A video by producer Peter Freele of the Centre for Teaching and Learning captures all the excitement of last week’s Welcoming Celebration ushering in the Class of 2016.

The centrepiece of the event was an original song written and performed by UWindsor president Alan Wildeman.

Freele said the format of this year’s celebration marked “a pretty radical departure” from past practice.

“The CTL team leveraged our digital technology to build up the interactive nature of the event,” he said. “It ended up becoming almost a pep rally, as we engaged the natural exuberance of the students, using three cameras in the crowd to put them on-screen live.”

He said interspersing shots of celebrating students with computer graphics exhorting them to “raise the roof” helped make the attendees into participants.

“The students were contributing to the event rather than passively watching it,” said Freele. “Because they were so much a part of it, they were open to the message, which Dr. Wildeman did a great job of bringing all together. It was the perfect showcase for his very warm and honest comments.”

Watch the video: