Kettering University

Welcome to the Kettering University Parents' Association

Mission Statement

The purposes of the organization shall be to provide a forum of communication between parents of Kettering University students and the University; to foster goodwill between the university, parents, students and the community; to assist the University and students in enhancing the students’ life while on campus.

Kettering University Parents' Association

• All parents of currently-enrolled undergraduate Kettering University students are members of the Kettering University Parents’ Association. If you’d like to volunteer to help, please contact the Parents Association President. Parent volunteers are an important part of Family Day and Orientation.
• The Parents Association meetings coincide with the August and November Family Days. These meetings are used to introduce the association officers, and new parents to the association and its functions.
• The elected association officers include a President, A & B-section Vice Presidents, Secretary and Treasurer. These officers form the Parents Advisory Board (PAB) along with selected volunteers and committee heads and are responsible for organizing all association activities including Family Day, Orientation, Homecoming and other events as requested. The Advisory Board usually meets four times a year.
• Kettering University Parents’ Advisory Board meetings for 2008-09 are:
• Saturday, August 2, 2008 11:25 a.m.
• Saturday, November 1, 2008 11:25 a.m.
• Saturday, January, 2009 10:30 a.m.
• Saturday, April, 2009 10:30 a.m.

Call Deborah Stewart 800.955.4464 ext. 9679 or Eva White 800.955.4464 ext. 9872 for meeting times.

Family Days for 2008/2009:

• A-Section August 2, 2008
• B-Section November 1, 2008

Family invitations/information for future events will be mailed to parents' addresses first week of their students' term. Don't forget to register 10 days before the event. Pre-registration is required. Next year’s event dates will be finalized during the January board meeting.

Orientation Days 2008/2009:

• A-Section July 10, 2008
• B-Section October 2, 2008

Please contact Keith Kaniut, Julie Blalock, Robert Clark, or Sue Rieger if you are interested in helping on these days.  

From the Association president..

This space highlights current issues and meetings as well as upcoming events, decisions, and volunteer “opportunities”.

Keith Kaniut

July 11, 2008:  Congratulations and welcome to the new A-Section freshman class! May your journey begin! As a new parent of a Kettering student, I hope that in a few short years when your student is starting their senior year (as mine is), you will be as satisfied with your choice as he and I both are.

Thank you to all who signed up for email. For those who like numbers, 85 parents signed up for our email list. These 85 parents were from 74 different towns, and 15 different states as follows:

We had multiple students/parents from the following towns:

A little over 40 parents paid $5 for the Parent Directory, a list of all 2008-2009 A and B-section students sorted two ways – alphabetically and geographically (by zip code).  The directory will be mailed in early November.  If you missed the opportunity to order one during Orientation, you can do so any time from the Student Affairs office by sending in the application included with the Parents Line newsletter, by having your student stop by the Student Affairs office or by stopping by the Parents Association table during Family Day.

Many parents also asked for a Blackboard logon so they could participate in our discussions of current issues throughout the year.  This web application is used by the students to track their grades and course information.  The Parents Association has a forum on Blackboard that we use to discuss current problems and issues.  For example, when we wanted to update the Assocation By-laws, we posted the suggested changes on Blackboard for comments. 

Another project:  Everyone has seen the black Kettering t-shirts with clever sayings like “I’m massively ahead of the game.”; “Extra parts when you’re finished means you made it better.”  The Parents Association thought it would be fun to sell t-shirts with our own sayings.  One of the new freshmen parents offered this:  “Here comes my Kettering student – hide all the screw drivers!”  Another offered:  “My son (and excess disposible income) goes to Kettering University!”  (You get the idea.) 

We’re also working with the Student Affairs department to review the information provided to new  parents to make sure it’s useful and effective. 

We have been trying to use the Blackboard interactive web application to increase participation in the Association by out-of-state parents.  During Orientation Day we’ve started inviting new parents to join us on Blackboard.  If you signed up for this you should receive an email from the Kettering IT department within the next week or so.  If you don’t, please send me a note (see my email link below).  (We may not have accurately transcribed your email address.)

As you may have noticed from the January meeting minutes, we raised less money than we spent last year due to less-than-expected Gold Card sales.  This year we’re starting with 500 cards (instead of 1,000) and will more closely watch how well they sell.  The Board has decided to change our focus to include t-shirts and polo shirts in an effort to reverse this trend.  We hope to sell Parents Association shirts at all events where we participate this coming year.  We also hope to find a way to set up an on-campus process for selling them in between these events.  Any ideas on this last would be welcome.

Please read the April Board meeting notes for further details (they should be posted by 4/21/08).  Also, if you don’t think you signed up for Blackboard, drop me an email and we’ll get a logon for you.

Finally, if you think of anything that would have been helpful to a new parent that we could have done, please let me know via the email link below.

Cordially,

Keith M. Kaniut
President, Parents’ Association

Contact Info:
Ph - (248) 755-4141; Email - (kkaniut@tir.com)

PS:  If you signed up for email notification and haven’t heard from me personally by 7/28/2008, please contact me directly using the link below.  Some of the emails I tried to send last week were returned due to incorrect addresses.