It happens too often: you’re hanging out in an alleyway with a drink in your hand when you look over and see two parents looking at you… judging you. It happened to several of my roommates, and several of my friends, and if I had drank this weekend, it definitely would have happened to me. Homecoming is a time full of mistakes, bad decisions, and way too much alcohol for our upperclassmen. Parents’ weekend is all about family, being in communion with them, and enjoying their presence. As you can imagine, these two events do not go hand in hand. Yet for whatever reason, the school thinks it’s a really good idea to host both events at the same exact time. I am a strong advocate for the idea that parents’ weekend should not only be on a different weekend, but it should also be earlier in the semester.
I had been planning for this homecoming ever since I first heard of it, and my drunken plans should not be interrupted by some freshmen parents who have not seen their kid in a month. It happened to my friend, we’ll call him James, on homecoming. James had consumed copious amounts of alcohol before 2 p.m., and James was looking to continue the party before the basketball game started. Yet, while we were hanging out at our friend’s townhouse, their parents arrived. Not only did James have to stop drinking, but he had to sober up enough to talk to these very religious parents. As you can imagine, James did not leave a good impression on the parents, who were constantly giving him dirty looks just for being intoxicated. I believe it is not fair for James, who is a college student, to have to change his plans because some parents are here. Not only that, but James had plans to visit the countryside of Pennsylvania with this friend and their parents in the upcoming week, and the impression that drunk James made is less than ideal.
To fix this problem, I propose the school changes parents’ weekend to earlier in the semester (before Halloweekend would be ideal), to allow parents to visit their kids and see campus when 90 percent of the student body is not intoxicated in one way or another. The earlier the school pushes parents’ weekend, the better, as this change is sure to leave a better impression on the parents, who pay for their kids to be here. This, in turn, is likely to increase the number of students enrolling in the school, as parents’ impression of La Salle would be what La Salle normally is (a beautiful tranquil campus, with students frolicking around the quad) rather than intoxicated college students making a mess in an alleyway. I know for a fact that I am not the only person on campus who believes that parents’ weekend should not be intertwined with homecoming, and various students (including James) agree with me on this one.
The La Salle Collegian 