Despite storms, UIS freshmen move-in goes smoothly

By Courtney Westlake

The new freshmen class at UIS braved the storms and tornado sirens on Wednesday, August 19, as they loaded up all of their suitcases, computers and other personal items from their cars and carried everything in to their new rooms in the two campus residence halls during move-in day at UIS.

"In the 29 years of openings that I've been involved with in campus housing, this is the first year that we've operated under a tornado warning, so that's added a new wrinkle to the organized chaos," laughed John Ringle, director of UIS Housing. "I think it went fairly smoothly, all things considered."

When the campus notification came through from the campus police that there was a tornado warning in the mid-afternoon and the sirens began to sound, the housing department moved in all of the students, their parents, and campus volunteers who were helping outdoors and made sure they were under cover, Ringle said.

"It's not something we plan for, but we had contingency plan that went into effect virtually flawlessly," Ringle said.

Ringle noted that UIS is likely to surpass the 1,100 number of on-campus students, which the university has never reached before.

"In fact, last year we cracked the 1,000 barrier," he said. "I think we've got more students living on campus, and we also have more transfer students and graduate students. I always like to be 100 percent occupied, or even 101 percent to be on safe side, but I think we'll be in the high 90s."

Move-in day for the freshmen class is always a team effort from many people on campus, Ringle said.

"I want to thank the groups we had helping - all of the volunteers -and it's been a great opportunity for them to network and meet some of the new students as well," he said.