Family weekend brings festivity to The Farm

Stanford welcomed students’ families from across the globe to campus for its annual Family Weekend, this year amid record-breaking heat. Parents hopped on bikes, siblings sat in on lectures and campus got all the more busy as families adorned with red lanyards and new merch from the campus bookshop strolled by.

Friday’s schedule was packed with events, including an opening welcome talk with University president Jonathan Levin ’94 and provost Jenny Martinez, receptions at dorms and the Cardinal Winter Showcase, which featured performances by student music and dance groups on Meyer Green. 

Levin and Martinez’s talk covered topics including campus safety, political diversity and free speech on campus. Levin, Martinez and Vice Provost of Student Affairs Michele Rasmussen fielded questions about the impact of today’s political climate on international students and campus safety at Stanford. 

“I think Stanford has a very unique and distinctive culture,” Levin said at the event. ASSU president Ava Brown ’26 and Will Berriman ’26 M.S. ’26, who moderated the event, fielded questions about the role of resident assistants (RAs) and campus safety concerns. “I hope I’m seen as a super cool upperclassman,” Berriman said, drawing laughter from the audience as he reflected on his own experiences as an RA.

For some parents, this year marked their first time seeing their child in a school environment with new friends and communities. For others, family weekend wasn’t their first rodeo.

Kelly Shaw, a parent of a current sophomore at Stanford, attended last year’s family weekend festivities. This year, she brought her parents, and said she spent her time “enjoying the campus and the scenery more.” Visiting from Los Angeles, Shaw said her favorite memory of the weekend was “enjoying [her] father’s response” to Stanford’s campus. “Seeing it from his perspective has been refreshing,” she said. 

Students said they enjoyed spending time with their families and friends’ families, a change to regular life in Palo Alto. 

“It was amazing to see sort of these two worlds collide,” Kyle Sisitsky ’29 said. “My parents had been the ones that had motivated me throughout my childhood and my education to shoot for the stars and when I got into Stanford they were so happy.” 

At the Cardinal Winter Showcase on Saturday, students from a variety of organizations performed, including The Harmonics, Fleet Street and Basmati Raas, among others. The dancers showed their families routines they have been working on throughout the quarter. 

Ashley Herrera ’29 described preparing for the showcase for nearly two months. She mentioned that the collaboration of several groups to put on the showcase was one of the highlights of the weekend. “We were eating, dancing, it was a really great time,” Herrera said. 

Some families made trips off campus into San Francisco or downtown Palo Alto to enjoy a meal at popular spots like Zareen’s or Oren’s Hummus. One family described a late night spent enjoying mango soft serve at Zareen’s while meeting their child’s best friends at Stanford. 

Amol Doshi ’90, a Stanford parent and alum, said that this year’s family weekend was his third. He called it an “incredible event” and said that “it was a pleasure to be back on campus and relive old memories.” Doshi also said he was impressed by the variety of student groups on campus compared to the late 80s and 90s, when he attended Stanford.

Doshi said he was happy to see a “very open and student focused” president on campus. “Listening to president Levin has been inspiring,” he said. Reflecting on his experiences as a Stanford student, Doshi said that the food while he was a student on campus “was not the highlight of [his] experience” but noted huge improvements in food quality. 

The weekend’s schedule also offered self-guided and departmental tours to give families a sense of campus offerings. Additional tour offerings included limited tours of Frost Amphitheater, the Anderson Collection and Memorial Church. 

On Saturday, the campus also hosted numerous lectures on topics ranging from sustainability to artificial intelligence from speakers such as Larry Diamond ’74 M.A. ’78 Ph.D. ’80 and Michael Snyder. 

“It was just really an emotional and awesome experience for me. I really enjoyed it and I miss them already,” said Sisitsky.

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