9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6B The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 QUOTES OF THE WEEK The desperate acts of "Helicopter parents" don't cede control when their babies go to college Sara Lynne Thelen (Daily Staff Writer " Chuck, stand up, let the people see you."~ - JOE BIDEN, Delaware senator and Demo- cratic vice-presidential candidate, asking Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham, a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair, to stand up for recognition at a rally in Columbia, Missouri. Biden quickly acknowledged his gaffe and apologized to the crowd and Graham "I treat President Bush better than some Americans would." - VLADIMIR PUTIN, prime minister of Russia, asserting that Bush is an honest and respectable man. At his resort in Sochi, Putin maintained that members of the Bush administration, not the president himself, are the ones responsible for the increasingly dismal relationship between the United States and Russia With their course guides in hand, freshmen fill the Fishbowl on the last day of summer orientation to register for classes. Peering through the window to the computer lab, some of the students' parents stick around to watch. "It's a funnythingto see happen- ing, these hovering parents, wait- ing above them like something bad is going to happen to them if they're not there," said Erica Sanders, director of Office of New Student Programs. After orientation, most of the parent attendees go home to deal with their empty nest syndrome passively. Others, though, don'tgive up on monitoring everything that happens to their babies. Every year, Sanders said, a handful of parents begin to show early signs of obses- sion duringsummer registration. Susan Gass, an associate director at the LSA academic advising cen- ter, recalls one father who was so desperate to oversee his daughter's registration he set up his laptop at the Fishbowl window and called her cell phone to walk her through every step. These "helicopter parents" have trouble accepting that their kids are on their own. And whether they're fussing over their kids' fail- ing grades or a too-cramped dorm room, University faculty hear all about it. A student manning West Quad's front desk, who wouldn't giver her name because of University poli- cies, laughed at the term "helicop- ter parents" or parents that 'hover' overtheir student's affairs. She said she knew it well. "I feel like we joke about this stuff all the time," she said. Since the 1980s, the University, has run orientation programs aim- ing to ease parents into letting their 18-year-olds grow up. Some are just sad to see their kids go, while oth- ers can't figure out how to surren- der control. "They're going through a hard time sending their kids off to col- lege," Sanders said. "But ayearlater, when they're demanding another grade... I can see where people would be less sympathetic." Astudentwhoworks atthe Office of Undergraduate Admissions said that the office gets about five calls a day from concerned parents. "(The) parents are just mad cause their child didn't get in," he said. "They just argue it over and over again." Over at East Quad's front desk, an employee said he has received equally ridiculous, albeit more menial demands. "Oh, I've had people ask me if someone's here to do their kid's laundry," he said. "Or they'll call down to the desk and ask us to have their kids call them." Director of University Housing Peter Logan was hesitant to paint parents as the 'helicopter' variety.. "(That's) kind of a pejorative phrase which we do not use widely in University housing or student affairs," he said. "We have 11,000 students in residence here. We have a very, very small fraction of a per- centage of situations where a par- ent's engagement is intrusive." But Logan admitted that par- ents have gone too far in making demands to University Housing. Strange requests include custom- ized meal plans with no health rea- son, room swaps when their kids don't like a roommate or layout and personal wake-up calls in the accommodated." engaged in every step of the way," morning. To be fair, some parents are Logan said. And that's the beginning. encouraged to crusade. Logan said Logan said that many students "We have the occasional parent that a considerable number of stu- give parents their e-mail passwords. who comes in to check if the room- dents insist on keeping their mom Sanders remembers a time when a mates were keeping the room clean and dad informed of every incon- student interrupted an academic enough for their son or daughter," venience. advisor, pulled out her cell phone, he said. "Then there was the parent Helicoptering, though rare, is on and handed it to the advisor. who wanted their student moved a the rise because technology allows "She said, 'Here, talk to my mom couple of buildings away because especially dependent parent-child about that,' "Sanders said. she was taking a cab to visit her relationships to flourish. But in the case of some parents, friends a couple of times a "It's all sort of a style of modern technology needs to catch week." parenting thatgoes back up with their helicopter tendencies. He added, "That towhenthe child was Sanders told of one parent who, request was not _-' °very, very small, after hearing an orientation pre- and the parents sentation about Entree Plus, asked a have been in question of a Department of Public Safety officer who was discussing alcohol-related citations on_ cam- TALKINHG POINTS Three things you can talk about this week: 1. Lehman Brothers 2. Sam Zell'slegal troubles 3. Montana's grizzly bears And three things you can't: 1. The new Facebook 2. McCain's contribution to the BlackBerry 3. Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld ! BY THE NUMBERS Number of people as of this year who have tried salvia, the hallucinogenic herbal drug YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE WEEK Nader and a parrot lament the media Things are tough for third party presidential candidates in America. So they often resort to desperate mea- During his 1992 bid for the White House, billionaire Ross Perot spent millions on 30-minute infomercials on network television, lecturing Ameri- cans on the dangers of the growing national debt with the aid of charts. Without Perot's fortune, Ralph Nader has to turn to the poor man's network television: YouTube. He sattdown with a parrot named Cardoza to bemoan the lark of cover- age his campaign is getting from the mainstream media - and all the time the press spends covering animals. "In Washington D.C. they just go crazy when the pandas start getting close to one another at the zoo, he says. "Sometimes I think I have to dress up as a panda and go over to the zoo and cast some amorous glances as a female panda." But the depressed-sounding Nader talking to atalking bird is unlikely to inspire much media coverage beyond blurbs like this one. Perhaps Nader will find solace in the words of his parrot friend's likely namesake, the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Benjamin Cardoza: "In truth, I am nothing but a plod- ding mediocrity - please observe, a plodding mediocrity - for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a dis- tinction can come from courage, fidel- ity and industry." - ANDREW GROSSMAN See this and other YouTube videos of the week at youtube.com/user/michigandaily "I can't stand her. She can suck it! Quote me." - PAMELA ANDERSON, the 41-year-old model and animal rights activist, responding to a question from E! News Weekend Canada about her thoughts on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's running mate. The reporter provoked Anderson by asking her if she had seen the picture published in Newsweek of a bear hide that hangs in Palin's home THEME PARTY SUGGESTION Wall Street panic party - Get a group of friends together to pour over the last week of devastat- ing financial news. How did this all happen? How will it affect you? How soon should you convert your checking account to gold? Maybe if you work together you can make some sense of it. Probably not, but you'll feel good that at least you tried when you're standing in a bread line. Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStotement@umich.edu jI Percentage of males aged 18 to 25 who ha in the past year, which makes it twice as r ve used salvia popular as LSD ve tried salvia Source: The New York Times STUDY OF THE WEEK Gay men and blacks at higher risk for HIV White gay men in their 30s and 40s, black women and young black gay men aged 13 to 29 are considerably more atrisk of becoming infected with HIV than other groups in the United States, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ThestudyisbasedonCDC datareleasedinAugustthatshowedthatnew HIVinfectionsin2006were40percenthigherthantheCDChadprojected. Forthestudy,researchersexaminedthenumberofnewHIVinfectionsand who contracted them. In2006,53percentofthe projected56,000HIVcases afflictedgayand bisexual men, and blacks comprised 46 percentof those who were newly infected, researchers found. They also concluded that among the gay and bisexual groups, black men aged 13 to 29 were about twice as likely to get HIV as young white and Hispanic men. Theresearchersalsoconcludedthatblackwomenwerenearly15times more likely to contract HIV than white women. - BRIAN TENGEL Percentage of college students who ha in the past year i