Campus & community, Campus news, Events at Berkeley

A warm, digital welcome for Berkeley’s newest students

Online event welcomes new first-year, transfer students

By Public Affairs, Public Affairs

Berkeley football field and students forming a bear with their bodies
Members of the UC Berkeley classes of 2021 and 2023 took their class photo, shaped like a bear, after the convocation speeches. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)

August 21, 2020

A variety of Berkeley leaders, including Chancellor Carol Christ, student body leader Victoria Vera and President of the Graduate Assembly Luis Tenorio, welcomed new first-year and transfer students to Berkeley on Friday morning. (UC Berkeley video)

New student convocation is a usually sunny, crowded affair, where new first-year and transfer students jam into California Memorial Stadium for a formal welcome to UC Berkeley. The band plays, students take a class portrait on the field, Chancellor Carol Christ shouts hello over the stadium’s PA system.

But this year will be different. As the coronavirus remains a threat to Berkeley, and universities across the country, students will tuned in from their homes and study spaces across the country to be welcomed on YouTube and Facebook, where a livestreamed new student convocation was held on Friday.

“Let us acknowledge and accept a fundamental truth: these times are without parallel in our lives,” Christ said in her remarks. “Like you, I long for, and impatiently wait for, the day when our lives return to normal.”

Read more about a start to Berkeley’s fall semester unlike any other: