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Family Weekend

Our university like many others offers programming for families who visit about a month into the Fall term. There are events intended to give families a feel for what the university provides; part of that has always included a time-slot on Saturday morning to meet with the faculty.

There are two ways these meetings can go. During my first decade or so family members pressed for details about their student's class attendance, participation, grades, etc. At some point the university put its foot down (possibly before federal privacy laws required it) and said that those kinds of conversations were off-limits. It became easier to refuse those questions with the university making it policy and explaining it in opening ceremonies for the families.

The other way, the fun way, is for us to give some sense of our classes to the families. I like what I teach and I like teaching it, so the word fun is appropriate. After all these decades I don't get tongue-tied and can go on at length about my course goals and strategies for achieving them. Pretty much every family member seems pleased not so much to understand all that I say but to have a reason to believe that the classes have a purpose and are taken seriously by the faculty teaching them. 

It's work on a Saturday morning and as I age I feel that more and more, but it is fun work.

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