REGINA - Monday was a big day for students moving into the dorms at the University of Regina.
Students began arriving at the university in the morning at the entrance to Kisik Towers, with bags full of items to prepare for residence life.
Helping the students transport those items to their new quarters were several University of Regina student ambassadors and resident assistants decked out in green and orange. as well as faculty and staff were also there to welcome the students and help them move in.
They helped unload the items and carried them in trolleys up to where the students will be living during the school year.
The University of Regina is reporting they expect more than 1,100 students to be living on campus this fall, an increase of 30 per cent from last year. The university expected close to 400 students to arrive on Monday alone.
One of those new arrivals was Lauren Swan, a second-year student in social work who will be living in the student residences for the first time. Her mom Natasha was there to help out, and both were impressed by what they said was a welcoming and well thought-out setup to move in.
“It could be more stressful but it’s going pretty smooth,” said Swan, who is from Moose Jaw. She said the reason she decided to live in residence was “just for the experience. I thought it would be fun, it’s something I didn’t want to miss out on.”
One of the resident assistants, Dalton Taylor, explained what was involved in the all-day effort to move people.
“We’re essentially just providing a next level experience is the best level way to describe it,” said Taylor. The idea was to make it easy on the parents by helping transport items up to the rooms.
“It’s just kind of a one stop shop for everything. And then on top of that we have a barbeque to cap it all off alongside orientation that we’re looking forward to … this is a lot of people’s first year away from home, so it’s stressful. So we are trying to alleve some of that stress.”
It was a co-ordinated effort with seven days of training for those involved in helping out, with the resident assistants brought in the previous day to set up. Taylor said people from every department were there helping out on Monday.
“If you’re here on Monday move-in day and you work for the University of Regina, you’re here… We’ve got our work cut out for us, so I’m happy that we have all hands on deck.”
There are still a number of vacancies in the dorms, with about 400-500 rooms still not filled. A good number of students still decide to live off-campus with friends or family or to share accommodations.
University of Regina President Dr. Jeff Keshen was on hand to personally welcome students to residence. He said part of the reason why there was increase in students in residence was because of the recovery from COVID-19. “This was the first year, really, where we’re back to normal operations in terms of the numbers, in terms of how we operate,” Keshen said.
There are also international students coming in, and the university also got word out about incentives for students living on campus, such as more convenient access to student and academic supports.
“A lot of students are now coming back. Obviously, the situation is different with Covid(-19). We’ve been out and about in communities across Saskatchewan and internationally talking about the wonderful things that U of R has to offer — over 100 programs, graduate programs that are doing really well. So we are back at pre-pandemic levels, and you can see the energy on campus. I was thrilled to see students coming from Swift Current, from Moosomin, from Northern Saskatchewan, from Calgary, from Dauphin and internationally. I met a couple this morning from Nigeria. It is an energy on campus that we wanted to happen for some time and it’s great to see it this morning.”
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