The University of Mary Washington’s Fredericksburg campus was abuzz yesterday for Move-In Day, with members of the Class of 2025 arriving from near and far. Photo by Suzanne Carr Rossi.

Under fickle skies – one minute sun, the next minute a downpour – members of the University of Mary Washington’s Class of 2025 streamed onto campus yesterday.

Move-In Day 2021 brought first-year students to Fredericksburg from near and far, all with high hopes for a full freshman experience. After more than a year of online learning, due to COVID-19, the undergrads breathed life back into campus. Masks, now required indoors with the Delta variant’s surge, couldn’t hide the nervous excitement of moving into new rooms, meeting suitemates … and putting together those tricky beds.

Robbie Willcox of Annandale, Virginia, used a bright orange mallet to wrestle her bed into shape, while her father scrolled through his phone for assembly directions. Willcox, whose brother, Michael, is a sophomore assigned to Eagle Landing, was sold on the school after attending UMW Theatre performances. “They were pretty impressive,” she said. “Coupled with a great community and really nice campus, Mary Washington seemed like the obvious choice.”

Like Willcox, many members of UMW’s incoming class hail from Virginia. But 14 percent come from other locales, making the trek from Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey, and also from farther afield – Washington and Wisconsin, Missouri and Montana, Colorado and California. Students also flew in from foreign countries as far away as South Africa, India and Ethiopia, but also from Ireland, Honduras and United Kingdom, even the South Pacific country of Fiji and Nepal in South Asia. Nearly 30 percent of the incoming class self-identifies as racially and ethnically diverse. Read more.