MLC welcomes this year's freshmen

By CHANCE PRIGGE

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- A little after 1 p.m. Thursday the front-desk lobby in Martin Luther College's Concord Hall dormitory was fairly quiet.

It was Orientation Day, and outside residential assistants stood prepared in their brightly colored T-shirts, ready to meet and help move in this year's incoming freshmen.

Inside, greeters were in their positions to further help the freshmen.

Greeter Lance Hartzell, also an art and education professor, stood next to a table with folders containing students' class schedules and basic MLC information.

"They all seem happy to be here," Hartzell said.

It was quiet because most of the students were eating in the cafeteria. The busier hours would be later in the afternoon.

Occasionally, though, a student would come in through the doors, looking to get his papers and find his dorm room.

Some of them, Hartzell said, were completely familiar with the place and what they had to do, largely because they've had family members who have attended MLC.

"And others are just as green as can be," Hartzell said.

Thursday was reserved for the majority of freshmen to move in. Today the remaining freshmen and the upper-class students will be moving in.

"It gets the new ones in and settled before the older ones come piling in," Hartzell said.

A few feet from Hartzell were Michael Vogel and Judy Kruse, who were working the desk, giving students their dorm keys and sending them to their rooms.

Vogel, a graduate of MLC and now a teacher and head of the all-male Concord Hall, said most of the new students he'd seen Thursday were excited and anxious to be at the school.

"They come in not really sure where they're supposed to go," he said.

Vogel came to MLC in '95, the first year of the amalgamation between Dr. Martin Luther College and Northwestern College of Watertown, Wis., staying in the very dorms he's now in charge of.

"Hopefully I can use my past experience as a college student," he said. "I think understanding is the biggest thing I can take from when I was in college."

Vogel's only advice to freshmen was a good use of time.

"A good balance of making a good use of your time and having a fun time," he said.

While the freshmen were moving in, summer construction was still visibly busy on campus.

Next to the Luther Student Center, areas were fenced off as digging was still in progress.

Kruse said the construction shouldn't be a problem.

"It's pretty navigable now," she said. "Even with this construction it's been pretty easy to move around."

Thursday's Orientation Day isn't the only way students get acquainted with the school.

Hartzell will be teaching Introduction to MLC, a required class for all freshmen. It will be his first attempt at the class.

"It's an introduction to college -- how to succeed in college, how to take tests," he said.

Opening service is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Wittenberg Collegiate Center Chapel. Fall semester classes begin Monday.