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Newly created Rutgers Parents Association sends out a call for involved families
Last month 28,000 households with an undergraduate at Rutgers–New Brunswick received a brochure with a shiny card in the mail, identifying them as members of the brand-new Rutgers Parents Association and inviting them to present the card for discounts at area restaurants and stores.
The association’s office was flooded with calls from parents wondering if the membership was really free. “Many asked, ‘Can I just use this card?’” said Lee Schneider, the former Cook College dean organizing the association. “We told them, ‘There’s no fee. You are Rutgers parents, and we want to incorporate you into the Rutgers community.’”
Within a week of the mass mailing, 400 families had registered at parents.rutgers.edu as members of the new organization. While membership and benefits are automatic, parents can elect to join Rutgers’ emergency alert system and get more involved – although what that means is still wide open.
Next month Schneider hopes to host a brainstorming session for parents interested in setting an agenda. At some point, he may set up similar parent associations for undergraduates in Newark and Camden. “It’s a matter of taking one step at a time,” he said. 
Rutgers’ timing may be perfect. After all, this is the era of the hovering “helicopter parents,” rarely out of touch with their college-age children and intensely involved in their educational attainment.
“There are a lot of students who go away to college and do everything on their own,” Schneider said. But increasingly parents and children are remaining closely connected during the college years. “I know students who call their moms every day – and I really don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Schneider, who received the first of three academic degrees from Rutgers in 1970.
A year ago, President Richard L. McCormick appointed Schneider executive director of the Rutgers Parents Association, a byproduct of the university’s transformation of undergraduate education. “We decided we should have an organization like the one for alumni,” Schneider said. “Parents would get a seat at the table, along with alumni, students, faculty, and staff.”
While the association is Rutgers’ first campuswide parents’ network, it was hardly the first. There have been other parent associations over the years, notably at Douglass and Cook colleges.
The Cook College Parents’ Association was founded in 1974 and lives on today, with 750 members, as the Cook Campus Parents’ Association. It supports fundraising for scholarships, holds a monthly meeting with speakers, hosts a summer orientation picnic for new students, and throws itself an annual cocktail party. Its existence will not be threatened by the Rutgers Parents Association. In fact, the Rutgers Parents Association may spin off other similar groups, tied to schools or academic units, according to Schneider.
Members of the Cook parent group say the experience benefits themselves and the school. “It’s a wonderful way of meeting people and getting information. I also like getting to know the other parents,” said Laurel Van Leer of East Brunswick, a 1981 Cook College graduate whose son is a first-year student in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. She also is a member of the Rutgers Board of Trustees, active in alumni affairs, and married to Charles Weibel, a Rutgers math professor.
Van Leer’s own parents could not have been more different. “I remember my parents dropping me off and not seeing them until Thanksgiving. It was scary,” she said. “There were no helicopter parents at the time.”
Parents can remain involved, and even cross paths with their kids on campus, without “crossing the line” and meddling, she said.
Richard Gallagher, co-president of the Cook parent group, joined when his oldest daughter arrived on campus in 2001. A second daughter followed. Both seemed to enjoy his activism, he said.
“We keep an eye on what’s going on, but not in an intrusive way. We have sort of a parents’ life on campus that runs parallel to the students,” said Gallagher, a 1972 alumnus of Rutgers College.
“People come to us and say, ‘Isn’t this a PTA?’” Gallagher said. “We say, ‘At the end of College Avenue there’s a club for alumni. This is a chance for parents to have a club and be an integral part of the community.’”