Elon University Builds Helicopter Pad for Helicopter Parents

Official rendering of the Aldona Wos Helipad (Photo credit: Aluminum Offshore)

ELON, NC–Last Friday, Elon’s administration announced plans for the construction of the Aldona Wos Helipad on the top deck of the Louis DeJoy Parking Garage. The news was reported in the weekly campus email update and was accompanied by a six-minute video from President Connie Book. In the video, Book stated that “Elon prides itself on its accessibility to wealthy donors and parents. It is therefore with great joy and anticipation that I get to announce the construction of a new helipad on campus for our wonderful helicopter parents.”

Helicopter parents were overjoyed with this news. In the Elon Parents FaceBook page, one parent wrote: “This is great news! Now I can visit my son every week on laundry day instead of paying for the Elon Laundry Service!” Another parent wrote: “No more pricey Ubers to the airport! Now, my husband can just fly to campus, pick up our daughter, and return to our second house on the Cape the same day!”

There are positive reactions over this news from both faculty and students. One faculty member up for tenure stated, while looking over his shoulder at his department chair and smiling like a dad forced to take holiday pictures, that “I’m really thrilled with this news. I think it will enable our wonderful donors and parents to see our teaching up close and allow Elon’s instructors to be ever-vigilant in maintaining our remarkable institution’s top-tier education.”

Many students are thrilled with the idea of a quick getaway from hectic campus-life and the ability to bring outside life into the Elon bubble. One student in favor of the helipad’s construction stated: “I love this idea. Now I can order my favorite bagels from New Jersey any morning I want and have them flown in.”

Representatives from the Elon Office of Sustainability currently have a petition against the helipad’s construction, claiming that it will “Increase the university’s carbon footprint” and that it “Goes against Elon’s climate pledge.” However, donors and parents have already counteracted this by purchasing carbon offsets for use of the helipad.

Another student, interviewed at a local tanning salon, said that the increased carbon emissions from the helipad and helicopters on campus would be “Really great because it’s, like, not very warm here and that’s, like, the whole reason I chose to go to school down here because it was supposed to be, like, nice.”

In response to a student-run Instagram page created to stop the helipad’s construction, President Book stated in this week’s six-minute update video that “We [Elon’s administration] are here to listen and consider the opinions of the Elon community. We welcome students to express their concerns at the University’s town hall and then join us immediately after at the helipad's ground-breaking ceremony.”