KINGSTON, R.I. – Sept. 4, 2024 – At Barlow Circle, the music set the beat for a block party atmosphere. A line of cars, trucks and SUVs snaked down Campus Avenue to Butterfield Road. An army of hundreds of volunteers waited to help first-year students move into their new homes for the academic year. A grill cranked out food to fuel the work.

“It’s an amazing day,” URI President Marc Parlange told a TV reporter on Friday, Aug. 30, as move-in weekend rolled out the welcome mat to new students and transfers. “The weather really has cooperated this morning. It’s cool, it’s sunny, and there’s so much energy. It’s fantastic, all the volunteers that we have helping this year.”

President Parlange and Mary Parlange were among the first to greet students as they arrived at Hillside Hall on Friday morning. A total of 1,200 students moved into their residence halls on Friday. For the weekend, about 6,000 students, including about 3,000 first-year students, moved on campus, to live in residence halls, Greek Life houses, and other halls. In all, URI will welcome more than 17,000 students when fall classes start Sept. 4. 

During move-in weekend, hundreds of volunteers – faculty, staff, ROTC members, and hundreds of Greek Life students, among others – provided an upbeat atmosphere, greeting new and returning students with smiles and carrying their belongings into their new campus homes. Feeding the frenzy of activity was URI Police Officer Paul Hanrahan, who manned a grill all four days and cooked breakfast and lunch for volunteers, students and families – dishing out a total of 1,876 hotdogs, 500 grilled cheese sandwiches, 800 pancakes, and 20 dozen donuts. He also moved his daughter Alexa, a sophomore nursing major, into her residence hall over the weekend.

For many of the volunteers, it was a way to give back.

“I was a first-year student last year. I’m so excited to help first-year students move in and get them excited to come to URI because it’s an exciting place,” said Ayomide Olagundoye, a sophomore biomedical engineering and Spanish major.

Olagundoye helped pump-up the arriving students and their families as they arrived on Campus Avenue. She was part of a trio – with fellow Orientation volunteers Yemi Adenegan, a junior human development and family science major from Providence, and Omar Dovesi, a junior computer science major from Italy – that sang and shouted messages of welcome. 

Over at Hillside, Arabella Mechanick and Natalye Lustberg were among the hundreds of Greek Life students who helped first-year students move in.

“Obviously it’s a really stressful day for first-year students,” said Mechanick, a sophomore psychology and human development major from Randolph, New Jersey. “So, we wanted to provide some friendly faces. … I didn’t know anyone at all when I came here and move-in gave me a group of people I could recognize around campus.”

“I remember my dorm didn’t have an elevator,” added Lustberg, a sophomore sports media major from Weston, Connecticut. “I would have had to carry all my stuff up the stairs myself. But I had helpers that moved all my stuff up for me. … so  I could get started unpacking.”

Nathan Hazard of Scituate, an incoming criminal justice and Spanish major, was thankful for all the help as he moved into Peck Hall. 

While Hazard liked what he saw during his tour of the URI campus, he was attracted by URI’s ROTC program. “I know the academics at URI are very strong and I know I’ll learn a lot,” said Hazard, a member of the Army National Guard. “But I have a lot of opportunities with the ROTC program and other clubs I can join. So URI was my top choice. I knew I wanted to come here.”

Sam Marchese, a first-year marine biology and animal science major from Westerly, has had numerous chances to experience the Kingston Campus and envision himself as a URI student – he’s the son of URI Dean of Engineering Anthony Marchese. This past summer, he worked in mechanical engineering professor Arun Shukla’s lab at URI, just like any research student. 

“I feel that of all the colleges that I looked at, URI is the one that I could see myself going to the most,” he said as he moved into Hillside. “Being around campus a lot … I could picture myself here.”

“It’s an honor and a privilege that Sam chose URI,” said his dad, who was at Hillside to welcome incoming engineering students. “He’s a great student and had a lot of options. But URI is where he feels comfortable and we’re really excited to have him. That’s speaking as dean of engineering. But as a father, it’s bittersweet. My wife and I are empty-nesters now. And, like all parents, we worry about our kids finding their community. At the same time, we know our kids have to figure that out on their own.”

Sydney Melluzzo, a first-generation college student from Wethersfield, Connecticut, knew URI was the place for her after visiting Peckham Farm. “I toured URI during Welcome Day and Orientation,” said Melluzzo. “It’s a pretty campus. I really liked the farm. I’m going into animal science and I want to be a veterinarian. Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to do something with animals.”

For first-year student Kennedy Klein, it took three visits to URI to seal the deal. 

“This is where I wanted to be,” said Klein, who plans to major in history and psychology and minor in French. “I wanted to be somewhere in the Northeast. So we started looking at different schools all over, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. And I landed on URI. It had no ‘cons.’”

Klein, whose family recently moved from Portland, Oregon, to Manhattan, found move-in “super easy” – with all the help from volunteers. The possessions delivered to her door at Peck included one with a special value – a suitcase once owned by her great-grandmother that held graduation letters and gifts from friends. “It’s old and I love it,” she said.

Decorating her room in Weldin Hall, Lucy Cameron explained the things that swayed her toward URI – the coast, Narragansett Beach, and the marine affairs program. “I decided  on my major while touring schools,” she said. “I like learning about the water and animals.”

This will be the longest she’s been away from home, she said, so packed among her things was a reminder: a white oblong pillow embroidered with “Newburyport, MA,” her hometown. It was a graduation gift from a classmate to a dozen friends as they start new academic journeys. 

“We all have the same pillow and we all brought it to the dorm as a way to connect,” Cameron said.