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While new students have spent the last several days moving into residence halls and getting settled, New Student Convocation marked their official welcome to the ���ϲ����� community and their very first time gathering as a class.

During the annual tradition, which takes place in the JMA Wireless Dome, the academic program includes leadership and faculty processing with full regalia.

The just over 4,000 new and transfer students hail from 49 states, including Washington, D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; 20 Indigenous nations and 59 countries. University leaders and student speakers imparted advice, words of wisdom and posed thoughtful questions to the new students, embarking on this new journey.

Wisdom From an Upperclass Student

Alie Savane (Photo by Amelia Beamish)

“Live it up; be in the moment. It’s okay to fail, I encourage it; it’s a learning point,” said Alie Savane ’25, a biology major in the College of Arts and Sciences and the student speaker in his words of advice to new students.

Savane was candid about some of his struggles during his second year as a student but leaned on his connections with upperclass students and alumni. “I learned that my worth wasn’t tied to only my grades but to the effort that I put out every day. Even counting those days of rest, give yourself grace, one’s recovery is still effort,” he said.

“Growth is fundamental to this experience, and there’s a community here dedicated to fostering it. The Orange community makes this campus shine bright even on its cloudiest days, which is great because winters can be a bit cloudy,” said Savane.

Requests From the Chancellor

After addressing the loved ones of the students, Chancellor Kent Syverud made two requests of the new students.

The first: come as you are. “If you have not figured it out yet, you will figure it out pretty soon: there is no one way of thinking, no one way of dressing, no one person who is the ‘normal’ here at ���ϲ�����. People here are unique and amazing and dazzlingly different. So given that there is no ‘normal’ here, why not try just being yourself here. Not the image of perfection that appears on social media, not the identical replica of someone else, just be you. I believe you will find that if you come as you are here, you will become Orange.”

Chancellor Kent Syverud (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

The second piece of advice from the Chancellor: Become more at ���ϲ�����. “That’s the common thread in all the speeches you are hearing this week. You have a chance that has been denied to so many people in this world: a chance to be part of a great university. So, take it. Please become more here, in your own unique and defining way. That’s what so many people have done before you, and you can too.”

Showing Grace to Others

“Every one of you have earned your place here and every one of you deserves to be here,” said Allen Groves, senior vice president and chief student experience officer, sharing how almost 45,000 individuals applied to be part of the new first-year class and 1,500 applied to be transfer students.

“While you’re here I want you to make sure you explore fearlessly new ideas, new ways of thinking and expose yourself to people whose views may be different than your own,” said Groves. “I hope you’ll debate big, contentious issues and ideas respectfully, listening as much as speaking—and sometimes that’s hard—and being mindful of our goal of being a place of academic excellence in a university that is welcoming to all.”

After the program concluded, students and their families said their goodbyes. (Photo by Amelia Beamish)

“As you begin to navigate campus and figure out your own routine and favored spaces, I sincerely hope you will be willing to extend a hand to a classmate who may be struggling, and to show grace when a peer makes a mistake. That peer could just as easily be you, and we could all use a little more grace in this world.”

Seizing Possibilities

“Today you’re surrounded by your fellow new students, most or all of them strangers to you now. And yet many of them will become lifelong friends. Hard as it may be to imagine, you and the people who surround you now will gather again in this dome in four years to celebrate Commencement,” said Lois Agnew, interim vice chancellor, provost and chief academic officer. “Between that day and this celebratory moment, there is possibility—the possibility of who you will be as a student at ���ϲ�����, and the possibility of who you will become in the years that follow your time here.”

Agnew shared there are many ways for students to seize that possibility, noting research, creative inquiry, studying beyond campus through study away and study abroad programs, experiential learning and intellectual bravery as prime examples.

“Challenge yourself. Be brave and be curious. Go outside your comfort zone and explore new things. You may discover passions you did not know you had,’” Agnew said.

Before the conclusion of the program, the newest students to enter ���ϲ����� recited the charge and sang the alma mater. The next time they will all be together in the JMA Dome will be for their Commencement in May 2028.

New students recited the charge and sang the alma mater. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)