This weekend, as many students prepare for Halloween parties and other festivities, families will descend upon the Syracuse University campus for Family Weekend.

But the date for Family Weekend wasn’t chosen to curtail partygoers, said Colleen Bench, assistant vice president of student affairs and director of the Parents Office.

Bench said criteria for choosing Family Weekend includes: falling on a weekend with a home football game, not conflicting with large events in the city of Syracuse, not conflicting with any religious holidays and it being scheduled around other major campus events like Orange Central.

“I would not have selected Halloween weekend for Family Weekend if I had another viable option,” Bench said.

Bench said there are events scheduled for the weekend that are designed to offer alternatives to the usual social scene on Halloween. A “Greek-or-Treat” event will be hosted by the SU Greek community in Walnut Park from 3-5 p.m. on Friday. Destiny USA will host trick-or-treating on the first level underneath the food court and on the second level in the canyon area, from 5-7 p.m. on Friday night as well.

“Fortunately, we have done some creative programming on Friday and added trick-or-treat functions here for our younger guests,” Bench said.

Despite all that’s going on, the Department of Public Safety won’t change its routine for the weekend.

“The patrol system and what we do every weekend will basically be the same,” said DPS Senior Detective Ed Weber. “I’ve been here 13 years; every parents weekend, we basically are the same as any other weekend.”

Weber said there isn’t much difference in student behavior on Halloween weekend compared to other weekends, though he said he thinks having families in town might cause the amount of drinking to decrease.

But many students said having families in town won’t cause them to change their behavior.

“It is what it is,” said Pat Kelly, an undeclared sophomore in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. “A lot of what people did to celebrate Halloween, they did last weekend.”

Kelly acknowledged the benefits that come with family being in town, such as seeing siblings and getting off campus.

“My parents get to buy me free meals which I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” he said.

As for parties, Kelly has a plan for what he will do when his family comes.

Said Kelly: “I’ll just pretend like they’re not there.”

Published on October 30, 2014 at 12:01 am

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