Parents in Higher Education

I’ve recently had a change of heart.

After feeling like I was talking to parents of students more than I was talking to the students themselves, I was fed up. “Why are these students not solving their own roommate conflicts?” I’d ask myself. “How did these students get through high school without any sense of independence?” I’d internally shout. I just wanted to work with students who wanted to become adults.

Why was I asking myself these questions? Why did I have such a problem working with parents?

It could have been that I signed up for this job to educate 18-22 year olds. It could be that I felt like I had an independent experience going through college and I was trying to project my collegiate experience on those around me. Or, it could be that I felt like I was having the same conversations with young adults as I was when I taught Kindergarten a few short years ago.

Then, I thought back to why I do this work. As a first-gen college grad myself, I felt that I was sent to higher education to support students through my experience working with the future first-gen students I taught in Brownsville, Brooklyn. In the K-12 system we tried everything we could to get parents involved with their student’s education, because we knew that with parents support we could have learning happening from the school and the home simultaneously. 

With our lower socioeconomic and first-generation students, I hope that our profession can continue the cycle of parental involvement that the K-12 system has tried hard to develop in many historically impoverished areas of our country. As more and more students start coming to higher education as first generation students, I believe we need to change the mindset that so many in the profession have (including myself until recently). And, I get it, college makes you more independent (or it should…maybe?) but, we can work with students and parents to make this a more gradual release. The day you move in to the residence hall does not have to be the day your parent stops advocating for you. Besides, this will be especially hard in the millennial era, where many students are much closer to parents than previous generations.

In short, I think times are changing. I believe we are seeing a move back to parents as central figures in student’s lives, and instead of fighting it by pointing and yelling “helicopter parent” any time a parent emails us with a question, I think we need to embrace the change. It might not be how you “grew up” in college, but it’s how our students are. Let’s figure out how to keep parents informed to whatever extent we legally can accept their partnership in the mission of getting their student successfully through college. I believe we can only see benefits from this, especially for our first generation students.

Are there ways that your institutions do this? How can you do it in your corner of the institution (res life, orientation, student conduct, etc.) to reach out and inform parents of what is going on where you work? Some of our student’s parents are trying to understand college better, so let’s welcome them to the (insert school mascot) family! They’ve worked hard to get their student here.

Jimmy McClellan is a current graduate student in Virginia Tech’s Higher Education program currently working in Residence Life. He is an alumnus of the University of Florida and Teach For America program(NY, 2012). He holds a passion for bridging K-12 and higher education.