Baldwin Wallace University welcomed parents and family members onto campus Oct. 27 and 28 to enjoy activities and reconnect with their students at the second-annual Parent and Family Weekend.
Marc West, director of parent and family programs, said the weekend was held a month later than last year after the Bold and Gold Homecoming Festival moved to the end of September.
On Friday, events ranged from a free orchestra concert, trivia, Painting with a Twist, a guided tour called Haunted BW.
The weekend then continued on Saturday with a tailgating kick-off event in the Lou Higgins Recreation Center before the football game against Capital University. Parents and family were also able to attend the women’s soccer game that evening against Capital University.
To help connect students and parents who were unable to make the event in-person, virtual elements were added to the weekend including a virtual option at the trivia event on Friday night and a livestream of the tailgate Saturday.
Last year, Parent and Family Weekend required only registration or RSVP. This year, the event was taxed — requiring participants to pay roughly $40 for adults and $20 for children. Because of this, some families were limited in what they could participate in such as Kayla Hall, a sophomore psychology student.
“We didn’t want to pay for the activities, so that’s why we haven’t participated much,” Hall said. “It’s not what I expected at all, I was expecting more like last year’s. More decorations, more people were here, it felt more like a community, but now it’s kind of empty.”
Kailtin Smith, a junior acting and directing student said the event may have welcomed less participants because it was not advertised enough.
“It was just less advertised this year compared to last year, I didn’t really know what was going on until it happened,” Smith said.
While Parent and Family Weekend did not live up to the expectations for some, other BW students and their families enjoyed themselves with the activities BW had to offer.
Cat Hughes, junior stage management student, said she enjoyed the weekend with her family after helping plan the event as a part of the Parent and Family Weekend Committee. She said that her family lives far enough away that they cannot come up often, but they were able to make it to campus for the weekend.
“I thought all the different events were fun because there was a wide variety and it was different from things we normally do on campus every weekend,” Hughes said.
The Haunted BW tour was a new addition to the event this year due to its timing around the Halloween weekend, becoming one of the top attractions. Dan Karp, the assistant vice president and director of university relations, has led the tour for the past three years as a part of Walktober, a wellness program during October for faculty and students where participants log the number of steps they completed throughout the month of the October.
“The BW Haunted Tour was our biggest attraction,” West said. “Everybody wanted to go on it and it was an unbelievable success.”
The Office of Parent and Family Programs will continue with programming for families in the spring semester including Q&A sessions about various topics gathered from a survey that will be sent in the upcoming weeks to families.
