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Parent
E-mail—April 9, 2008
—Parent Survey
—Assessment on Alcohol Course
—Sign Up for Alcohol Course
—Podcasts
—Career Planning
—Miscellaneous
By this time of year, students tend to feel very comfortable and "at
home" on campus. They frequently are less cautious about
strangers entering the residence halls behind them. They leave
their doors unlocked when they're "just running down the
hall for a few minutes." They don't worry as much about walking
alone at night. Please remind your students that safety is important
all year round, and encourage them to stay alert and use "big
city precautions" and common sense. A Web page with personal
safety information is online.
—Parent Survey
I'll make one more plea for parents to respond to our biannual
parent survey at www.parent.umn.edu/survey.
We genuinely value your input as we review our program and plan
events and
services for the future. But the results don't just affect the
parent program. Parent responses are also taken into consideration
by the Office for Student Affairs and other departments on campus.
Already Career Services has asked for this year's parent comments
on students' career planning experiences. In the past, the survey
report has been reviewed by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate
Education and the Council of Undergraduate Deans, and it was presented
to the Board of Regents. In addition, our results are examined
by other colleges and universities around the country as they
plan for or assess their own parent programs. Your responses count!
And if you choose to include your name and contact information,
you will be eligible for a prize drawing that includes a hotel
stay at the Radisson–University of Minnesota, the Holiday Inn–University
of Minnesota, dining certificates for the Campus Club, or gift
certificates for the University Bookstores. (We won't use your
name or contact information for anything else.)
—Assessment on Alcohol Course
A message for parents who have previously signed up for the online
Seminar for Parents - Alcohol on Campus: We need your help. In
an effort to obtain future funding for this course and other online
courses for parents, we need your evaluations of the course. If
you have signed up for the course, please go to this
Web
site and fill out the evaluation, which will take
about 10 to 15 minutes.
You will be asked for a password. The password is: parent. We
appreciate your willingness to help us out by evaluating the course.
—Sign Up for Alcohol Course
If you have not taken the course for parents on the subject of
alcohol on campus, please consider doing so. The course, developed
by the Parent Program and the University's Department of Family
Social Science, is free to parents of U of M students. It provides
information to help family members talk with their student about
alcohol use and abuse on campus. The course is targeted not just
for parents of students who drink; it discusses the impact on
non-drinkers caused by other students who drink, the decision-making
processes related to drinking choices, and social pressures. It
also provides national and campus-based statistics, tips for talking
about alcohol, comments from parents and students, and a list
of resources available on campus. Instructions to sign on are
as follows:
Go to this Web
site to begin the log-in process:
Read and follow the instructions on that page. On the Log-In
page, you will be asked for an Internet ID and password. The
Internet ID for U of M parents is: mnparent. The password is
AlcoholSeminar1 (all one word; the password is case sensitive
so A and S must be capitalized, and the last character is number
1). You will be connected to a University of Minnesota MyU page,
with a box headed "Course List." Link to “Parent
Program First Year Seminar for Parents - Alcohol Use on Campus.”
When the course screen comes up, link to "Getting Started" and
proceed at your own pace. Use these instructions each time you
log into the course. Any time you log in, you are likely to
get a pop-up window saying that the connection is "Checking
Java" or "Checking to see if cookies are enabled." Just
close any pop-up windows.
Please Note: After you have finished all the lessons, please
fill out the evaluation. As noted above, we are seeking funding
for development of additional units for the course, and your
assistance and feedback will make this course more useful for
the parents of our incoming students in the future. (We are
a research university, so we're always looking for feedback.)
Thank you.
—Podcasts
In our last e-mail, we talked about some of the podcasts available
to students that can help them with academic and personal issues.
In the past two weeks, several new podcasts have been posted
under the heading "Managing Stress and Transitions." One
that parents might be particularly interested in listening to,
as well as recommending to your students, is "End of Semester
Re-entry," which addresses students' return home after
a year in college. The podcasts are online and may be downloaded
to an iPod/mp3 player or listened to online.
—Career Planning
A "Job and Internship Search" online workshop has
been developed by the U of M Career Services offices. The workshop
gives students specific information on the process of searching
for jobs and internships with advice on getting started, practicing
job-search skills, and finding career opportunities through
multiple job search methods. The workshop is online.
Students interested in a legal career can join Justice Paul
Anderson of the Minnesota Supreme Court on a tour of the State
Judicial Center at 3 p.m., Monday, April 21, 2008. Students
can meet in the auditorium of the State Judicial Center located
at 25 Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd., St. Paul, at 3:00 p.m. Justice
Anderson will lead a tour of the court, conference room, and
Supreme Court chambers. He will also discuss issues relating
to the court, how the court chooses the cases they will review
each year, and how decisions and determinations are reached.
The program is arranged by University Student Legal Services.
—Miscellaneous
In March, our Parent Question of the Month asked if your student
has a FaceBook page, MySpace page, or a blog, and if you—the
parent—have a FaceBook or MySpace page or a blog. We had
our highest-ever number of responses in March at more than 900,
and nearly 92 percent of parents said that their students were
on the sites or blogging, compared to just 11 percent of parents.
Probably the most impressive part of the results is that only
4 percent of parents indicated they don't know whether their
student is on the sites or not. Since almost all parents know
their students are on social networking sites, you clearly are
talking about the subject. The Office for Student Affairs has
posted a list of considerations for safely using social networking:
www.osa.umn.edu/safety/online_safety.html.
To respond to the April Question of the Month, please go to
www.parent.umn.edu.
Sincerely,
Marjorie Savage
Parent Program Director
University of Minnesota
www.parent.umn.edu |
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