They’re back! William & Mary welcomes incoming students during move-in

As cars began to trickle in around 8 a.m, William & Mary already had hands on deck to welcome the new students on one of the biggest days of the year: move-in day.

Madeline Aymard and her parents, Marc and Laurie Aymard, rolled in a full cart and kept their hands full as they worked to situate Madeline, who is going into pre-med, into her new home.

Midway through, the Leesburg family was already “learning a lot” from the experience, they said, thankful that there was air-conditioning during an especially hot and humid Thursday afternoon in August.

Like all students moving into their new dorm rooms, Madeline was armed with décor, and excited to finally meet her new roommate, Lauren, face-to-face.

Beyond the heat, a sense of anticipation hung in the air for those who already on campus and standing by to help out over the course of the move-in process, said Lauren Garrett, the director of student transition engagement programs.

“It of course takes a village,” she said. A “wide swath” of people, from residence life to facilities management to the alumni association to auxiliary services take part in move-in, helping to “think through all of the different perspectives and experiences that come with the process,” she said.

Garrett knows there are a lot of emotions circling over the course of move-in for the approximately 4,000 students, both new and returning, that arrive on campus over the course of four days.

“There’s a lot of excitement,” she said. “For new students, it’s a little bit of nervous anticipation. They may have seen others go off to school, maybe this is the first time that anyone in their family has come to university, so varying emotions. It’s not uncommon during those two days of new student move-in to see everything from tears of joy to tears of [being overwhelmed] and everything in between.”

Move-in wasn’t entirely new for freshman Emma Pineda, whose parents got a taste of what to expect when her older brother, Luke Pineda, moved in for his first year at James Madison University a few years ago.

Emma said the excitement “washed over” all of her nervous feelings about moving in. Mostly, she’s excited about finally getting on campus, which she said was one of the big reasons she chose to come to William & Mary.

“I love the feeling on campus and the community here,” she said, citing how welcoming and inclusive it felt.

This time around, the Pinedas felt “more ready” for the move-in process, Emma’s mom Amy Pineda said.

They made the trip from their home in Fredericksburg in about three hours, leaving around 9 a.m. to get to campus on time for Emma’s midday move-in slot. It took several trips to get Emma’s belongings from the car to her single room in Lemon Hall, which her brother said she’s excited to get the chance to decorate.

For her first semester, Emma probably brought more than she’ll need, she said, but she “can always send stuff home.”

According to orientation aides senior Kate Barrett and sophomore Payton Dick, this year’s move-in has been pretty smooth-sailing so far. Barrett and Dick are among the approximately 270 students on hand as orientation aides, helping out alongside around 150 more students on campus as part of residence life.

Barrett, who was working her third year of move-in, remembers when everyone arrived on the same day, something that resulted in a level of chaos most people who have experienced college move-in before might recognize. But with William & Mary spreading out move-in over several days, a policy leftover from the height of the COVID-19 days, the crowd on the school’s pathways and lawns was relatively sedate and sparse.

This was the first college move-in experience for DiYana Hairston and her mother and grandmother, who both made the trip from Martinsville with Hairston to help out. So far, the biggest lesson learned? Make sure to bring a cart.

“It’s been an experience,” Regina Abbott, Hairston’s grandmother, said dryly, standing alongside a heap of Hairston’s belongings outside of her new dorm. “We will never forget it.”

Sian Wilkerson, sian.wilkerson@pilotonline.com, 757-342-6616