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Now in his sixth year at Duke, Ryan Lombardi, associate dean of
students, is a key liaison between students and parents. With his
easygoing manner and ability to put crises in perspective, Lombardi
is adept at determining when a situation needs immediate attention
and when it can be handled with a phone conversation, a reassuring
e-mail message, or a face-to-face meeting.
About five years ago, he recalls, a mother repeatedly telephoned
to complain about the lack of cleanliness in her child's dormitory
bathroom. Lombardi spearheaded meetings with dorm residents, including
the student himself, the housekeeping crew, and the residence-life
staff on call, but no one could figure out what she was talking about.
Another mother e-mailed dozens of times before bringing her son to
matriculate this fall, skeptically questioning his office's ability
to handle orientation smoothly. Lombardi sought her out at orientation
to see whether the university had delivered on its promises; she
grudgingly admitted that it had.
In response to the growing demand for two-way communication between
parents and their children's schools, colleges and universities are
spending considerable time and money to establish or expand existing
parent programs. At West Virginia University (WVU), a "Just
for Parents" section of the school's website invites visitors
to join the Mountaineer Parents Club, an initiative launched to provide
opportunities for increased parental involvement in the life of the
WVU community. Services include Web links to a range of services,
among them, monthly "Heartwarmer from Home" gift packages
that can be ordered online for delivery to students' dorm rooms;
a network of clubs around the country that sponsor faculty speakers
and send-off parties for new students; and a toll-free number that
connects callers to a full-time "parent advocate" who answers
questions and responds to complaints. Since it was established in
1995, more than 30,000 calls have been logged, and the parent advocate
works closely with the president's office.
On the national landscape, organizations such as Administrators Promoting
Parental Involvement, the National Association of Student Personnel
Administrators, and the American College Personnel Association have
either been launched or have expanded programming in response to
parental omnipresence in college life. For $79 a year, current and
future college parents can join the College Parents of America, which
boasts, among other things, a full-time staff in Washington to ensure
that "parents are informed about and included in legislative
and regulatory debates impacting higher education."
A national survey conducted in 2005 by the University of Minnesota
Parent Program showed that not only are more institutions offering
parent services, but also they are expanding the scope of programming.
Like WVU, nearly 79 percent of survey respondents have a link for
parents on the front page of the school's website. Nearly all of
the colleges surveyed offered both a parent-orientation program and
family/parent weekends. Other services and activities included newsletters,
parents' handbooks, fundraising councils, and parent advisory boards.
From admissions materials for prospective applicants to post-graduation
alumni and career services, the variety and amount of information
designed for parents, as well as students, is rapidly proliferating.
In addition to specific sections on various websites—including admissions,
student affairs, judicial affairs, financial aid, and academic advising—Duke
offers a special listserv that parents can sign up for to receive
periodic e-mail messages from Lombardi's office. (Given the mutable
nature of e-mail accounts, a printed parent newsletter is also mailed
to parents' home addresses twice a year.)
During orientation for first-year students, there is a concurrent
schedule of events for parents, from conversations with deans and
student-affairs leaders to an interfaith assembly that showcases
religious and spiritual opportunities for students. There's also
a special presentation, "A Year in the Life of a First-Year
Student," that includes skits capturing common scenarios in
a freshman's first days, weeks, and months.
In one, a student and her parents go to pick up her student-orientation
packet. The volunteer asks the student a number of questions—where
she's from, what high school she attended, what activities she's
interested in—only to have the parents interrupt and answer every
question. The student looks embarrassed and annoyed. As the volunteer
begins to accompany the student and her parents to the student's
dorm room, the student looks at the audience and says, "I'm
so glad I'm the one going to school here." Other skits focus
on themes ranging from homesickness and drinking to academic exploration
and experimenting with new clothing and lifestyles.
To provide a more formal structure for dialogues with families,
Lombardi helped launch the Duke Parents Advisory Council (DPAC) in
the fall of 2005. Comprising thirteen volunteers—two parent representatives
from each class and five at-large members—the group meets on campus
twice a year and serves as a sounding board for various policy issues
and student-life programming. Prospective DPAC participants apply
for the one-year appointment in the spring.
DPAC member Jane Ross says the meetings with professionals in student
affairs, residential life, career services, and counseling and psychological
services helped her understand the support systems in place for her
son, Christian Wakeman '07. Ross, an educational consultant from
Southport, Connecticut, says she thinks it's important to have students
learn independence and self-reliance. Yet when she first brought
Christian to campus, she wasn't certain where to turn if she had
specific questions.
"There is a lot of helpful information out there, and people
are very helpful once you contact them, but it's not always obvious
how to access them." Now, she says, she has a deeper appreciation
for the support systems Duke has in place for students, including
a highly skilled residential-life staff; a dean on call twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week; and dedicated student-health professionals.
For families like the Howards, whose Duke connection is enhanced
by their daughters' own undergraduate experiences, setting clear
limits on whether and when to intervene on their children's behalf
and working in tandem with university administrators has helped them
strike a healthy balance between maintaining close-knit ties to their
girls and learning how to let go. Active volunteers in their daughters'
high school, Forsyth Country Day, the Howards have witnessed the
unpleasantness of over-involved parents.
"I've seen so many helicopter parents—for example, an insistent
father lobbying for more playing time on the soccer field for his
child," says Jeff Howard. "That's something we would just
never do. In my day, if there was some kind of problem or tension
between a child and a teacher, there was the immediate assumption
that it was [the student's] fault." He says he and Carson have
also never intervened with problems their daughters might encounter
with their peers. "That's their world. As a parent you can try
to provide guidance, but interacting with difficult peers is something
that they—and all of us for that matter—have to face on a daily
basis."
Lombardi recalls his own parents' views on letting go of him and
his siblings. "My father told me that he and my mother felt
no greater pride than when the time came when they knew they wouldn't
have to worry about us anymore, that their job was done and we could
handle ourselves as adults. And that really is the end goal here.
"Our mission is to help young people become independent, responsible
adults who are prepared to go out in the world," he continues. "So
one of the things I tell parents to reassure them is that they have
worked hard for eighteen years, and if they've done their job as
a parent, the rest will work itself out."
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