Drink With Your Parents Weekend

As you all know it was Junior Parents Weekend or as I like to call it "Drink With Your Parents Weekend." This weekend is officially set by the school but does the school even know the purpose of the weekend? Do they know that it is mainly put there for students to take their parents out to "relive" the college life again? It would be interesting to see what the private Catholic school would think of it if they actually knew what went on during this event.

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There were Facebook events made for beer pong tournaments with their parents and I heard from many people that there were plenty of drunk parents walking around Willamette late night Friday and Saturday. I even had the privilege of actually interacting with some of these parents that were out with their kids. It was a toga party this weekend and I was walking around saying hi to my friends when...OH HEY PARENTS IN TOGAS! It was a little uncomfortable to say the least.  I can understand having a get together with your close friends and parents..but having a couple parents at a HUGE party with UP students..kind of interesting.

I asked one of my friends what her impression of Junior Parents Weekend was and she said  "I think that it's to have your parents meet your friends and their parents since they hear about your friends but never get to meet them like in high school." I am not against the idea of junior parents weekend what so ever. But there have been many discussions as to whether this weekend is appropriate or not.  All of this leads to the idea of whether or not drinking with your parents is appropriate or not. We all know that it happens, and being 21 is a different story, but drinking with your underage child? Is this smart? I found an article in TIME called Should You Drink With Your Kids? I know that before I turned 21 I was not able to "get drunk" with my parents.  I was allowed the occasional drink here and there with dinner and on special occasions but it was not until I turned 21 that it was seen as acceptable. There were plenty of parents in my high school who also got in trouble for providing alcohol to minors at parties. It was interesting because one of the parties in which the parents were in trouble, they did not even provide the alcohol but because they were under the same roof as us and let it happen, they suffered the consequences.

I found a couple of interesting articles on parents being arrested for providing alcohol for minors.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276178,00.html

http://dothanfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=133307

http://www.centurycouncil.org/stop-underage-drinking/initiatives/wedontserveteens

Overall, I just find the whole idea of Junior Parents Weekend very interesting.  I am sure that it is not Drink With Your Parents Weekend for every student that goes to UP but it is definitely a main attraction.

ASUP

It's that time again and February 15th was ASUP Speech Night ! But wait, how come there were hardly any people there?  Is this not supposed to be a big deal?  Do we not care who wins or loses?

For those of you who are unaware as to what ASUP is..."The ASUP Senate serves and represents the students by actively seeking opinions and encouraging participation. As leaders, it is our privilege and responsibility to foster community based upon respect, integrity, and open-mindedness. Through positive communication and proactive involvement, we hope to strengthen the current UP community as well as build a foundation for future generations."

The Past
Colin Dorwart, President
Katie Scally, Vice President
Hillary Burrelle, Secretary
Ben Thompson, Treasurer
Hillary White, CPB Director

The Potential Future
President & Vice President
Danielle Bibbs and Chris Collins
Zack Imfeld and Cloe' Ruffin
Secretary
Kristin Johnson
Treasurer
Caitlin Chu
Andrew Ottolia
CBP Director
Hillary White
Sean Ducey


On to SPEECH NIGHT! Since I am currently in Dr. Lovejoy's CST 363 class I had to honor to participate in doing live tweeting, blogging, and Facebook posting throughout the entire night of speeches.  It was interesting to see that there were hardly any students in the crowd. I thought that there would have been plenty of friends there to support, along with many intrigued students figuring out who to vote for. I found that by being there I was definitely given an advantage when it comes to voting. I am not going to lie, I was swayed one way just based off of the speeches alone. You can't always just go with "Oh well, my friend knows Chloe so I'm going to vote for her" because maybe she isn't the best for the position. It is very important to these candidates, as well as to our school. Don't be an uniformed voter so get out there and learn as to who would be the best for each position.

Following the speeches The Beacon put out an article about how the speeches went.  Many found the article to be bias and there was some controversy over the whole thing. I found an interesting article from the guest commentary section in The Beacon Online called "Should the Beacon Tell Us How to Vote" written by Austin Veiga.

Remember to be you and vote for who YOU want. On that note, remember Espresso UP posted that this week you'll have the chance to meet the ASUP Executive Board candidates for the 2011-12 school year. St. Mary's 7-10pm



Vote 2/22/2011 7:00:00 AM and 2/23/2011 8:00:00 PM