On April 17, more than 25 Oregon State University units will offer hands-on activities for children of all ages to learn more about what’s happening at their parents’ workplace at Bring Your Kids to Campus Day.
Because that workplace happens to be a college campus, the event also aims to help kids start to feel like they belong in a university setting.
“In the context of higher education, it’s more about widening the circle of young people who get to step on a college campus. It demystifies what that is,” said Cari Maes, associate director of the Family Resource Center, which runs the annual event. “I think it helps them to think about what this place means to them, and whether they could see themselves here in the future.”
Dorian Smith, director of the Educational Opportunities Program, has been bringing his 10-year-old daughter Savannah since she was about 2 years old. Last year, he and his wife Sara (who now works at the OSU Foundation) also brought their then-3-year-old twin boys, Willie and Malcolm, and Savannah took charge to ensure they saw all the highlights.
“She’s done it for so long that she felt like the pro and was giving her little brothers the tour,” Smith said. “She was telling them about all the places she had experiences with and mapped out where she wanted them to go.”
Savannah asks every year to come back for the event.
“I think her first year was great because she felt like campus was hers, that it was for her,” Smith said. “It’s been great to see how comfortable she feels on campus.”
Bring Your Kids to Campus Day started in 2011. Each year, around 200 kids participate with 100-150 employee and student parents. The FRC works with University Human Resources to provide guidance for supervisors and encourage them to support employees who wish to participate in the day with their kids. It’s a day off from school in Corvallis and surrounding school districts, so families with school-age children already have to find alternate care plans for their kids.
Registration is strongly encouraged.
Maes brought her kids when they were younger and enjoyed the chance for them to experience more of campus than what they saw from attending gymnastics or swim class. Now, her teenage son attends as a volunteer at one of the activity tables.
The FRC has centralized most of the day’s activities to the SEC Plaza, where different units host tables with activities so parents don’t have to schlep children and strollers all over OSU’s sprawling campus. There will be a variety of arts and crafts projects related to the different units’ work, along with a few science-based activities.
University Facilities Services usually offers tours with a bit of a treasure-hunt angle, where kids are tasked with finding a certain statue or landmark. Kids might also get a chance to go swimming at Dixon Recreation Center or bowling in the Memorial Union Lanes & Games. Team Oregon, the College of Health outreach program that teaches motorcycle safety, brings tricycles and sets up a course for kids to ride.
Transportation Services hosts a table near the side of the plaza with the Beaver Bus stop so they can encourage families to hop on and ride around campus. Staff hand out about a hundred “I Rode the Beaver Bus” stickers each year, said Tanya Andersson, administrative program specialist with Transportation Services.
The unit’s table has a button-making station where families can choose from a variety of paper designs depicting different modes of transportation to color and turn into a wearable pin. Last year, the buttons were so in demand that the button-maker jammed partway through the day.
“We have rockets, scooters, wagons, bicycles, buses, kayaks … It’s a fun way to talk about different types of transportation and things they have done or that they might want to do,” Andersson said. “And it’s engaging: You don’t want to just talk at people; you want to have something that is hands-on and can start a conversation.”
Some parents even write the year on the side of their kids’ buttons to document their progress over time, Andersson said.
“It’s fun for us to see the kids from year to year, growing up,” she said.
She knows public transportation can be intimidating to kids who have never tried it before, so the Beaver Bus is a way to ease them into it, and to help them start thinking about options beyond cars.
Smith’s daughter Savannah always loves going to the Craft Center, and she and her brothers were especially excited last year about the School of Writing, Literature and Film giving out free books.
Smith appreciates the opportunity for kids to learn about their parents’ work at OSU, and what it means for the students as well as the broader Oregon community.
“They get to meet people who are nice and also talk about some of the cool stuff and the great impact that we get to make, and they feel comfortable on a college campus,” Smith said. “Working with students, sometimes that’s half the battle of belonging, which is a huge part of student success. I think it’s great that we get to start that early, and that the kids get to come and be with us.”
His kids love Bring Your Kids to Campus Day so much, in fact, that when he brings them to campus for any other reason, they feel a bit let down.
“It’s the best day,” he said.
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