Collegial beginnings at SEMO

Matt Gibson, about to embark on his college education, had it in his mind to pack a television into his vehicle before he left St. Louis with his parents on Thursday.

But there just wasn't enough room. His guitar, however, had a special place along with a couple of amplifiers for future jam sessions.

One would think that Gibson's fellow band member and Southeast Missouri State University roommate, Dave Meyer, would understand.

But as they were climbing the eight flights of stairs to their dorm room during Southeast's moving day, Meyer voiced his concerns.

"We're not going to have a TV at all?" he asked. "What are we going to do all day?"

Those types of conversations were going on all over campus as hundreds of students made their migration to the dormitories. Vans, pickups and stuffed cars backed up from the Towers dormitories down Sprigg Street, and curled back all the way to the university's recreation center on New Madrid Street.

The university is expecting about 2,000 new students this year, including freshmen and transfers.

All those new students had plenty of help moving their stuff in Thursday. About 600 volunteers, 400 of them fraternity or sorority members, provided curbside moving services.

Kathy Powelski and her daughter, Brystol, made the trip down from Milwaukee.

Kathy, who has sent two other children off to college, said this was her best moving day experience.

"There was so much help," she said. "It was great."

Nick Cutelli, a member of the Lamda Ki Alpha fraternity, said moving day is a good opportunity to meet incoming students "and females too," he said.

"I remember when I was a freshman," Cutelli said. "It's nice when you're a freshman coming in to have a group of people show up just to help you out."

Over the years, the move-in has become more efficient.

Ann Hayes, spokeswoman for the university, said students are assigned times to show up, based on the floor that they're on and odd and even room numbers.

Despite the traffic that was backed up, the organized chaos kept the cars moving pretty quickly.

"Overall everything seemed to be really going well," she said.

The moving wasn't as hard as Gibson thought it would be.

"I was all ready to go up the stairs and do it by myself," he said. "But I had plenty of help."

But the room, he said, was smaller than the room he saw on his campus visit.

He and Meyer will have to share a pretty tight space -- 11 feet by 16 feet.

"This is reality shock, right here," said Gibson, a Vianney High School graduate who will have to maintain a 3.5 grade-point average to keep a scholarship.

At least Meyer and Gibson will have someone looking out for them. Meyer's sister, Christina, is a junior. She was trying to convince her brother to go to the bookstore as soon as possible.

"I have a feeling he's going to wander around aimlessly for a week," she said.

Gibson wasn't the only person faced with a reality shock on Thursday. So were the parents who were dropping off their grown children.

Barb McNamara of Breese, Ill., waited by her van for movers to take another load to her son Mark's room.

"So far, the day has been fine," she said. "Everything is quite organized. It's been OK, but it's not going to get better by the end of the day when I drive home without him."

bmiller@semissourian.com

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