Dear Class of 2025,
Welcome to the University of Notre Dame! As leaders of Welcome Week, it is our privilege to welcome you and your family on behalf of the entire University. Our community is a diverse group of faculty, staff, and students eager to embrace you and your unique gifts as we embark together on a new chapter of our learning and service to the world. This journey will be marked by the ways in which you and your classmates integrate your individual and combined talents to the development and expansion of the Notre Dame story. Welcome Week, our shared orientation endeavor between the Center for University Advising and the Division of Student Affairs, will serve as the opening sentences of this new chapter and celebrate how you and the entire Class of 2025 have distinctly renewed our mission to serve as a force for good in the world.
What is Welcome Week?
As your gateway into life as a student at Notre Dame, Welcome Week seeks to share the characteristics of our Catholic, Holy Cross undergraduate educational experience, introduce and inspire engagement in academic and residential life, demonstrate our commitment to a safe and inclusive environment of teaching and learning, and facilitate the exploration of University resources available to you and your family. At Notre Dame, we believe education takes place in the context of genuine and meaningful communion with others. Thus, Welcome Week serves as an opportunity for our growing community to authentically encounter and embrace all students, with all of your gifts, knowledge, imperfections, and distinct qualities.
Welcome Week takes place during the days immediately preceding the start of classes and is required of all new students. These days consist of moving into your new residence, meeting your hall staff and fellow hallmates, connecting with faculty and staff from all corners of campus, accessing academic, spiritual, and wellness resources, and acknowledging this significant, though perhaps challenging, time of transition for you and your family. Some highlights of Welcome Week programming include: the Class of 2025’s First Trip to the Grotto, Collegiate Exploration and Engagement across Notre Dame’s six colleges and schools, the Moreau First Year Experience Course kick-off, your residence hall’s welcome and orientation, and the Welcome Mass, in which we joyfully join together in prayer and celebration.
When is Welcome Week?
Classes are scheduled to begin on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. We anticipate Welcome Week will begin for all first-year students and two guests on Friday, Aug. 20. Programming for parents and families will conclude on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 21. Additional student-only opportunities and events will continue on Sunday, Aug. 22 and throughout the first week of classes. These dates are tentative and may change as our University community continues to closely monitor and adapt to the developing health risks of the coronavirus pandemic.
In partnership with local and national health authorities, we are in the midst of determining the safest manner to facilitate the arrival of all students and joyfully celebrate your family’s entry into our community. Our priority is to safely welcome you and your family into the vibrant and radically hospitable campus community that makes Notre Dame so special. We will share information as it is finalized, and we encourage you to monitor the Welcome Week website. Thank you for your patience and understanding as, together, we navigate these next weeks. If you would like to follow our campus response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit here.nd.edu.
Welcome Week and Summer Communication
In addition to communicating the specific dates, schedules, and expectations for your arrival, Welcome Week and our partners will routinely be in touch this summer to offer updates, recommendations, and opportunities for engagement with the Notre Dame community. We hope this correspondence may deepen your academic curiosities, foster new relationships, and inform the first steps you take as you begin your Notre Dame journey.
To acknowledge and empower your distinct authorship of these next years, Welcome Week and our partners will communicate directly with you via your Notre Dame Gmail account this summer. You are, of course, encouraged to share all information with your family so that they might walk through these months of exploration and anticipation alongside you.
A few of the communications you can expect are listed on the Summer 2021 Communications at a Glance page of the Welcome Week website. This is not a complete list, but should offer you a helpful glimpse of the next few months. Remember, since communications will be sent to your Notre Dame Gmail account, it is important that you access your new email account and check your inbox daily. Welcome Week’s social media platforms (linked below) will also soon reflect many but not all of these significant announcements and opportunities. You may also explore the Summer Enrollment Student To-Do List on the Welcome Week website as new updates, communications, policies, and opportunities develop.
This is a time of joyful anticipation for our entire community. As you and your family close one chapter of your journey and embrace the next, the entire University of Notre Dame is humbled and delighted by your decision to join us. We look forward to welcoming you home.
Sincerely,
Elly Brenner
Assistant Provost for Academic Advising
Director, Center for University Advising
Erin Hoffmann Harding
Vice President for Student Affairs
Lauren Donahue
Program Director for New Student Engagement
Division of Student Affairs
E. Andrew Whittington
Program Director for First-Year Student Engagement
Center for University Advising
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