October 2, 2017

The 3,225 new dragons that Drexel welcomed to campus this fall make up the largest incoming freshman class in the University’s history. Needless to say, Welcome Week – Drexel’s new student orientation event – was busier than ever this year.

The Libraries celebrated Welcome Week 2017 with several of its own events to make students feel comfortable in their new home and to familiarize them a little bit with the Libraries’ resources before classes started. 

To kick off the week, Libraries staff participated in the two-day campus resource fair in the Daskalakis Athletic Center (DAC), where they spoke with more than 500 students and their parents and handed out Libraries brochures and swag.

Events continued at the W. W. Hagerty Library with daily open houses, held Monday, Thursday and Friday of Welcome Week. During the open houses, students asked Drexel librarians numerous questions and received tips for how to navigate the Libraries and Drexel in general. Students also explored the Libraries through a scavenger hunt, which sent them hunting for key resources, information and spaces like the Data Visualization Zone, the liaison librarians’ offices and useful online search tools.

New students learned a lot about the Libraries’ resources during Welcome Week, but the Libraries’ Welcome Week events weren’t just for freshmen. Librarians also attended new faculty, staff and graduate student meetings and receptions held throughout the week to introduce them to Libraries’ programs and services such as research support, data management services, course reserves, and librarian consultations

Finally, the Libraries hosted its ever-popular “wooder ice” event (that’s Philadelphian for “water ice”) at the Library Learning Terrace during week one of the fall term. On this hot late-September afternoon, subject liaisons welcomed upperclassmen back to campus over cold cups of cherry and lemon wooder ice.  It took only 55 minutes to hand out 10 gallons of wooder ice to 250 students, and was the perfect opportunity for staff to chat with students about what’s new at the Libraries.