#welcomeuga

A new UGA student at orientation

As usual, the museum's department of communications had a busy summer. While much of UGA slows down from May to early August, and a good parking space is easy to find in downtown Athens, the university also runs orientation for the thousands of freshmen, transfer students and graduate students who will start classes next week. We want them at least to know the museum exists, so we show up and work a table at every orientation session: 15 for freshmen, 4 for transfer students, 1 for graduate students, 1 for international students and 1 for new faculty.

Our lovely volunteer with our Snapchat poster

We spent much of the summer hauling around our red wagon filled with copies of Facet, a tablecloth, a pop-up banner and our brand-new trifold brochure aimed at attracting people to the building (you can look for the latter at the Athens Welcome Center, the Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau and welcome centers around the state). Some times were slow, and we had a chance to observe the latest in 18-year-old fashion or enjoy some quality time with Corny the corn snake, who accompanies the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources to some sessions. We made new friends, both among the new students and among our fellow tablers. Other times were busy, and we got to deliver our spiel about the museum to dozens of people streaming by our table. We hope some of it sunk in. If students can remember that there's a museum on campus, we're doing our job.

We also decorated a dorm room, for the third year in a row. University Housing puts a call out for different departments on campus to spruce up its tour rooms during orientation, so they don't look as spartan. We always have fun trying to make our room look lived in but attractive, and our placement in Building 1516, which is just down the street from the museum, helps us make our case that students should get out and experience everything UGA has to offer. We're eager for the start of the new academic year, and with students moving into the dorms this week, we've already seen an uptick in foot traffic. We know we're not the first to say it, but welcome, new folks!

The museum's dorm room in Building 1516