Campus doings

Freshman Family Weekend is coming up September 14-15-16. Good luck getting a hotel reservation in town...

And in recognition of the fact that this is such a great place, day in and day out, October 13-21 has been designated as Celebrate IU Week. It's going to cover everything great about IU - academics, arts and athletics. Should be fun.

Can't put a price on beauty

There is an apocryphal story about an IU administrator, frustrated by lack of funds, looking at out window during a change of seasons, watching the landscape crew at work pulling out old flowers and planting the new set. How much, the administrator wanted to know, do all these flowers on campus cost. The story continues that an intrepid staffer, more loyal to IU than to the administrator, answered: "The flowers are priceless."

We were reminded of that story this morning as we walked into the office. The landscape truck was out early, making its rounds to water the huge hanging baskets of rieger begonias that adorn the campus. We're still having hot weather in Bloomington, and there hasn't been much rain. But the begonias are doing just fine, thank you. The campus is beautiful.

Feel like you are hovering a bit?

You're not alone. More and more parents are finding it difficult to cut their very close ties with their college-age children.

Getting hammered at college

We here in the College held a bash (ha ha ha) yesterday to welcome new students to campus, get them acquainted with faculty and staff in College departments, and generally show them a good time. I don't think they bargained for getting hammed on the bed of nails, courtesy of the IU Department of Physics, but some brave souls went through with it and survived. They'll do just fine in college!

Kinsey was in Bloomington - no coincidence!

IU is RED HOT. Too darn red hot, if you ask most people around here in Bloomington. Is it any surprise that Kinsey had his revelation (made famous by Cole Porter) while he was here in Bloomington? We think not.

According to the Kinsey report

ev'ry average man you know

much prefers to play his favorite sport

when the temperature is low

but when the thermometer goes way up

and the weather is sizzling hot

Mister GOB for his squab,

a marine for his queen

a G.I. for his cutie-pie is not

Cause it's too too too darn hot

It's too darn hot

It's too darn hot

But we don't need to tell YOU that, do we? You were here in town moving your kid into the dorm. How did it all go???? Elvis and Elvira are interested in your feedback.

Welcome to the new school year!

We've mostly taken the summer off, along with all the students, but now that the students are filtering back into town, we are back online.

This fall we have a new president at IU, Michael McRobbie. The new prexy has big plans for the place. In Bloomington we have a new provost, Karen Hanson. Karen is a scholar and a caring teacher and will have the students' best interests at heart. We here at Hoosier Parents Online are big fans of the new provost.

Words to the wise: Are you bringing your freshman to IU this week to check into the dorm? The big box stores in Bloomington have everything a student could ever need or want, but the lines are going to be lo-o-o-o-o-ong this week. Better to give your kids some cash and let them take the Midnight Madness bus and do the hauling themselves.