Contents:
- Greetings from Parent Council
- Upcoming Events
- What Your Student Has Been Doing
- The Future of PLNU
- Dr. Caye Smith’s Tips for Freshman Parents
- Link to Webcam
Greetings from Parent Council!
NSO was an energy-packed weekend for our incoming freshman class. We had 580 new freshmen and 150 transfer students, along with family and friends, descending on the PLNU campus with excitement, packed cars, and loaded suitcases. As I unpacked my car and rolled my daughter’s suitcases into her dorm, I reflected upon the many changes this summer has brought. In July, I returned to my alma mater, serving in the University Advancement office as a Development Officer and Coordinator of the Parent Connection.
As a mother, I find that working with other parents and the Parent Council is a pure joy. Our vision is to connect parents with parents, and parents with Point Loma. The Parent Connection Newsletter serves as a resource and conduit for communication. A Parent Connection Newsletter will be posted on the website the first Friday of every month and emailed to those who have subscribed. The newsletter will provide advance notice of campus events, a window to your student’s activities, notification of important information, and responses to parents’ questions and suggestions.
Parent Council looks forward to meeting you at Parent Weekend, scheduled for November 7th & 8th, 2008. Registration forms have been mailed to your home address, or you may register online. I want to extend a special thank-you to Scott and Shelly Tutt, presidents of Parent Council, for their unwavering commitment to Parent Council for six years. I am grateful for the support of the Parent Council members who faithfully serve PLNU families. May God richly bless our children and our families as we take this wonderful PLNU journey together.
Jeanne Cochran
Coordinator, PLNU Parent Connection
Upcoming Events
Fall FestivalOctober 18, 2008
Parent Weekend
(Register Now!)November 7 - 8, 2008
Homecoming Weekend
November 21 -22, 2008
Grandparent Weekend
March 27- 28, 2008
What Your Student Has Been Doing
NSO, August 21-23
Fiesta on Caf Lane Wednesday August 27
Bob Brower’s Birthday Bash, August 29
Superhero Bowling , September 4
The Future of PLNU
Dr. Joe Watkins, Vice President of External RelationsThe fall semester at PLNU is off to a fast start! With the largest undergraduate enrollment in our history, we continue to build for the future.
This year we will install solar panels on five of our buildings to reduce our dependence upon energy sources that consume our natural resources. PLNU signed the President’s Climate Compact pledging our commitment, along with several hundred other colleges and universities, reducing our impact on God's creation. Our administrative cabinet has made a commitment that all new buildings (including the recently completed Smee Hall) will be built to LEED sustainability design standards. Sustainability for PLNU is not simply about the reduction of our consumption of natural resources, but is also about sustaining the future viability of PLNU to secure the next one hundred years for the university that is serving your student and has served students for the past 106 years.
For more on our efforts to reduce and recycle visit
www.pointlima.edu/recyclingYou can see our commitment to providing your student with an effective, dynamic educational experience through our pursuit of technological excellence, relevant teaching environments and ever-improving educational disciplines. One demonstration of our continuing pursuit of educational excellence is the design of a new 32,000 square foot science lab and research facility that will benefit every PLNU student. In addition to the new science building, PLNU will modernize the existing 35,000 square foot science facility to enhance our science, math and computer science instruction.
PLNU is proud to have a distinguished reputation for the preparation of our majors in these disciplines and seeks to improve our highly regarded programs with cutting-edge facilities. If you have interest in helping make the future possible for your student and those who will follow in his or her footsteps, please contact me directly at 619-849-2650 or at
joewatkins@pointloma.edu
Tips for Freshman Parents
Dr. Caye Smith, Vice President of Student DevelopmentWhat to Expect From Your Freshman Student in the Next Few Weeks
- To get a little homesick, but mask it as something else.
- Not to get as much sleep as you think they should.
- To call home and tell you that everything and everyone here is awful and they hate it here . . . then to call home two days later to tell you that PLNU is the greatest place on earth.
- The first six weeks are critical. You can expect an emotional nose dive at three-four weeks and to get through that nose dive at five -six weeks. Parental response is very important here.
- To bring a load of dirty clothes home and notice that the load is greater than the sum of all the clothes they have ever owned. It’s just college math!
- It will be different the first time they come home; you’ll especially notice this at Christmas break.
- They’ll call home sick at some point, and you’ll get to do some basic coaching. They will have mid-terms around the second week of October, and stress levels will be high.
- To not always do well with time management; the transition from parent-management to self-management is a particular challenge
- "To tell you something outrageous they heard from a professor, residential assistant, staff leader, or chaplain. Fear not if they go back and simply say:
- “I heard____ is that what you were saying? They will often have their fears relieved"
Parent email:The Parent Council received a wonderful email from a parent. I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed us at PLNU.
“Thank you for asking about our Katie! Leaving our 'baby' at school was really hard on all of us, most of all Katie. As the week went on, I thought about Moses and his family. How hard was it for Jochebed to let her baby go? In a similar fashion, my husband and I built a basket and floated our daughter down the coast from Newport Beach to Point Loma where she has been found and cared for by wonderful friends, RA's, staff and instructors. PLNU has the ability to teach our children so much more than we ever could, imparting to them the wisdom they will need to fulfill their calling before God. Having Parent Weekends (NSO and the one in November) is much like Pharaoh’s daughter allowing Jochebed a chance to be with her much loved child while he was being grown into a man after God's own heart. We get to come for visits and be a part of Katie's growth and maturing. We get to encourage her and support her while still allowing her the space to find herself as an independent thinker. It seems as though every day we are all learning that there is something to be grateful for and some stupendous or quiet thing worthy of our praise. Who would have guessed that there were lessons in our parting for mom and dad, too? Katie is learning that its best to learn to crawl before you walk--and we are, too. God willing, we will be at a fast sprint in no time!”
Nancy Ballou, Parent of a PLNU freshman daughter
Webcam! Check it out!
WebcamDid you know we have a webcam set up in Nicholson Commons? All you need to do is click on this link and you might see your student walking in for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Take a look at the Nicholson Commons webcam