Every September, Northfield welcomes 5,000 college students to town. Many are returning to a familiar place, however, about 1,200 of these college students are new to Northfield.
For a number of years now, the NDDC has worked to help these new students learn about downtown Northfield. In addition to distributing the Downtown Directories at both campuses, we’ve created “Welcome Student” signs for retailers’ windows, hoping that the familiar sight of the black and gold of St. Olaf College and maize and blue of Carleton College helps to make the student feel welcome in downtown.
This year, we took it a step further. Working with the two colleges, with particular assistance from NDDC Vice President and St. Olaf Dean of Students Greg Kneser, we were pleased to see visiting downtown treated as an official event at both colleges, structured into the first-year students’ schedules.
The events, called “Explore Northfield!” and “Exploring Northfield”, are Wednesday and Saturday of this week. In fact, as you can see in the photo, St. Olaf College is even running bus service from Buntrock Commons to Downtown Northfield.
We thank the colleges for “going the extra mile” as we welcome the students back and/or to town. Working together, we’ll make Northfield a great place to live, work, play…and study.