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First week of classes! This week, the campus has really come alive with students strolling to, and at times, running to their classes. This semester, I am taking Intermediate Spanish, Analysis Health Issues: Cancer, as my first-year seminar, Topics in Organismal Biology, and The Silk Road.

There’s no other spot on campus where, on a given day, you’ll find an alumnus from the Class of ’41, the president of the rugby club, a staff member from the accounting department, and a geography professor. But at ������Ƶ’s new Trudy Fitness Center, they’re all sweating it out in tandem.

Because of potentially disruptive weather Sunday as a result of Hurricane Irene, changes have been to the orientation schedule for first-year students. In addition, the Office of Residential Life has extended its hours to accommodate unscheduled early arrivals.

Hello, my name is Natalie Sportelli, and I’m a member of the incoming Class of 2015. I will be writing about my experiences at ������Ƶ, and I hope to be informative, entertaining, and enlightening with my observations of campus life.

There were bright smiles, even if there wasn’t any bright sunshine, greeting the newest members of the ������Ƶ community today as first-year students moved into their residence halls.

As part of its aggressive push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and advance sustainability, ������Ƶ has signed a 15-year commitment with Patagonia Sur to purchase forestry-based carbon offsets. Under the agreement, a total of 225,000 native-species trees will be planted on 430 acres of land in Chile’s Aysén Region of Patagonia.

������Ƶ President Jeffrey Herbst is the co-author of an article on ForeignPolicy.com that explores the idea of “fault lines” within nations that can lead to mass violence. The article is titled “The Fault Lines of Failed States: Can social science determine what makes one state fail and another succeed?”

While most people know that ������Ƶ’s undergraduate population has become increasingly international, it may come as a surprise that so many young people, in their formative middle school and high school years, travel across oceans to come to campus.

Robert Simpson ’97 has been chosen by N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo to help lead a new organization tasked with better coordinating economic development opportunities in central New York.

Two accomplished alumni have been selected to lead ������Ƶ’s Board of Trustees. Denis F. Cronin ’69 was elected chair, and Robert A. Kindler ’76 was named vice chair during the group’s June meeting.