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Moove-In Weekend moved very smoothly for 5,800 or so freshmen and returning residents who arrived Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 21 and 22) at �ٺ���Ƶ residence halls. More than 1,100 transfer students moved into Student Housing apartments.

�ٺ���Ƶ staff and dozens of student volunteers helped the arriving families every step of the way, by providing handcarts and large blue bins on wheels (like laundry carts), and loading and pushing them, too. Chancellor Gary S. May and LeShelle May and other administrators also pitched in.

Ken Burtis, professor and former dean who serves as faculty advisor to the chancellor and provost, provided move-in assistance in the Tercero Residence Area, where he had no shortage of takers when he announced,  “I come with a cart!”

Some families had done this before. “It’s easier this time,” said Alex Guerrero of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), who accompanied his daughter, Isabelle, to �ٺ���Ƶ three years ago and returned Sunday with his son, Samuel.

Isabelle, an anthropology major, is starting her fourth year. Her freshman brother, pushing a handcart with a brand-new basketball resting atop boxes of other belongings, said he had yet to declare a major but was considering managerial economics.

“Move-in is not as stressful this time,” said his mother, Laura, as she and her family made their way to Ryerson Hall in the Segundo Residential Area. “Of course, we’ll see what happens when we have to say good-bye.”

Marnie Lee and her parents, Justin and Sheryl Lee, arrived Sunday morning from Berkeley to move her into Malcolm Hall, also in the Segundo area. Marnie brought along a plant named Roxanne, a nerve plant (with leaves that could serve as a drawing of the nervous system), but Marnie herself showed no sign of nerves as she helped unpack the family’s SUV.

She said she and her roommate went to Berkeley High School together and asked to room together, and she expressed no concern about finding room for all her belongings. “I’m pretty good at organizing — I get creative,” said Marnie, who is an undeclared major in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Jabez Domingo of La Mirada (Los Angeles County), who took up residence Sunday in the Segundo area’s Thompson Hall, said he was “excited and a little bit nervous,” but expressed no uncertainty about his major, biomedical engineering, and the most important possession he brought with him, his laptop.

“I’m looking forward to experiencing life outside the city and getting to know new people,” he said.

Jersery Quintero came up Sunday from UC Berkeley to help her brother Elias Quintero Jr. (biology) move into Thompson Hall. Their 8-year-old brother, Juan Pablo, came along, too, with parents Elias and Maria, all from Bakersfield.

“I’m so happy, but sad at the same time, because he won’t be home,” Maria Quintero said. “But I’m so proud of him, because this is what he has always wanted, to come to �ٺ���Ƶ. He worked so hard to get here.”

Over at the Cuarto Residence Area, north of Russell Boulevard, the volunteer crew included Ashley Hernandez, a second-year with a double major in communication and Spanish. When helping students who were moving into Yosemite Hall, she had the pleasure of telling them, “Guess what? You have a brand-new dorm!”

Some students already knew it, some didn’t. But they all liked it. Yosemite Hall, which replaced Webster Hall, houses nearly 400 students in two- and three-bedroom suites, with two or three students in each bedroom and a private bathroom for each suite.

Mihret Ade, a biological sciences major from Sacramento, got the full chancellor treatment for her move into Campbell Hall in the Tercero area.

“I thought he was just going to be in his office today,” the surprised freshman said. Quite the contrary: Chancellor May pushed a handcart and LeShelle May pushed a cart full of Mihret’s belongings all the way to her room, before posing for a picture with her and her dad, and wishing her good luck.

Chancellor May said move-in is a special time when dreams come to fruition for students and their families. “This is especially true for first-generation students,” the chancellor said. (Data for this year is not yet available, but last year about 43 percent of incoming freshmen and transfers said they would be first generation within their families to earn four-year college degrees.)

“This is a totally new world for them,” he said. “I think they are comforted and supported when they see us here, helping. They know that we really do care.”