They came, they saw, they took their dorm-food-weary kids to dinner.
Hoards of moms, dads, grandparents and siblings descended on the Farm for Parents' Weekend February 26 and 27. They listened to talks by University administrators, attended a full slate of special classes and basked in the California sun.
Attendance of the annual pilgrimage has tripled to 2,700 in the last three years as the administration has devoted more time and attention to relations with parents. Part of the draw is the classes taught by top faculty on everything from 20th-century Irish literature to human brain physiology.
Clark Nardinelli, '73, sat in on John Taylor's economics class because he knew his daughter, Kati, '02, had liked the professor's full-length course. "He went through what I would describe as the greatest hits from his class, a bunch of little vignettes," Nardinelli says. "I really enjoyed it."
Many parents of first-year students kicked off the weekend by attending a panel on helping their children make the most of their undergraduate years. One of two undergraduates to speak, Boris Bershteyn, '99, got particularly hearty applause when he described a sign in his elementary school in the Soviet Union that could be translated as either "study, study, study" or "learn, learn, learn." He recommended that Stanford parents tell their kids to strive for the latter, soaking up the fullness of life rather than simply memorizing facts.
Bershteyn also won laughter for his description of being a resident assistant in a notoriously rowdy all-frosh dorm. "Some people think being an RA in Branner is like being a televangelist in Gomorrah," he said.
President Gerhard Casper's address to a full Memorial Auditorium crowd on Friday was more serious. He told the parents that he wanted even the most technically oriented of their children to immerse themselves in the arts. "Too many students have not a clue what they are missing if they ignore the arts and the humanities," he said.
Casper then opened microphones for questions that covered everything from the University's year 2000 preparations to how the administration measures Stanford's success and keeps from becoming complacent.
Perhaps indicative of the weekend's good spirit was one father's query for Casper. After he gushed about how wonderful Stanford is, he said, "I only have one question: how do I get my younger son in?"
