Tuesday, March 31, 2026
2:00 – 3:30 pm ET

Design Purposeful Experiences To Increase Participation, Retention & Emotional Connection

Family and supporter weekends are often among the most visible—and resource-intensive—programs institutions offer. Yet many campuses struggle to move these weekends beyond logistics-heavy schedules and first-year-only engagement. By reimagining family and supporter weekends, institutions will learn how to design weekends so that families want to return to campus for experiences that feel purposeful, resonate emotionally, and align with institutional priorities—without adding more work or burnout for those planning the events.

Gather your colleagues and join us on March 31, 2026 when our experienced presenter will provide the critical paradigm shift from, “What events should we offer?” and reframes the question to, “What relationships are we building, and why?” and help you overcome the following:

• Declining or inconsistent attendance beyond first-year families
• Programming that feels repetitive, passive or transactional
• Limited motivation for families to return to campus after orientation
• Difficulty engaging campus partners in meaningful, shared ownership
• Pressure to demonstrate value without clear or meaningful success metrics

Shift from transactional programming to experiences designed to build long-term trust, pride, and emotional connection with families and supporters. Design those experiences to reflect campus life and integrate student life, academics, athletics, and community engagement into one cohesive strategy to attract participation.

Topics Covered

Gain crucial, actionable takeaways that will help you:

• Redefine success for family and supporter weekends beyond headcount – use practical engagement indicators – like return attendance, cross-year engagement, student retention, etc. – that align with student success and retention.
• Move from Event Planning to Affinity Building – shift from transactional programming to experiences designed to build long-term trust, pride, and emotional connection to your institution with families and supporters.
• Design experience-driven programming that reflects campus life and their student experiences – engage critical campus partners to ensure a balance between academics, student life, athletics, and community engagement.
• Match formats strategically and purposefully – know when in-person, virtual, or hybrid engagement best serves families and institutional goals.
• Align weekends with natural engagement opportunities – select dates that complement the key academic and athletic events on campus to encourage and increase participation.
  

Presenter

Dr. Gregory V. Wolcott currently serves as the Associate Dean of Students at Santa Clara University in California.
Click here for full bio.