Episode 3: Deonne Yeager, Director of Parent and Family Programs
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Shonta Sellers: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening! Welcome to Spur of the Moment: A Podcast for the Curious. This is your hostess, Shonta Sellers, and welcome to conversations that pique your curiosity through genuine questions and reactions. Our guests are not given the questions first for the most unique answers. So here we go.
Today we are joined by the Director of Parent and Family Programs, Deonne Yeager. Welcome!
Deonne Yeager: Thank you!
SS: So glad you are here to join us today to talk about some fun stuff with families and parents.
DY: I'm excited to be here.
SS: So it seems like we got here really fast. Just yesterday, we brought in just over 7,500 new students and all of those students' families, parents and supporters.
Got them through move in. Yay! But now we're ready to welcome everybody back to campus again for Family Weekend.
DY: Yeah, we are very excited about the turnout that we have coming up for Family Week. We are at max capacity, and we are absolutely thrilled to have so many of our families coming back to celebrate this weekend with us.
SS: That's amazing! Do you think the influx is just because of the increase in student population, or is it that it's just parents and Family Weekend?
DY: I think it's both, we definitely have all of this increase with our new students coming in, but there's just a lot of energy and excitement that we're seeing with our parents and our families. They are talking about how excited they are to be a part of the Gamecock family, and they're here to come back and celebrate. So they were excited for that opportunity to do that.
SS: And I guess football isn't anything to be slighted at, that's a good reason to come back to campus, right?
DY: Oh yeah, super excited. A lot of energy about the football game. It is the first SEC home game of the season, and it's a night game. So you can't go wrong with that. So a lot a lot of energy coming in to that football game too.
SS: So the football game is just a small piece of the activities that everyone will enjoy. So tell us a little bit more about the other activities that are going to happen during Family Weekend?
DY: So there are three signature events with Family Weekend. The first is a meet and greet with the President and First Lady of the university, and that is on the afternoon of Friday, so lots of excitement. People get to come out on the Horseshoe. You meet the President and First Lady, which is a huge opportunity at a university the size of USC to be able to have a one-on-one conversation with the President and First Lady of the university.
And then that evening is one of our other signature events, Rock the Roost. Our Campus Rec partners are going to host a huge party for us down at the (Wellness and Fitness Center) with a live band at the pool deck.
Can't wait to see everybody dancing around there this weekend. Lots of music, food, great food outside, games, yard games, just lots of entertainment happening.
And then on Saturday, we have a tailgate party over near the football stadium for our families to join in, whether they're coming to the game or not, they're still welcome to come over to the tailgate. And we've added some fun little elements this year for the tailgate that we're super excited to let people see these new surprise things that happen at our tailgate on Saturday, so we can't wait for people to show up and find out what some little new fun things are going on.
SS: So this is something that would not be able to happen without collaborating with other partners across campus, not just in division, but across campus as a whole. Can you talk a little bit about that?
DY: This is a university effort, so we work with almost every department on campus to make this event happen. From our parking team to the transportation team with our gameday shuttles, our dining partners, a lot of our academic colleges host individual events for our families as well, just a lot of interaction and support across the board for our families to get involved and interact with all these different areas. But it is a team effort. It is truly a university initiative to support our families and welcome them back to campus.
SS: So this is like the midpoint, not even really, between coming to school and then getting back home hopefully for those that can, to fall break. So that'll be good, and then we have Homecoming.
DY: Yeah soHomecoming will come up not long after fall break happens, and I know a lot of people come back for that as well. It's also a great opportunity for our families and their supporters to come back and visit campus and kind of see what all is going on in their students' lives at that point. They're well-adjusted into their their semester, and you can really kind of see what it's like for them for life at school.
SS: Absolutely, so it's it's good for parents to see their child, their child as a student evolve from when they drop them off as a graduated senior from high school. And just the huge leap for some in maturity, responsibility, accountability that they see once they come back and visit them, it's it's sometimes like night and day, right?
DY: Oh yeah, absolutely. College is a journey. That's what I have always said to the parents and supporters that I talk to. College is a journey, and remember how much you grow and change and develop when you're on a journey and it happens in little small steps that first time they have to navigate something as a first-year student on their own, without you right next door to help as their parent and supporter. Or even those bigger things as they start job searching and looking and making decisions about what those big steps are after they complete their degree.
It's a journey, and they grow and change. And if you're on the sidelines as their supporter or their family member or their parent, I think you're going to be amazed and really wowed by the journey that they complete while they are completing their degree as well.
SS: But how do we need to think about nurturing those relationships with parents?
DY: I think it's important that as the university, we embrace that our parents and our students' supporters really want to be involved, but also help them to understand how they're now walking on the sideline while, you know. They're used to being the coach, and they're used to being the one calling in the play, so to speak, to use that sports analogy.
And now they're on the sideline and helping them kind of find that balance of understanding. You can still be their cheerleader, but you've got to let them actually call the play and make the decision, and us helping them to understand what that means in their role as a parent or a supporter of a student. It is a big shift.
I think if you think back as you're talking about your own child, you think, well when they first went to kindergarten, I needed to walk them into school. When they went to high school, it was like 'Please don't walk me into class. You're embarrassing me.' Why? And so how do we start to start to peel back those layers and let them take those next steps?
We're here, our office especially, to let you call on that and say, 'I really want to make this better, and I don't know how to do that,' and maybe help you be equipped to have the great conversation with your student to empower them to take those steps they need to do to navigate whatever's happening.
SS: So speaking of community, you are (relatively) new to the Gamecock community. You have come to us from far and wide, from the land of always happy people, sunny people. We're talking about Hawaii, right?
DY: Yes, we are. We are talking about Hawaii.
SS: So tell us about your time out there.
DY: Sure. Well, I'm actually born and raised in South Carolina, so I'm happy to be back on the east coast. But I was living in Hawaii for a time, and when I was out working in Hawaii, I was the dean of students. And I say that to people because I've kind of done it all when it comes to working with parents and students and supporters in higher education, kind of walking in those different places where it's something we're celebrating and we're excited, and also those challenging times.
I feel like I come to the table in my new role here at Carolina with such a perspective of kind of seeing when people are at their worst, but also when people are at their best, and kind of seeing both sides of that dynamic.
SS: Out in Hawaii, two thirds of your population of students at the entire university is equal to our incoming freshmen class, so it was a much smaller university.
DY: It was like it was a much smaller university, but it doesn't change the struggles and the celebrations. College students encounter the same things no matter what institution that they are. But yeah, it was a smaller institution, and it's a different philosophy. Hawaii is its own world, and when I say to people it's an island, it does sometimes feel like it's a whole other country.
SS: We do have something in common with Hawaii, the university in specific. Do you know what that is?
DY: I do not.
SS: It's the Shaka.
DY: I should have known that. I have young children, and they still 'throw Shaka,' as that is the way Hawaii teaches them to do that. So anytime that we're out somewhere or somebody yells and says hi to them, they throw up their Shaka. So I, I didn't make that connection, but I should have; It is the same, symbol as our Spurs Up!