I just saw that the Chapman University’s Academic Year Opening Convocation has moved to the evening this year! On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 @ 7:00 pm at the Chapman Wilson Field Stadium. It used to be at 9:00 am on the second day of orientation. I like going to this ceremony because it is very inspirational and we get to hear the President James Doti speak. Dr. Doti is a great speaker.
My D has rented an apartment one block from Chapman. All neighbors received a notice in the mail warning residents that there is going to be fireworks - in case their pets might get alarmed. Unfortunately, my D is a transfer and we were not invited to Aug 25 - her orientation starts Aug 27
We attended last year and it was also in the evening with fireworks. Beautiful sunset.
This event is free and open to the public. No one is personally invited to the Opening Convocation. In past years it was just listed in the orientation program which is handed out the first day Tuesday when student check into the dorms.
In the link I provide it states: “This event is free and open to the public.
For more information, please call (714) 628-7393.”
I just found this Orange County Register newspaper online article:
CHAPMAN READY TO HELP NEWCOMERS NAVIGATE TO SUCCESS
BY JIM DOTI / CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT Aug. 31, 2015
And so it begins again…
I looked out over a sea of bright, eager and perhaps somewhat overwhelmed faces last week as I stepped to the podium to speak at Chapman’s Opening Convocation, a gathering of all new students and their families that traditionally kicks off our academic year. There were the parents and siblings, up in the stands of Ernie Chapman Stadium; and there in a phalanx of chairs on Holly and David Wilson Field were our incoming freshmen and transfer students. Arrayed in front of them were our faculty, deans and campus leadership, in full colorful academic robes and regalia. It was a particularly beautiful (if muggy) evening, with the sky streaked in pink as the sun set over our Erin Lastinger Athletics Complex.
And I thought to myself, well, the cycle of our year has begun again, on this evening in August as we opened Chapman University’s 155th academic year. Ever since I joined Chapman in 1974, and became president in 1991, the beginning of the year has been one of my favorite times. OK, I like all the times of our year, but there’s a certain energy to beginnings and new school years, isn’t there?
When I was growing up, we both dreaded and looked forward to September, when we’d march back to school in spiffy new clothes with pristine, sharpened pencils and crackling-fresh new notebooks. I can only imagine what it’s like for today’s freshmen entering college, moving into a new residence hall with all their digital and electronic equipment, tweeting to their friends what their new campus looks like, saying goodbye to their families. (But with the comforting presence of a cell phone, so families keep in touch much more closely now than they did when I was in college. Remember the “old-school” dorms with one pay phone at the end of the hall?)
We keep our new students busy in the first week they’re here. On top of meeting their new roommates and setting up their new abodes in the residence halls, they plunge into an Orientation week of wall-to-wall activities. All of this has one goal: to help them feel like Chapman is their new home. Our entering students are well-prepared for starting their classes – we’re proud that Chapman freshman boast a 3.75 grade point average. We know they’re academically ready.
But arriving at a university, knowing they’ll be here for the next four years, living away from their families, sometimes not knowing any friends here or having any idea what to expect about campus life – coming to a four-year residential college is a huge step for a young man or woman. They’re suddenly out of their comfort zone, somewhat adrift – and it’s our job to put an arm around their shoulders and welcome them to their new families.
There is, of course, what we call the Chapman family: our students, alumni, faculty, staff and leadership, friends and supporters. Then there is the family of the City of Orange, especially our neighbors surrounding the university. Our task is to make them feel at home here, and also to encourage and teach them treat their new home with respect and their new family members with understanding, kindness and friendliness.
Perhaps the most moving moment during Orientation is our candle-lighting ceremony, where new students light the candles of their families and bid them goodbye. Apron strings cut (somewhat, anyway…) these new Chapman Panthers face a new year of excitement, learning and new discoveries, both about the world and about themselves.
Then I remember the words of Charles C. Chapman, our wise namesake and benefactor, who in the 1930s – in a message engraved for all to see on his statue on our campus – wrote these words of advice to his grandson:
“I liken life before you to that of a ship with its prow pointed toward the great ocean as it leaves the harbor for the distant shore. Storms may come, and they will – for no ship ever sailed the seas but had to face the storm. If it is strong from keel to top, bow to stern, well maintained and intelligently directed, it rides the storm and goes on its way. So you will meet obstacles, storms. If you are strong in faith, clear headed, honest, trusting for divine guidance and with a character built on the solid rock, you will meet all troubles in your life victoriously.”
Welcome back, students – you’re the reason we’re here, and we couldn’t be happier to stand beside you as you learn to sail.