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Hi. This is August 22nd Back-to-School edition of IUPUI\'s The Spot. I\'m Kaitlyn Christopher. Check out The Spot every Wednesday this school year to find out what\'s happening on campus.

The Spot had the chance to speak with Dean of Students Karen Whitney about the beginning of the semester

[ Whitney ] Welcome back to a new year and a new fall semester, everybody. IUPUI is about engagement. Engagement in the classroom, engagement with faculty, engagement on campus, engagement in the community. The thing about Fall semester is that there\'s things to do – lots of ways to be engaged with your IUPUI. There is something called Weeks of Welcome, or WOW, which will be occurring during the first few weeks of the fall semester. Look for more information and be sure to get involved. There\'s so much going on with over 200 student organizations, lots of ways you can work with faculty and research projects, work with the community with service learning projects, you can join a student organization, or you can make a student organization. It\'s all possible to be engaged at IUPUI. We have events going 7 days a week, day and night. We\'re here, where you are, all the time.

[ Kaitlyn ] The Registrar\'s office has some tips for students about your classes this semester. Students can register for classes through next Wednesday the 29th. You can also drop classes through the 29th with no transaction fees and without the class appearing on your transcript. Some other tips: If you want to print on campus, be sure to add money to your JagTag. You can do this on the JagTag website, at a JagTag office in Union or University College, or at a JagTag station found in several buildings on campus.

Parking is also a hot topic at the beginning of the semester. But with a few tips, you\'ll find that it\'s not as complicated as you might think. The Spot spoke with Keshar Miller in Parking and Transportation services:

[ Miller ] First, always remember to come 15 minutes early. The number one complaint that people may say about parking is that they can\'t find a parking spot. But usually that\'s because they come with just enough time to get there. There are always parking spots here on campus, you just have to go out and look for them. Also, make sure you park correctly. Always display your hang tag in the correct place and look for signs to make sure you\'re parking where you\'re supposed to. We do give citations, but that\'s only for people who park incorrectly. We aren\'t out to get anybody.

Most services that we have available here in the office can be done online. It\'s a real time-saver. If you have any questions, you can always e-mail us and we will respond the next day. Coming into the office used to be a requirement here on campus – now it\'s not. We\'re moving more and more services over to the web each month. Always check there to see what\'s there and what\'s new.

[ Kaitlyn ] UITS is the computer support division on campus and handles everything from computer labs to your e-mail account. Stacy Morrone with UITS gave some tips about getting the support you need this fall.

[ Morrone ] The UITS Support Center is a really great resource for students. You can call the support center at 274-HELP and that phone is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The consultants who answer the phone are able to provide a wide range of information to students on different kinds of technology that they might use in their courses - things that are of interest to them. You can also contact the Support Center by e-mailing ithelp@iu.edu. The consultants will respond to your email and provide you with the information you need.

There are some really great workshops available through UITS and the IT Training and Education Department. These workshops are called STEPS classes and cover a wide range of technology topics. For example, you could take a course on Adobe or a course on Office 2007 Suite. There\'s a lot for students and these courses are free.

There\'s also, of course, workshops that are available to you on Oncourse CL in case you need a little bit of help getting started this fall.

You can also use the IU Knowledge Base which has a vast amount of information on a variety of topics. You go to the knowledge base by typing kb.iu.edu and typing the search term that you need. It will give you back a wide range of information that you\'ll need to help you get started and answer the questions that you have about instructional technology.

[ Kaitlyn ] There were a lot of changes around campus over the summer. The Spot went on a tour of the Campus Center saw firsthand how close the building is to opening.

[ Maxwell ] Here in the new Campus Center we have five floors that offer something different to everybody. Down on the theater level, we have a TV lounge, a games room and a theater that will hold about 250 people. On the first floor we have our food court with 350 seats. We also have the entrance to our bookstore, in addition to a convenience store and the first of fifteen meeting spaces.

Up on the second floor, you can enter the building through the Vermont Street garage. The space that I\'m in right now will host 200 P.O. Boxes, the U.S. Post Office from Barnhill, the JagTag operations, a sub shop, and Starbucks, in addition to the credit union and enrollment services, which includes the admissions, registrar, and student financial aid.

The third floor is very much our student-focused area. On the third floor we have meeting spaces, the Dean of Students office, The Sagamore, Campus & Community Life, along with our student organization center that\'s going to host 86 spaces – workstations for student organizations.

On our fourth floor, we have our new multi-purpose room which will seat nearly 1000 people theater-style, and another 480 for sit-down meal function.

[ Sivam ] As an employee of University College, I\'m really excited to move here and begin working in the Campus Center. I think this will be a great social opportunity for students and a place to grow, and for students to just have fun and a place they can call home here, as opposed to University College where there really isn\'t a dedicated place to have social events or hang out with friends or that kind of thing.

[ Kaitlyn ] Check out the full tour and more interviews at campuscenter.iupui.edu.

Finally, take a look at some activity at housing move-in last weekend. Over 1000 students live in housing this year and most of them moved in to Ball Residence Hall and the Campus Apartments Sunday and Monday.

That\'s the spot for this week. Check it out each Wednesday on our podcast at jagtv.iupui.edu.

See you later!