Tomorrow, Morgantown officially welcomes (and welcomes back) WVU students for the fall semester. You may have noticed an uptick in traffic already, as students who had to come back early have filtered in. But tomorrow and Friday are the official move-in days, and things will likely be hectic around town over the coming week.
We all like to gripe about our 10-minute summer commutes turning into 30-minute slogs overnight and how the stores go from busy to packed when we do our weekend shopping. And not all of us are fans of the parties and bar crawls that take over downtown after dark.
It’s worth it to remember, however, that these annoyances — as valid as they are — are ultimately balanced out by the advantages of having the students back in Morgantown. The University City comes to life again after a quiet summer. The local economy gets an infusion as young adults go out to eat and shop. Our arts’ scene gets a little more vibrant, and our community events get more traction. And nothing gets this town going like a home football game.
As the swarm of new and returning WVU students and their families descend upon us this week, we can grumble and curse, or we can smile and be welcoming hosts. As readers have pointed out in the past when we’ve talked about students returning, respect and kindness go both ways — but there’s no reason we can’t be the ones to offer it first.
There will be a lot of people coming in from out of town who aren’t familiar with some of Morgantown’s more … unique traffic patterns, so we may want to leave a little extra space and be a little more forgiving when someone ends up in the wrong lane or accidently cuts us off.
There will be a lot of frazzled parents and harried young adults thronging the sidewalks near student housing and stalking the aisles of the local big-box stores, searching for last-minute necessities. We can’t make move-in go faster or smoother for them, but we can offer them a smile and a warm welcome — you’d be amazed how far a little compassion can go.
As always, the first week or so after students arrive will be chaotic, but hopefully by the time WVU’s Welcome Week is over and classes have started, we’ll have (mostly) settled into our new normal for the next nine months.
