1951: College hosts first, unsuccessful Parents’ Weekend
The first Parents’ Weekend took place in the spring of 1951. The May 2, 1951, edition of the Record reported that the College’s various fraternities planned cocktail hours, afternoon teas, and dinner parties for the visiting parents. One fraternity, Sigma Phi, planned a father-son softball game.
It appears, however, that the weekend did not go smoothly. In an op-ed published in the Oct. 31, 1951, issue of the Record, Bill Widing ’52 argued that Parents’ Weekend was “more a failure than a success,” but that the College should continue working to develop a more engaging event.
“The basic problem in planning any such weekend is that of interesting the parents enough so that they will be willing to make the (oftentimes) long trek to Williamstown,” Widing wrote. “The main fault with last spring’s weekend was that there was too little specific planning done and too much was left to the imagination of the individual social units.”
1953: Parents’ Weekend returns
The College declared the weekend of Saturday, Oct. 24, 1953, to be the “first annual Freshman Parents’ Weekend,” the Record reported (though “first” was a bit of a misnomer on account of the ill-executed Parents’ Weekend of 1951). The event was aimed exclusively at parents of first-year students but otherwise looked similar to what Friends and Family Weekend is at the College today.
Programming included talks by faculty members, campus tours, meals in the dining halls, and a “frosh football game.” The event was also more much successful than its 1951 precursor: 336 parents and other visitors made plans to attend.
A statement by the College administration emphasized that their goal was to “let the guests understand we feel they are a very important part of the Williams family and are invited to Williamstown as often as they wish.”
1971: “Parents victimize Freshmen, go away impressed”
The Oct. 26, 1971, issue of the Record published the humorous but probably accurate description of the year’s Parents’ Weekend: “Parents victimize Freshmen, go away impressed.”
The event was one of the first where parents visited daughters, not just sons, as the College had opened its doors to female students just a few years prior. Karen Simon ’73 was the first woman to cover Parents’ Weekend in the Record. However, the structure of the event seemed to have changed little with the inclusion of women.
Simon ended her article by quoting one anonymous female student who introduced her mother to her roommate: “‘My mother,’ said the girl, ‘Finally understood what I’ve been trying to tell her about my roommate. I kept saying she’d just have to see her to believe her.’”
1994: Parents’ Weekend becomes Family Weekend
The first reference to the College’s current term, “Family Weekend” (rather than “Parents’ Weekend”) came in the April 26, 1994 issue of the Record. The two terms, however, were generally used interchangeably throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Today, the College refers to the event as the more inclusive “Friends and Family Weekend,” and while it is geared towards parents of first-years, all are welcome to visit children, relatives, or friends on campus.
