The Griffon News

Each year Missouri Western holds Family Day, which has been active for at least 20 years. This event allows students to reconnect with family and catch up on humorous thoughts and laughter.

This year, Family Day was held on Saturday, Sept. 30., and began promptly at 11:00 a.m. Western’s various clubs and organizations sponsored different events such as face painting, a duck pond and candy apples. Aramark provided an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Athletics provided a DJ so that there was music for everyone to enjoy.

The Campus Activities Board had four large inflatable items; a bouncy castle, obstacle course, giant slide and a moon walk for the little ones.

Most organizations had booths to distribute information about the organization.

“It’s a good opportunity for students to show their families where they go to school and what their life looks like here,” said Hannah Coy, student organizations and campus events intern.

Tony Snook, leadership and campus events intern, said that their ultimate goal is to get students and parents more involved with campus.

“The student engagement is trying to engage students in with all of these student organizations and also more familiarize their families with our campus and the organizations that they are participating in,” Snook said.

Family day is open to any student and not just freshmen.

“[Family Day is] Just meant to be a good time and a positive experience for Western students and their families,” Snook said. “We are targeting a lot of freshmen because freshmen are probably going to be the majority people that haven’t had their parents or families come and experience our campus yet.”

Stan Sweeney, director of student engagement said people tend to see more of the newer students parents come.

“After a couple of family days, from what I understand, as you start getting higher in the years you become a junior or senior– parents don’t necessarily come out, they’ve come out the first couple of years,” Sweeney said. “But the thing is, it’s for everybody. We still have parents that come up every single year for family day, which is great.”

Since family day is co-sponsored by athletics it falls on a day where families can come out and experience Western sports.

“Football is a great activity to bring in people, especially parents to kind of get a feel of Western athletics,” Sweeney said. “Scheduling wise, family day is probably most likely going to be on a weekend, where parents can get off work and it’s not during the day the typical work week. Obviously we need to schedule a time where parents could actually come up here and participate in activities.”

Orcinneo Gaines, sophomore, said that family day gets students’ parents to come up and see them.

“Most people haven’t seen their parents since they left home, especially freshmen,” Gaines said.

Gaines also thinks that there should be more activities going on during family day.

Marvella Alexander, Gaines’ mother said that family day gives her a chance to see her son but there should be more involvement into seeing that the parents are better informed prior to the event.

“Family day gives me an opportunity to come see my baby, as long as I can come see him he doesn’t have to come see me,” Alexander said.

To get families more involved in family day, Snook said that they do send letters out to the student’s home address who are registered a few weeks prior informing them about family day.

“We try to get the word out as much as possible, we collaborate with other departments of the campus to get that done, we put posters up and encourage students to tell their families about it and invite them,” Snook said. “I think if we could change anything we would try to maybe encourage student organizations to have activities more ready for all ages.”

At 2 p.m. the Western Griffon football team defeated the Truman State Bulldogs ending Family day.

Flash slideshow of Family Day 2006. All photos taken by Stacey Shores and Marty Ayers.