welcome freshmen and other new students into their new “community of learning.”
The convocation will be held in Stegeman Coliseum at 2 p.m. Aug. 22, the day before fall semester classes begin. It will feature an address by a noted dignitary and include other
elements designed to introduce new students to the world of a major university.
“We want them to understand that they are becoming members of an academic community and that the focus of this community is learning,” says William Bracewell, assistant to the vice president for student affairs and co-chair of a planning committee for the convocation. “We want to help them learn about the campus, to learn about their teachers and to learn how to learn.”
The entire 1999 freshman class, now estimated to total about 4,200 students, will be invited, along with their parents. All transfer students and graduate students also will be invited.
The convocation also will be an opportunity to welcome new faculty to campus. All new and current faculty members will be invited.
Details of the program are not complete, but it will probably include--in addition to the address--music by a UGA student ensemble, a formal academic procession and greetings from representatives of the faculty, student body and Athens community.
A freshman convocation was a key recommendation from a task force of students and faculty that studied the quality of undergraduate life at UGA.
University officials endorsed the idea, and it began to come to life under the leadership of a student, Gretchen D’Huyvetter, who learned about the proposal during a student leadership development program last year.
Additional details about the convocation will be announced this summer.
|
|
