NSU is kicking off the 2014-2015 academic year with a series of events that bring students together and highlight what NSU has to offer. This year’s festivities include the Grand Orientation, Convocation, the annual Week of Welcome and Water Works.
The festivities began on Aug. 21 with Grand Orientation, where new students met other students, faculty and staff. During orientation, NSU also held the annual convocation on Aug. 22, where bestselling author and musician James McBride spoke to students about his book, “The Color of Water,” which new students will read in Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences’ first-year reading program.
NSU’s Office of Student Activities continued the festivities by hosting the Black Light Party on Aug. 23 to officially begin the annual Week of Welcome. The week was designed to highlight various aspects of NSU student life, including Greek Life, student organizations, community service, school spirit and student employment.
Christina Rajkumar, assistant director for Special Events and Projects, said, “One of the main goals of our office is to provide different ways for students to get involved, whether it be through a specific event or one of our student organizations. [The Week of Welcome] is a great way for people to meet others and to really find their identity while their here.”
Shannon Booker, assistant director of Student Activities, said that in previous years students weren’t attending a lot of the events, so this year the Office of Student Activities will make the events more engaging than in previous years during the Week of Welcome.
This year, students can enter a week-long contest that will conclude at Sharkapalooza on Aug. 29. Rajkumar said that Student Activities worked with Campus Card Services and NSU’s Information Technology team to create a new icon the iShark app, which went live Aug. 22. The icon will allow students to track all of the events they attended during the Week of Welcome.
Students who get their SharkCards scanned at the Black Light Party, Welcome Home BBQ, RecFest, Flight Deck Social, Student Employment Fair, Spirit Day, Fraternity and Sorority Life Welcome Back BBQ and Sharkapalooza will automatically be entered into a drawing at Sharkapalooza to win two free roundtrip airline tickets. The winner will be announced during Sharkapalooza.
Rajkumar recommends that students get involved in the events to meet new people and learn about the different opportunities NSU provides.
“Each of these different [activities] will add a unique piece to the entire week, so it will be exciting to see what each of the different [NSU offices] will be doing,” she said.
Though not part of the Week of Welcome, the Student Events and Activities (SEA) Board will host Water Works on Sept. 4 from 8 p.m. to midnight on the Alvin Sherman Library Quad. Water Works will feature music by DJ Zog from Miami’s Power 96 radio station and students will receive a free T-shirt for attending.
Sasha Pimentel, vice president of traditions for SEA Board, said that this year’s event will be a foam party and won’t include paint as it did in previous years. The paint damaged the grass last year, so instead they will use environmentally-safe foam.
“We’re trying to make the quad a place where students can really socialize,” Pimentel said. “In order to preserve it, I didn’t want the [event] to be too damaging [to the quad].”
This will also be the first year that Water Works is not immediately after Sharkapalooza so that students can have a break in between events and won’t be too exhausted to attend.
“We’re still growing as an event and still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work,” she said. “We’re definitely open to suggestions.”
Students who have suggestions for Water Works can email Pimentel at sp1112@nova.edu. For questions, contact Booker at sbooker@nova.edu.
