How some of our students spent Mother’s Day

Nancy Truesdell, our Vice President of Student Affairs (and overall awesome lady), sent the following email to the Lawrence administration today. Seems fitting and proper to post here, too. Since Nancy’s message pretty much says it all, we’ll close by going right to her note:

I thought I should pass along that I heard we had 80 students go to senior homes yesterday to provide Mother’s Day makeovers (manicures, etc.)  to the senior residents and offer little homemade gifts (particularly going to residents who had no family visit on Mother’s Day) as part of the regular outreach that the fairly new campus org Glamour Girls arranges.  Glamour Gals (featured on one of the This is Lawrence videos) goes weekly to offer companionship and spend one-on-one times to both men and women in the senior centers by doing nails and hair, etc., but I thought the Mother’s Day outreach was very special and demonstrates the heart of our students.

My office also received a call today from the daughter of a blind woman who lives at one of the senior centers who so enjoyed the “singing visit” from Sinfonia (men’s music fraternity) – the daughter gushed about how special this was very [important for] her mother and how touched she was that busy college students would take time to do this…

Nancy

So last night we had this reverse radio call-in show…

Last night, for students who had not yet finalized their college plans, we hosted Lawrence’s first “Reverse Radio Call-In Show” using some technology that involves robo-calling. (That we did so during an election cycle gave us pause, knowing that many households still attached to landlines are receiving calls from various and sundry political candidates).

On the phone with me were Dean of Student Affairs, Nancy Truesdell, and Dean of the Conservatory, Brian Pertl. They answered questions from students calling in from coast to coast. Seriously. We had students from Boston and students from Alaska–and many places in between–on the line last night.

If you have half an hour to burn, you can listen to a recording of the phonecast here (skip past the first 30 seconds unless you like hearing a lot of back chatter). It works well if you’re looking for answers to questions about student life (including a great question about starting a formal group house dedicated to “slow-food cooking”) and life in the Conservatory of Music. It also works well if you’re having a hard time sleeping and you find the dulcet tones of university administrators to have a soporific effect.