Parent and Family Affinity Groups

Parents and families offer students critical support during transition times in their college lives. But colleges fail to fully include parents in their student’s experience once students are enrolled in school. Typically, parents and families attend an orientation session and a campus visit during parent and family weekend and receive semi-regular updates via newsletter. These brief interactions and reactive resources fail to provide an ongoing sense of community for parents and often require them to seek out information on available resources to aid their student.

• Typical parent and family practices lack community building opportunities

  • Email newsletter to parents/families sent quarterly, in English
  • Parent/family coordinator shares personal contact info for 1:1 support
  • Black and Latine families convene once, typically at first-year orientation

• Large portion of students looking to parents for support

  45% of students say they turn to parents/family for support when stressed