Upcoming Parents' Weekend expected to draw up to 3,000 family members
Freshmen draw the largest group of relatives to the university for the increasingly popular campus event, one of the 'Big 5'

Up to 3,000 family members are expected to attend the annual Parents' Weekend, Feb. 27-28. The event, sponsored by the Office of the President and Provost and coordinated by University Communications, is designed to give parents of undergraduates a glimpse into their son's or daughter's life on campus.

President John Hennessy informally met with audience members after a 2002 Parents' Weekend speech, taking time to look at a picture of former star volleyball player Curt Toppel shown to him by his father Kurt. Photo: L.A. Cicero

According to Ryan Foley, Parents' Weekend coordinator, registrations are running about the same as last year, when 2,728 people officially registered for the event. On-site registration brought the number to more than 2,800 people. Generally, about half of the participants are related to freshmen, 20 percent to sophomores and the rest evenly divided among juniors and seniors. Parents' Weekend is considered one of the university's "Big 5" events, along with Reunion Homecoming, Commencement, Admit Weekend and New Student Orientation.

This year's Parents' Weekend features expanded activities for parents of upperclass students and new programs designed to explain opportunities for undergraduate research. Specifically, Undergraduate Research Programs will sponsor a Parents' Weekend Undergraduate Research Symposium featuring student work. The symposium, from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, is open to the entire university community. It will be held in Tresidder Oak Room.

The weekend's activities begin Friday morning with a talk by Provost John Etchemendy called "An Evolving Relationship: The University and Parents." Following the presentations, parents will be invited to one of three different sessions addressing the unique challenges faced by freshmen, sophomores or upperclass students. After joining their sons and daughters for lunch in the residences, parents will have the opportunity to hear from President John Hennessy and participate in his annual question-and-answer session.

Among the most popular offerings during Parents' Weekend are the "Back to School Classes," which will be held in two sessions, the first on Friday afternoon and the second on Saturday morning. Stanford faculty and staff will host more than 20 classes for parents covering a wide range of topics, including "The Terminator and the Exterminator: The Exceptional Politics of 2003" with Pam Karlan, the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Law; "How Stereotypes Can Shape Our Lives and Abilities and What We Can Do About It" with Claude Steele, the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences; and "Wine and Engineering" with David Beach, professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of the Product Realization Lab.

Saturday will feature campus tours, including a special look at the new James H. Clark Center, designed to facilitate multidisciplinary approaches to problems in bioengineering, biomedicine and biosciences. On Saturday afternoon, Lance Choy, director of the Career Development Center, will talk to students and parents about choosing a career, and Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of freshmen and transfer students, will lead a discussion on "Perspectives on the First Year, Midway Through" for parents of new students.

The weekend concludes with the annual Parents' Club Entertainment Extravaganza and Reception. The show, which benefits the Parents' Club Scholarship Endowment Fund, will feature Stanford Mendicants a cappella, Decadance, the Hindi Film Dance Team, Basmati Raas and Stanford Taiko. The reception follows the show and is co-hosted by the Stanford Alumni Association in the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center.

"We're particularly excited this year that we could expand programs for the parents of upperclass students," Foley says. "Although we have traditionally thought of Parents' Weekend as primarily for the parents of freshmen, we are seeing increasing numbers of upperclass parents attending."

Foley says Parents' Weekend is still recruiting staff and student volunteers willing to lend a hand with everything from driving golf carts to registering family members. "We greatly appreciate the efforts of the hundreds of faculty, staff and students who help with this event," says Foley.

For more information about Parents' Weekend, call 725-0649 or visit the web at http://parents.stanford.edu/weekend/.