Graduation season is in full swing right now. And after completing that rite of passage, former high school seniors will soon embark on another journey to college— though, increasingly they won’t have to make the journey alone.
More and more universities are admitting students and their pets to campus, in hopes that it will ease the transition of leaving home.
Stephens College, a women’s college in Missouri, for instance, is renovating a dorm to accomodate an influx of students and their animal companions— mainly pooches and felines— even dubbing the dorm Pet Central.
College President Dianne Lynch told the New York Times, she recognizes the trend is a byproduct of “helicopter parenting,” which for those of you unfamiliar with the term, are those parents who constantly hover over their children, ready to argue over—or for— a grade, a placement or position at a moment’s notice.
The negative upshot of such constant oversight, as many have argued, has been a lack of self-direction and indepence among their offspring, which as Lynch astutely points out, can be reflected in more students wishing to bring the family dog with them when they head off to college.
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I had to chuckle at a newspaper article detailing how local colleges are handling an ever growing wave of so-called helicopter parents, which has become an ubiquitous descriptor of moms and dads, who just can’t seem to let go, hovering over their offspring long after they’ve reached adulthood.