This year’s Homecoming and Parents’ Weekend will coincide for the first time ever, and members of the Student Programming Council have carefully coordinated activities so the two events will flow smoothly together.

Andrew Daly, a sophomore in advertising from Western Springs and member of SPC’s campus events committee, helped organize the upcoming events.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was merging the two events into one big event, Daly said. We had to drop some of the smaller events from the traditional family weekend like the Greek Sing at Shryock Auditorium.

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We’re not having the normal family-of-the-day either because we didn’t have enough applicants.

While some things have been canceled to make time for both events in one weekend, some events have been added.

We did put together a fireworks display, in part for the families, he said. We also have a comedian on Saturday night.

Tammera Butler, an undecided sophomore from Chicago, said this is the first weekend her parents will be able to visit for an extended period of time.

My parents came down before but that was just to drop me off at school, Butler said. They are ready to come down, and they are looking forward to the football game and seeing the campus and students.

Beth Lingren, coordinator of Student Development, works with SPC, and said the schedule for the two events are set.

Due to the football game on Saturday, some of the family weekend events have been absorbed by the game, she said. But everything looks like it’s going to go well though.

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Butler said she sees a potential conflict among students spending time with friends and spending time with parents.

They shouldn’t have had parents’ weekend the same weekend as Homecoming, she said. A lot of students are going to have to differentiate between spending time with their parents and their friends.

Homecoming is about friends being with friends, but I can’t wait for my parents to come down.