Every year move-in weekend presents challenges to the University of St. Thomas campus and its students.

But one thing sticks out year after year to help get through the weekend: Father Dease’s Move-In Crew.

“We’ve had a really good turn out with the student helpers. I think there’s around 400, so everything has clicked together real well,” said Public Safety officer Nick Casper.

The crew was available to help freshmen move belongings into their campus dorms. This also gives the freshmen an opportunity to interact with students who have gone through the same experience as moving in when they were freshmen.

“We wanted to welcome the new freshmen because we’re really glad that they’re here and they’re great contributing members to our campus,” said junior Kylie Gayen.

This year, the construction of the new Anderson Athletic Center presented a challenge to on-campus traffic for the weekend. The traffic wasn’t exclusive to the parking lots.

As a way to get traffic flowing effectively on a campus taken over by construction, cars were directed to the sidewalk between Brady Hall and the Physical Plant which then led to the sidewalk that split the Upper Quad in half. This important decision was made by a “combination of Residence Life, Public Safety as well as the Physical Plant” Caspers said.

As cars drove on the quad, one student expressed her concern for the campus.

“I’m just hoping it’s not going to rip up the grass and stuff and make the campus any more torn up than it already is,” said junior Danielle Assie.

Driving through the quad was seen as a minor inconvenience to get through the challenging weekend. The traffic on the quad was seen as a crucial part to make move-in weekend run smoothly.

“We’ve had a lot of traffic obviously with 1,200 freshmen or so moving in. Everything has gone really smooth,” Caspers said.

Cole Trace can be reached at cttrace@stthomas.edu.