The Collegian

Issue date: 10/23/08 Section: News

Parents are often put on the waiting list for the dow Center until rooms are made available.

The Dow Leadership Center receives calls year-round from parents hoping to stay there when they visit for Parent Weekend. Some parents even call a year in advance to make sure they are high up on the wait list.

Yet this past Parent Weekend, not one parent on that waiting list received a phone call telling them they had a room, said Cheryl Rogers, aid to the Dow Center's Director of Operations.

On major weekends such as Parent Weekend, homecoming and graduation, the Dow Center blocks all of its rooms per an agreement with the administration, Rogers said.

"The college holds every room we have," she said.

This allows certain departments to reserve rooms for the weekends they host, she said.

"The Dow Center's agreement with the college is that those rooms are ours until they are released," said Joyce Curby, coordinator of alumni activities and events.

Curby said her department has rights to those rooms on homecoming weekend, for housing honorary alumni.

Parents relations has the same rights on Parent Weekend, when they save rooms for participants in the Phone-a-thon and members of the Parent Board, said Dow Center maid Janell Trott.

Institutional Advancement has the same privileges for hosting speakers and honorary guests during Center for Constructive Alternative weekends.

And for others:

"The girls tell them they've been put on the wait list and suggest finding other arrangements," Trott said.

Once on the wait list, parents don't find out if they get a room until approximately two weeks before they are scheduled to stay, she said.

At this point, the department hosting the weekend has determined how many of the rooms they will actually need.

For parents, this translates to slim chances at a room in the Dow.

"It's not that the Dow Center exists just for business purposes," Curby said. But business is its primary focus, she said.

"It's the most fair system considering the circumstances," she said.

Rogers said the college is the biggest customer, and the Dow Center has to act accordingly.

"I'm not sure how else we would do it," she said. "It's as fair as it can be."

But the admissions department should present the Dow Center more accurately to parents and students, Rogers said. She said when prospective or new students and their parents tour the campus, their guide points to the Dow Center and says, "And here is where you'll stay."

"No it's not!" she said.

She said misconceptions such as this make it more difficult for parents to understand when they failed to get a room at the Dow Center.

After 14 years of service to the college, Trott has the system down.

"It's Hillsdale College, honey. They do what they want," she said.

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