When Diane LaPointe went off to Wesleyan University in 1975, her parents dropped her off freshman year and didn’t return until graduation. “I put my stuff in storage and took the bus home during breaks,” she said.
Now that her daughter, Megan, is a sophomore at Wesleyan, Ms. LaPointe keeps in much closer contact. She is regularly invited to Megan’s dance recitals, receives a weekly email from the school about happenings, and last month attended Family Weekend, a three-day festival featuring office hours with the dean, astrology walks, seminars (“Parenting Through the Job Search”) and boomer empowerment sessions (“The End of Back Pain”).“I know I’m not supposed to be a helicopter parent,” Ms. LaPointe said. “I’ve made a concerted effort not to call her, not to email her, not to text her.” But when she learned about Family Weekend, she leapt. “Because it’s a sanctioned event, you don’t feel like you’re intruding,” she said.
Few idylls are more entrenched in the mythology of American childhood than the ritual of going off to college. The teenager stuffs belongings into milk crates, kisses a sniffling mom and dad on the cheek, waves goodbye to the younger siblings and the dog, and strides off into the future.
Nearly everything about this image has become outdated. First, colleges are employing elaborate farewell ceremonies, strict deadlines, even “parent bouncers” to get traumatized parents to actually leave campus after dropping off their children. Second, technological umbilical cords like texting and FaceTime allow parents and students to confer on everything from class selection to birth control. And third, just weeks after the start of school, parents, younger siblings, even the pet are invited to return to campus.
Once sleepy, overlooked occasions for a few nearby parents, Family Weekends have become hyper-organized, multiday extravaganzas with lectures from Nobel laureates, Olympic-style sports events, Hollywood entertainers, even parades. They’re also occasions for big recruiting, big fund-raising and, inevitably, big stress.
Anyone with vague memories of a slightly awkward parental visit during college would be stunned by the ornate architecture of the modern-day experience. Boston University lists 59 events, including a mind reader, a primer on social media (“#wasteoftime OR #valueforconsumers”) and dozens of lectures on everything from surviving finals to “Monsters and the American Psyche.”
The University of Texas at Austin has 95 events, including bingo night, ghost tours, six different times for family bowling and a photo booth. Pomona College offers “Coffee at the Queer Resource Center”; Reed College a “Nuclear Reactor Tour.” And a remarkable number of schools bring in big-ticket entertainers: Seth Meyers (George Washington), Kathy Griffin (Hofstra) and Jay Leno (Connecticut).
Why such a fuss? Anna Thomas, the director of parent and family programs at Vanderbilt University, said parents today crave a higher level of engagement. “They really want to be part of their student’s experience,” she said. More than 4,300 people attended Vanderbilt Family Weekend this year, up 50 percent from a decade ago.
by Bruce Feiler, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Charlie Mahoney
