University of Virginia Library

Orientation Guides Students
Into University Environment

Entering the University is by no
means as simple as walking into
Page-Emmet House and picking up
a key to a room. The first-year man
coming to the University faces a
week of orientation designed to
acclimate him to life on the
Grounds.

Thus far first-year men have
found their time totally absorbed
by corridor meetings, Honor
speeches and discussions of the
secret societies, ribbon societies,
ring societies and other
organizations. The parents have
even been included through an
invitation to speak with their son's
association dean.

Today the students will hear a
lecture on customs and traditions.
This afternoon President Edgar F.
Shannon Jr. will hold his reception
for undergraduates in the Newcomb
Hall Ballroom. The reception, an
annual event, was moved this year
from Carr's Hill because of the
construction there.

Revised System

Tomorrow the first-year men
register at Memorial Gymnasium. In
the past registration was an
hours-long process dreaded by
returning students, but last year the
registrar's office introduced a
revised, more efficient system.
Returning undergraduates
pre-enrolled their courses last
spring, thus avoiding the long lines
during registration.

This fall they will receive
packets containing cards which
indicate their class schedules.

First-year men pre-enrolled
yesterday afternoon.

Pre-registered undergraduates
will register from 1 to 5 this
afternoon. Herbert R. Pickett,
registrar, said that he expects about
3,300 undergraduates to register
today. Schedule changes will be
made later through the drop-add
system.

Few Advisors

First-year men and students of
the law school and graduate
business school will register
tomorrow from 8 a.m. to 12 noon.
Last year, because of a limited
number of advisers, nearly half the
first-year class were unable to have
their schedules arranged early and
were forced to draw up their
schedules during registration.

Students in the graduate
schools, except for the graduate
business school, will register
tomorrow afternoon from 1 to 5.

Students in the School of
Medicine register today from 4 to 5
p.m.

William B. Guilford, assistant
registrar, said that registration
would be about the same as last
year. He said he hoped that the new
registration system would work as
planned.

Classes begin Friday.

At Activities Night, which begins
at 8 p.m. Friday, entering students
can visit tables set up by students
organizations in the Newcomb Hall
ballroom to recruit new members.

University's Environment

But to a first-year man
coming to Charlottesville for the
first or second time, there is more
to orientation than the formal
schedule of lectures and corridor
meetings. During the coming weeks,
the new students will be discovering
the town in which they will live for
the next four years.

Their first discovery probably
has been an area that is a part of
the University almost as much as
the Rotunda-the Corner. Its name
something of a misnomer,
because the Corner is several blocks
long. Definitions of its boundaries
vary, but the extreme limits on
each side are the Virginia National
Bank on the west and the
University Theater on the east side.

Shopping Center

The Corner is a small shopping
center in itself, lacking only a post
office and an ABC store. For the
hungry student, the corner has
restaurants, a cafeteria and a
market; it also has stores which
carry products ranging from clothes
to aspirin, along with two barber
shops, a theater and a pool hall.

There used to be a bowling alley
in what is now the basement of
Lloyd's Drugstore on the Corner,
and the original lanes can still be
seen in the floor.

For the liquor store, students
may have to go to the Barracks
Road Shopping Center, which is
about a half-mile north of the
University on U.S. 29 (Emmet Ave.
extended).

Charlottesville has two other
state ABC stores, where a student
may go to replenish his stocks for a
big weekend, at 421 E. Main St.
and 731 W. Main St. (Main Street is
the extension of University Avenue,
which runs in front of the Rotunda
and Corner.)

For many of his needs and
much of his recreation, however, the
student need not travel any farther
than Newcomb Hall; which is the
student center of the University.

Newcomb Hall was built during
the 1950s-despite vociferous
student opposition, according to a
member of the faculty, which
stemmed from fears that a student
center would be one more step in
the direction of the University
becoming a stereotyped "state
university."

Widely Used

Newcomb Hall is widely used
today, however. It contains the
offices of University Food Services,
The Cavalier Daily, Corks & Curls
and the University Union.

Also in the building are the
Open Square and Contract
Cafeterias and the Grill, a
bookstore, a barber shop and a post
office. Its recreational facilities
include pool, billiard and
table-tennis tables, a bowling alley,
photographic darkroom and a
listening room for music.

Newcomb Hall has several
meeting rooms and a ballroom, and
it is used for many statewide
conferences and lectures during the
year.