Whitman students and their families spent the weekend pumpkin carving, being radio hosts, talking to student leadership, watching sports and seeing plays. This year’s Family Weekend was full of events and fun for all, giving families the opportunity to explore campus independently while also exploring engaging aspects of student life.
For the past couple of years, Greek Life has held a student panel with members of leadership for families to ask questions about what these organizations can do for students. Junior Andy Fisher, who serves as the Interfraternity Council President and is a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, got the opportunity to speak on the panel. For Fisher, engaging with families and other members has always been a crucial part of fraternity life.
“Parents always just want to see their kids happy. Even if there were some tough questions we had to answer, at the end of the day, it was all in good fun,” Fisher said.
For Fisher, participating in the panel gave him an opportunity to see parent queries as a representation of families’ interest in their student’s lives.
“These parents … came a good long way to Whitman College to see their kids and see the states of living that their kids are going to be moving into and living in. It is always just a pleasure because they are just happy to be here and they are happy to see their kids happy,” Fisher said.
Stace Sievert, Associate Director of Student Activities: Sorority and Fraternity Life and Student Leadership, helps run Family Weekend and organizes the panel every year. She loves seeing the way parents and students interact with each other and the special relationships that are formed with siblings of students from these events.
“It’s rewarding to listen to the ways that the student leaders I have closely worked with describe their learning curves, high-impact practices and their leadership development when speaking to an audience of people who might not understand the depth of the fraternal experience,” Sievert said.
Events during Family Weekend give families a way to fill their time while also recognizing the hard work that students put into their extracurriculars. Whitman’s radio station, KWCW, hosted an open radio session for parents and families to pick music to play on the air while exploring the radio station. Lucky Eden, General Manager of KWCW, hopes the event brought DJs at the radio an opportunity to extend their passion for radio to their families.
“I have always been looking for opportunities to get people in the studio that are not usually in the studio, so we did a station open house. This means, any DJs, or really, anyonewho wants to bring their parents to check out the studio, can come and play music, look around the archives and hang out in the studio. … I wanted to give people the opportunity to show their parents where they DJ,” Eden said.
For Eden the open house is a personal project, and they highlighted the past importance of their own experience with family in the radio station as a main motivator for running the open house.
“I know it’s been super cool in the past when my parents have come a couple of times for Parents’ Weekend. … My dad was a college radio DJ when he was in college, so letting him spin some songs and hang out, it is just fun,” Eden said.
As families explore Walla Walla and get to see life through the eyes of their students, the opportunity to engage in student activities and extracurriculars allows students and their loved ones to explore life at Whitman beyond academics. By giving families the chance to engage with the campus’s clubs and organizations, Family Weekend creates a unique opportunity to explore student life at Whitman through all it has to offer.
