Campus welcomes parents, families

Another great weekend of celebration is ahead with the annual Parents and Family Weekend, which begins Friday with several fun activities in the evening from Latino bingo to a 3D laser robot show in Kehr Union. It’s a wonderful weekend to follow the fun-filled Homecoming weekend we just had, despite the wintry weather. Our campus will be brimming with people yet again.

I really enjoy this weekend, because I get to meet so many parents. It’s a great chance for them to put a face to the university by meeting me and an opportunity for me to gain a good perspective of what’s on their mind. A great time for me to do that is during our open forum, which will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. in the McCormick Center. It’s open to everyone, so I hope to see many new faces I didn’t get a chance to greet during freshman orientation. I’ll have more opportunities to meet parents during the many activities scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, which includes our second Celebrity Artist Series show featuring Cirque Le Masque. I’ll be sure to let you know how the exciting gravity-defying performance turns out next week.

As I said earlier in this post, Homecoming was a wonderful celebration. I took part in a variety events and met many great people. Among them were alumni from the Class of 1959, who were celebrating their 50th class reunion, and later Saturday evening I spoke at the nursing alumni celebration. I finished the weekend attending our annual scholarship luncheon, which gives student scholarship recipients a chance to meet their respective scholarship donors.

Homecoming was made even more special with the return of former BU President Jessica Kozloff, who we honored in a dedication ceremony for the new housing complex named after her on the upper campus.

Creating safer student housing was among her priorities during her tenure, and there was no tribute more fitting than to associate her name with a beautiful, high-quality, safe “home away from home” for BU students. Jessica Kozloff left a lasting legacy in making the campus and surrounding community safer and healthier for our students after dealing with two unfortunate tragedies relating to housing issues during her time here. It was an absolute pleasure to be a part of her tribute and to show her how BU has continued building on her initiatives to ensure our university is great, safe place to experience higher education.