Dear Parents and Families:
On behalf of the Office of Student Life, I want to welcome
you and introduce you to your very own "room" on the MSOE Web
site.
This Parents' Page is intended to be at all times a work
in progress. We will use it as a calendar of events, to keep you abreast of
what's happening on campus and in our community. We will use it to announce
new university programs and policies, facilities and resources that should
interest, involve, and affect both you and your students. All of it in hopes
that it will help your son or daughter succeed at MSOE.
From time to time throughout the academic year, staff from
each of the Student Life departments -- the Counseling Center, the Learning Resource
Center, Student Support Services, the Mentor Programs, Health Services,
Women's Connections, Student
Activities and Athletics - as well as Residence Life, will offer suggestions,
lend a bit of "advice" and "good counsel," and maybe even make recommendations
on how you parents can participate in your students' educational experience
in the most appropriate, productive, and rewarding ways.
For example, currently on this site, you will find the
Counseling Services' piece on "Parents as Partners" and our Student Activities' suggestions on "Keeping
Connected." You may also want to check out the new
Grohmann Museum at the corner of Broadway and State Street, a reflection of MSOE's educational breadth, a signature building of our university and a downtown Milwaukee icon as
well.
In all likelihood you have read and heard, and certainly
you know for yourselves, that the present generation of parents are more personally
and directly involved in their sons' and daughters' educational experience
than any preceding population of parents. You are likely:
- having a healthy hand (and a lot of miles!) in the college search process;
- keeping on top of admission requirements, application deadlines, and getting those letters of recommendation in;
- fully intending to see and hear everything at Orientation;
- learning (or very soon will learn) how to tell time by "which week of the quarter" it is; having your moods affected by the tone of voice at the other end of the line or, more likely, the longs and shorts of the emails;
- considering pulling an "all-nighter" yourself, just so you can say you did and so you can empathize and identify with your offspring booking for a Calc test (or possibly remember how it was when you did that!);
- going to count down to graduation with them;
- going to invite yourself to assist in the purchase of the interview suit and then hold your breath at the mailbox.
And finally, at the happy end of all this, you will party
with them like it's 1999. Will you not?
Through all of this, of course, you're crossing your
fingers that somebody up/down/over "there" is looking out and checking up ...
just as we said we would.
Know that we have every intention and wish to keep our
parents and families in the loop. We want to - and will - help you "let
go," so that the flesh of your flesh and the loves of your lives can move on
as they must, and make their own inimitable mark on the world. We never want
you to lose touch, however, and in fact, if these pages do what they're
supposed to, we won't let you lose touch.
So keep those calls and cards (and emails) coming. As
MSOE has told you, and promised you: we're big enough to matter, certainly, but
small enough to care. We do, and we always will. You know where we are and
how to find us. Just do it.
For now, and in the meantime, God bless you, every
one.
Sincerely,
Patrick J. Coffey
Vice-president for Student Life / Dean of Students
Milwaukee
School of Engineering
1025 N. Broadway
Milwaukee,
WI 53202-3109
Telephone: (414)
277-7226
FAX: (414) 277-7248