Junior parents weekend

By Corey Fawcett, Staff Writer -- Fawcett13@up.edu

Parents are here during freshman orientation, helping you move in and buying your last-minute dorm furnishings. They're here for graduation, supporting you throug a flurry of ceremonies, family dinners and celebrations. If they don't live close by, parents aren't on The Bluff for much else.

"A lot of parents are only here during stressful times," junior and student representative Chloé Ruffin said. "Orientation is stressful. Graduation is stressful. (Junior Parents Weekend) is a great time for parents to be here and not be stressed out."

Director of Student Activities Bethany Sills said it's also a time for parents to reacquaint themselves with the UP community.

"It's a time where parents get to know the UP campus again. They attend fun events with their son or daughter, meet the students' favorite faculty at the Opening Social and meet President Beauchamp at the Saturday Breakfast," she said in an e-mail.

According to the Office of Student Activites, 678 people – mostly juniors and their families – took part in Junior Parents Weekend last weekend, making it the highest recorded attendance in the event's history.

"There were a lot of big families here. Brothers, sisters, grandmas, grandpas," junior and student representative Danielle Bibbs said. "The overall feeling was the same across the board. Everyone wanted their families here."

Student Activities Director Jeromy Koffler said junior year is a special time for parents to visit because their son or daughter has been fully integrated in the UP and Portland communities.

"The thought is that the junior class has been able to make this a home. They're far into their major, they know the faculty more and they know the layout of the land," Koffler said.

Both students and parents had the opportunity to partake in a wide variety of activities throughout the weekend.

The opening social took place Friday night in The Commons and featured music and refreshments.

"It gave a really relaxed but structured way for parents to meet each other," Ruffin said.

Later that night, there was a performance by Craig Karges, an illusionist and veteran Junior Parents Weekend performer who claims to use ESP to perform mental magic tricks.

"He was amazing," Robin Nichols, mother of Chris Nichols, said. "I kept turning to the person sitting next to me and asking, ‘How did he do that?'"

Saturday was packed with events, including the victorious men's basketball game against Santa Clara, an acoustic coffeehouse concert and a University Museum Open House that exhibited some of the school's most treasured artifacts. There was also a "Life After College" session where alumni and staff from Career Services and the Moreau Center discussed postgraduate school, service, employment and scholarships.

Koffler said one goal of the weekend is to emphasize how important it is for juniors to start thinking about life after graduation.

"It was really interesting and informative," Nichols said. "We found out that our son could get his master's degree in Europe."

Parents and students also faced off at the College Bowl trivia game.

"The parents won three out of four!" Nichols said.

Parents and students mingled with faculty and staff Saturday morning in the Chiles Center and attended Mass in the Buckley Auditorium on Sunday.

"There were professors and deans that came out and all the different fathers were able to sit at all the tables with the students and share their time," junior and student representative Beverly Scott said. "Families were able to meet some of the people that have influenced us and have been a part of our lives."

Scott said another major aim of Junior Parents Weekend is to allow parents to meet their children's friends and other people they have spent so much of their time with for the past three years.

"It has been so nice to be able to put faces to the names," Lynn Convery, mother of Kevin Convery, said.

Bibbs said Junior Parents Weekend is an opportunity for the UP community to showcase their students rather than the school itself.

"We want to say to parents, ‘Look what your child has done at our school,'" Bibbs swore.

The weekend is also a time for parents to see how their sons and daughters have evolved since their first day at UP.

"I think that they can learn just how well taken care of we are," Ruffin said. "They can learn that their kids really made the right choice, and see what they're involved in. We've matured and become better people in the last three years."

Visiting parent Theresa Hanson attended nearly all of the events and enjoyed herself the entire weekend.

"I think my daughter chose the right place," she said.