Fitchburg State prepares for 2012-13
Fitchburg State University will welcome more than 1,000 new students as well as about two dozen new faculty and staff members when the fall semester commences on Wednesday, Sept. 5.
President Robert V. Antonucci will inaugurate the academic year with the new student convocation on Monday, Sept. 3 at 1:30 p.m. in Weston Auditorium. Earlier Monday, new students will be moving in between 7:30 a.m. and noon, with orientation activities to follow. Returning students will move in Tuesday, Sept. 4, and classes will begin the next day.
“A new year means new faces, new opportunities and new ideas,” President Antonucci said. “The full university experience begins anew, and the campus truly comes alive.”
Total enrollment at the university, including graduate and continuing education students, totals about 7,000.
New and returning members of the university community will experience a campus that has undergone great transformation during the summer. Among the projects that have kept the campus humming with activity:
- The Hammond Campus Center boasts a dramatic new look, with a striking glass entryway that will further connect the campus and the city. Comprehensive renovations to Hammond also include new meeting spaces for students, faculty and staff. A formal ribbon-cutting on the remodeled building will be held in October.
- A new, handicapped-accessible entrance – and an outdoor seating area – has been installed on the quad side of Edgerly Hall, and will be complete by early September.
- Faculty offices in Miller Hall have been completely renovated.
- Work on the new Science Center continues unabated, on track to open by fall 2013.
Another highlight of the new academic year is the annual Rock the Block party on Highland Avenue on Thursday, Sept. 6, where students learn about the university’s clubs, organizations and offices.
This fall the university looks forward to the release of its accreditation report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which conducted a comprehensive review of the institution in the spring.
