Saturday was move-in day for freshmen at RISD. And since I like to understand things through actually doing them, I proudly wore a yellow shirt and assumed the position of a luggage-mover with the rest of the volunteer student force. First of all, I realized that freshmen bring gigantic suitcases of stuff in containers that I wasn’t aware existed. Some of the suitcases seemed bigger than a Hummer, and without wheels! I was *so* impressed with all the student volunteers buzzing about the residence halls with bags and boxes, and was grateful that they tolerated my inability to understand how to navigate the Quad with any real precision. Meanwhile, traffic was orderly moved in and out by our fine Public Safety officers, people were fed by our blazingly fast Dining Services staff, Facilities staff were moving everything point to point, and every part of RISD was collaborating to make a day potentially impacted by a hurricane into one that seemed quite placid.

Later I met with parents from all over the world at the Parent’s reception held at the RISD Museum. I heard about many childhood dreams of going to RISD fulfilled. There was such pride in every parents’ face. Congratulations to all parents and relatives of RISD Class of 2012 students! We’ll do our best here at RISD to make you even more proud!