Family Weekend joins parents, students, staff

Nearly 3,000 parents participated in Liberty University’s Family Weekend, Oct. 17 and 18.

Events included a Chancellor’s Dinner Friday night, followed by a hockey match, a Saturday morning meet-and-greet reception sponsored by the Parents Program Office and the Parents Development Board meeting on Saturday.

Parents and family members were also part of the 15,483 fans at the home football game against Lafayette, the second-largest crowd in stadium history on Saturday.

At the Friday night dinner, Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. spoke on the future of Liberty University. He laid out his plans for growth and development and told parents how the new Ultimate LU initiative is improving student retention and increasing enrollment.
“Ultimate LU is working to get our young people out from behind their TV video games and into [the] game of college life, friendships and their school work,” he said. “The campaign has been named Ultimate LU, but I like to call it ‘No Child Left Inside.’”

There were 23 families who attended the Parents Development Board meeting on Saturday in the Reber-Thomas Executive Dining Room. The Board serves the university by raising much-needed financial support for programs that contribute significantly to the quality of student life. Often, emergency needs arise and the Parents Development Board is the first step in responding to these needs.

The Board held a silent auction at the dinner Friday night and at the football game on Saturday. Nearly 70 items were donated to raise support for unbudgeted student emergencies in seven different areas of the university, including an emergency travel fund for students who receive news of a parent who has died. Campus Pastor Dwayne Carson said one parent of an LU student dies each week.

“People should remember that we are a small city with 11,500 students. Our office is there to help students with these kind of family emergencies,” he said.

The other emergency proposals presented include: the Bruckner Learning Center, the Career Center, the School of Religion for student missions, CASAS for internships and the Adopt-A-Champion Heroes Fund for wounded veterans. The group raised more than $6,000 for these emergency requests from the silent auction and pledged to raise $72,000 by the conclusion of the 2008-2009 school year to fund the projects.

The commitment level of the Board is up nearly 100 percent over last year. In 2007, the group raised $40,000 to pay for a new transportation panel truck for the Student Activities office and security equipment for the Liberty University Police Department.