Freshman Parents Face Tours, Talks On Weekend Visit

More than 1100 freshman parents are wandering about campus attending classes and panel discussions as part of this year's Freshman Parents Weekend.

"A lot of parents just dropped their kids off in September," Eleanor Marshall, assistant to Parents Association Director Thomas E. Crooks '49, said yesterday, adding that the weekend was "a welcoming to parents to see the university."

Besides visiting classes, parents yesterday listened to University professor Edwin O. Reischauer speak about Japan and Senior Admissions Officer Dwight D. Miller talk about Harvard admissions.

Parents are also eating in the Freshman Union Dining Hall this weekend. "The food has improved in the 39 years since I've eaten here last, but the waitresses have disappeared," David E. Mann Jr. '44 said last night, while eating with his son Scott, '83.

Today's program will include three morning panel discussions. "We want to brief parents on the things we've been telling their kids," Robert J. Ginn; director of the Office or Career Services and Off-Campus Learning, said. Ginn said he would conduct a discussion summarizing the kinds of career advisory programs available to freshman.

David Riesman, Ford Professor of Social Sciences, will lead a discussion on opportunities at Harvard. "Everybody thinks it's somebody else's Harvard. The public school kids think it's the preppies' Harvard; the preppies think it's Bronx Science's Harvard," Riesman said, adding that he wants to show the parents the vast opportunities available to everyone.

Henry C. Moses, dean of freshmen, will participate in another panel on advising and counseling. The panel will include representatives from Harvard's various counselling institutions.