The village of Bluffton will see its annual population spike this weekend, beginning Friday, Aug. 26, with about 280 new first-year and transfer students moving onto the Bluffton University campus.

New student move-in, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, will open a weekend on which other Bluffton undergraduates will return to campus for the start of classes Monday, Aug. 29.

Capping the weekend, from 7-9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, both new and returning students will continue a fall-semester-eve tradition with a combination outdoor dance party/ice cream social on Bluffton's Main Street.

"Fall Welcome" events are also planned all next week, including:

. Opening convocation, at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30, in Founders Hall. Launching Bluffton's 2011-12 civic engagement theme of public health will be guest speaker Deogratias "Deo" Niyizonkiza, who founded Village Health Works in his native Burundi after escaping genocide there years before.

. A voluntary service project on Saturday, Sept. 3, for students interested in helping clean up Riley Creek. Participants in the project, a cooperative effort with the Blanchard River Watershed Partnership, will head out from the Marbeck Center information desk at 9 a.m.