By Shannon Hoyt
Professional Communications and Emerging Media major
After a semester and a half of being away from home, University of Wisconsin-Stout students can experience a little bit of home on campus with the annual Family Weekend, scheduled Friday, April 6, to Sunday, April 8.
Each year the annual celebration offers new events for students and their special guests.
“Family Weekend is an opportunity for students to show off their campus to their families and all that (UW-Stout) has to offer,” said Grace Davis, of Cameron, student coordinator for Family Weekend and a senior studying interior design. “We have integrated some new events, as well as revamped some of our traditional events. We were just looking for ways to update Family Weekend so families can come every year and see something new.”
This year, the Family Weekend Committee reached out to organizations to bring back popular agenda activities. Davis said the most successful events in the past have been the trivia events, comedy shows and art sales.
“We are expanding the Fine Arts Association sale from just pottery to live printing, print sales, an art metals sale and a painting sale,” Davis said. As for new events, “There will be a plant sale this year hosted by GreenSense and a Stout Secrets Tour.”
The Stout Secrets Tour had been held on homecoming weekend starting four years ago. This year, Heather Stecklein, university archivist for UW-Stout’s Robert S. Swanson Library and Learning Center, wanted to extend the tour to the university’s Blue Devil families.
“With Family Weekend we know that a lot of times parents are curious about campus,” Stecklein said. “A lot of times their exposure to campus, especially if they’re not from the area, has been pretty minimal.”
Stecklein said that Stout Secrets strives to change that. “What we’re looking for is, what are the things that people walk past every day and they don’t know what it is, what it means and how it got there?”
Some secrets lie within, in front of and below the feet of those on campus. The tour also discusses the history of UW-Stout that is no longer visible but captured in historical photographs.
The Stout Secrets Tour, limited to 20 participants, will be Friday, April 6, from 3 to 4 p.m. To register, visit the Memorial Student Center’s OrgSync portal to find the Stout Secrets Tour Request form. University Archives has partnered with Family Weekend in the past, working with Fashion Without Fabric to create a presentation about fashion shows through the years and collaborating with staff at the Louis Smith Tainter House on family legacy tours.
To find the list of events for April 6-8, search for Family Weekend on the website.
“There haven't been any canceled events. There just tends to be an ebb and flow of organizations who participate,” Davis said. “All the events are in high demand throughout the school year, so I imagine they will be successful for Family Weekend.”
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Photo
Heather Stecklein
