The Parent Page

Season 3 Episode 3: The Voting Conundrum

What’s next on the calendar for all colleges and universities? VOTING! If you lived through 2020 and even 2016, you know what’s coming, and students are probably increasingly aware of it too. Join Mindy and Leslie and their two student guests for a discussion of civic engagement on campus and what parents should know in supporting their students’ transition into adulthood with their first election as voters. Join us for a non-partisan discussion with Zoë Jenkins from  University of Virginia and Jonah Zacks (yes that Jonah) from Washington University in a discussion about what to expect this election cycle on campus, how your students should prepare and what are some basic things parents should know to ensure their students take advantage of their opportunity to make their voices heard. Zoë and Jonah are both civically engaged organizers on their campuses with long resumes that involve campaign work, policy research, community organizing, voting engagement and reform and others. Since 2019 they have been active partners as fellows with Civics Unplugged initiative (https://www.civicsunplugged.org/ [https://www.civicsunplugged.org/]) which is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help young people learn the skills necessary to develop innovative solutions to society’s biggest challenges. Like their colleagues from, CU they are passionate about bringing change, data, action and engagement to their campuses as a way to encourage discourse, collaboration, common ground and activism.

Season 3 Episode 2 The Adjustment Conundrum

Parents- we need some COACHING! Watching a college student flop around from afar is going to give every parent feelings, but guess what- we parents are flopping around too. And Mindy and Leslie are no better than anyone else in this regard. Join us for a discussion with therapist Kara Friedman who specializes is working with teens and their families during this dynamic time in our lives. This week, Kara will bring some incredible insider information directly from some the mouths of her teen clients. By asking them “what do you want your parents to know about your college experience?” she will help us decode what is going on inside the brains of our students at a distance. Kara Friedman is a Licensed Professional Counselor who helps teens and women struggling with anxiety feel calm and confident when life is "out of control." With more than twenty years of experience, she's seen her clients learn new coping skills, make fundamental changes and have long-lasting results. Kara can be found at www.karafriedmancounseling.com.

Season 3 Episode 1: The Parents Weekend Conundrum

Mindy and Leslie dive into Season 3 with a summer recap and by setting the stage for the next round of Parent Page Podcast episodes for the fall. Now that everyone is safely on board at their colleges and universities it is time to flip the page to the next big moment on the calendar for new college parents: Parents and Family Weekend. As with everything, this is usually one of the first trips back for college parents, and it comes with some unexpected complications and things to consider. Come get your expectations appropriately set as Mindy and Leslie welcome a fellow college parent to a discussion around what parents weekend is, what it isn’t, and how to avoid messing the whole thing up.

Season 2 Episode 4: The Monthly Budget Conundrum

This week’s episode comes with all the disclaimers we can drum up. Monthly budgets are extremely student-specific and highly dependent upon the financial situation of each family. There is no one size fits all approach to this one except in the planning.  Every students would benefit from a frank conversation during these summer months about the plan for a monthly budget for items outside the tuition/books/housing sphere. Whether it is a discussion about what is and is NOT on the list  of things they can expect support with, or just the exercise of planning for how to afford the basics completely on their own, a parents job is to help them think it through now while they are still at home. Join Mindy and Leslie as they navigate this topic with the help of CPA and fellow battle-tested college parent Karen Smoller. Let Karen’s personal and professional experience can help you leap-frog a number of questions and wrong turns as you work through your mental check list of things to stress out about. Karen Smoller is mom to two recent college graduates and a CPA at a national accounting firm with over 30 years of experience in money management. I mean honestly, who better to take this advice from.

The Parent Page Podcast: The Advisor Conundrum

Parents- at the end of the day we send them to college to go to class, right? All that other stuff is important too, but at the core, we expect them to learn something. And to do so, they need to understand some of mechanisms in place to help them along their academic journey. They will almost certainly struggle at some point in their studies and when they do, academic and major advisors are the key to them sorting out their problems. What can you do, parent, to encourage your student to take best advantage of this new relationship as their start their lives on campus? Join hosts Leslie and Mindy as they welcome guest Bill Tolman- chemist, department chair, advisor and dean- to the podcast. Bill is as approachable as they come on campus, but read on for his super fancy bio below. William B. Tolman received a B.S. degree from Wesleyan University (1983) and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (1987). After a postdoctoral stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota (1990), and rose through the ranks to Distinguished McKnight University Professor. He is a member of the NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers and served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry (2009-2017). He began his current position in 2018. He also currently is Faculty Fellow in Wayman Crow Residential College. Among the honors he has received are the Searle Scholars, NSF National Young Investigator, Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Awards, a Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Chemical Society Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry (2017). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society, and has published > 235 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited more than 25,000 times. He served as Associate Editor (2009-2012) and now as Editor-in-Chief of Inorganic Chemistry (2013-present). Current research in his group aims to understand copper protein active sites in enzymes and catalytic feedstock conversions and sustainable polymer syntheses.