What to expect when you are expecting your parents: A preview to Family Weekend
Photo Courtesy of the Gettysburg College
By Jamie Welch, Staff Writer
Gettysburg College’s annual Family Weekend is this weekend, and a whole host of events are planned to give families a taste of what it is like to be a student at Gettysburg College and to provide a fun and relaxing environment for families to have fun with their favorite college students.
Family Weekend is a time when parents can experience many facets of life at Gettysburg College from academic opportunities to exhibits to athletic events to music performances to open houses—and the list goes on.
In addition, this year the college invites parents to participate in The Journey to Great, a fun adventure during which you will learn about the five priorities of “Gettysburgreat: The Campaign for Our College”.
To participate in this program, all you have to do is pick up your passport at Registration (10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. on Friday and 8:00 a.m. – noon on Saturday), and attend certain events marked on the full schedule, available at http://www.gettysburg.edu/family_weekend/schedule.dot.
Once there, place a sticker (available at many events and at Registration) in your passport. Then, once you have completed your travels, tear out the page in the back of the passport with your contact information and place it in the Journey to Great passport box in the CUB Lobby by 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. During the Student Showcase at 8PM on Saturday, three winners will be drawn for Family Weekend gift baskets.
Featured events throughout the weekend include academic lectures hosted by various departments, the Civil War tour hosted by a Gettysburg graduate and civil war historian, and various socials around campus. Events not to miss include the Family Weekend Campus Social from 5-8pm Friday in The Attic at which adult beverages and a variety of snacks will be served. Enjoy accomplished entertainer “Stevie Keys,” who will play the piano and sing all of your favorites from the 60’s through today’s hits. Peek through his 1000+ song list and request your favorites. Also on Friday will be Family Feud in the CUB Ballroom at 9pm. The game will feature cash prizes!
Saturday’s highlights include Fall Fest from 2-5pm on Memorial Field which will feature an inflatable obstacle course, and a special event in the CUB Ballroom in the evening. The special event in the Ballroom starts at 8pm and will feature a variety of student dance and a cappella groups including Dance Ensemble, BOMB Squad, and a cappella groups Four Scores, Upscale, and Drop the Octave giving awesome showcase performances.
After the Student Showcase, the Family Weekend headliner will take the stage. The headliner this year is Blessing Offor, an artist from Brooklyn with musical influences ranging from the world of pop, soul and R&B.
Blessing has that ability to blow people away when they simply hear him sing and play the piano. Now that his abilities have stretched into songwriting on both the piano and guitar, his talent has not gone unnoticed.
Last fall, he was a contestant on Season 7 of The Voice, and appeared over several episodes. He made all 4 judges’ seats turn during his audition, covering Grover Washington Jr. with Bill Withers’ “Just The Two Of Us.”
For a copy of the full Family Weekend schedule, visit http://www.gettysburg.edu/family_weekend/schedule.dot.
