On April 27 you may see some new Post-Graduate students on campus, except, instead of being the stars of the football team, they bring a wealth of knowledge on topics spanning from years of life experience.

Grandparents’ Day is a way for students’ grandparents to travel to Williston and sit in on their classes and afternoon activities. While they may not stay at Williston for the year-long tenure that PGs do, their presence is popular and often looked forward to.

Cherrie Collins, the Associate Director of Annual Giving and Engagement for Parents at Williston, is one of the organizers for the event.

“We begin planning for grandparents’ day the beginning of February,” she said. “We decide on timing of communications—design of the postcard, when to send the postcard, emails, and the information to be included. Since we’ve done this event for a few years, we try not to reinvent the wheel and keep the schedule of events and timing the same.”

Collins said the goals of the day are to “provide our grandparents with the best experience possible. We want them to attend classes, walk the campus and building, enjoy lunch, attend afternoon activities, have a picture taken with their grandchild, and attend the spring play.”

Although Collins doesn’t know the exact year that Grandparents’ Day was started, she estimates the first invitations were sent out around 10 years ago.

She also acknowledged the complex challenges that come with planning the event.

“The most challenging part about planning is getting those grandparents with physical challenges around campus and to classes. Especially getting them to classrooms in buildings where there are no elevators,” she said. “We provide golf cart transportation and wheel chairs for easier travel around campus.”

All the planning is worth it, she said.

“To see the proud, loving smiles on the grandparents’ faces when their students arrive to meet them for the day at the Dining Commons, walking around the campus and during the photo portraits. After the event, we send each grandparent a photo of them with their grandchild—a memento of their day.”

According to Collins, there will be over 200 grandparents on campus this year, the largest group since the beginning of the program.

History teacher Alex Rivenburgh enjoys teaching to the grandparents, but said he normally does not try to plan a special lesson.

“I usually just plan as if it were a regular class,” he said. “I just assume that I now have some [guests] who have a bit more worldly experience than others. I am happy when I get grandparents who chime in. It brings new perspectives to class and pushes some of my students to engage a bit more.”

Rivenburgh hopes that grandparents can “see their grandkids engaging in a conversation about history and how these things are still relevant today, or at least to see their family engaging in a challenging way with the history that we’re focused on.”

He added, “I hope that [the grandparents] see the love of history that I have and that with that it makes the classroom a bit more of a welcoming atmosphere for family members.”

Josh Seamon, the Head of the Math Department, has a different approach.

“I make sure I have a particularly lively lesson set up,” he told The Willistonian.

Seamon added “I make the day packed full of as many diverse activities as possible, so with just one visit the grandparents can see lots of what goes on in class,” he said. “Days when we have visitors also tend to be the days when I give assembly announcements, something I find to be lots of fun!”

Science teacher Ken Choo and English teacher Alex Tancrell-Fontaine both try not to schedule a test or quiz during the class. Tancrell-Fontaine wants grandparents to see the hard work that their grandkids put into her class.

“I hope grandparents see how hard students are working,” she said. “I want the grandparents to see students having fun and learning to be critical writers, readers, and thinkers.”

There are also contrasts between what grandparents are looking for in their grandchildren’s classes, something that Spanish teacher Eugenio Garcia acknowledged.

“Most of the grandparents come to see their grandchild participating in classes. For other events, they also come to see the teachers. I need to prepare the classes in accordance with the different audiences,” he said.

Natania Hume, the Head of the Art Department, likes grandparents’ day because she enjoys “talking to grandparents and [hearing] their memories of art classes when they were in school.” She added, “I make sure that their students show them the projects we’ve done so far in class and tell them about the assignments and the artists we’ve been studying.”

Collins, the organizer, believes that grandparents’ day is incredibly important.

“Grandparents’ day is very important to the school because of the high regard we hold for community on the Williston campus,” she said. “We do an excellent job of engaging our students and it is important that this engagement is extended to family and friends.”