With the 2026 fall semester coming up, recruitment for Week of Welcome (WOW) Ambassadors has begun.  

When the freshmen arrive on campus in August, the WOW ambassadors are in charge of showing them around and welcoming them to college.   

“We mainly had to help out with showing the freshmen around campus to where their classes would be,” Eryn Webb, a WOW ambassador, said. “We also got involved and helped run the events where the freshmen could meet each other such as the block party which had games, food, and a DJ.” 

Each year, WOW looks a little bit different. It depends on what events are popular and get the newcomers involved. The purpose of WOW is to help the freshmen meet new people and become familiar with campus. 

“My favorite part was seeing the freshmen getting involved and making new friends with people they didn’t know a few hours before,” Webb said. “Just helping them feel more comfortable coming to college was important because it’s such a big change.” 

The process for becoming a WOW ambassador has also changed over the years. Two years ago, the ambassadors had to come early and train with others. Last year, the ambassadors were made up of peer mentors and RAs. WOW ambassadors are returning students that volunteer to show the freshmen around.  

“We had to move in early and do training, and then we met up with other ambassadors and got to know them a bit,” Mason Chamberlain, a WOW ambassador, said. “We also made welcome signs and reached out to the incoming students in our group to see if they were coming to orientation.” 

WOW consists of many different activities for new and returning students. For returning students, they can attend events including classroom tours, alcohol safety sessions, sex education, campus tours, resident hall hop, a block party and much more.  

“The block party at the end of the weekend was fun,” Chamberlain said. “My favorite part overall was the friends I made who were fellow ambassadors, who I am still friends with today.”