As the summer winds down, thousands of parents are preparing to send a freshman off to college. It's an emotional rite of passage for everyone concerned. I write as a veteran of such transitions. Our own two children left for college two and three years ago. And each year I welcome the new students and their parents in my role as president. Here is part of what I tell the newcomers:

Greetings to the Class of 2004. I see before me seven hundred talented and bewildered students. You seem nervous and excited and scared-all at the same time. That is perfectly normal. Likewise, it is appropriate that your foremost concern at this moment is getting mom and dad on the road and out of your hair.

On that point, you parents need to depart at the appointed hour. However traumatic it seems at the moment, letting go is a good thing-for parents and child. After all, the most important attribute that parents can instill in children is the ability to get along well without them. Don't let us catch you living in your child's room. Last year, we did not find one mother until the Christmas holidays! So do as we say and head home-with our blessings. Your child is going to stay in touch you, sometimes in peculiar ways. Last year, for instance, a freshman wrote home, saying: "Dear Mom and Dad, I haven't heard from you in nearly a month. Please send a check so I'll know that you're all right."

For you students this is a defining moment, the start of a great adventure. College involves an entirely new way of thinking and acting, and, of course, a new way of living on your own and dealing with people-including yourself.

Ah, to be a freshman again. A whole year of unadulterated freedom. Beginning today, you will be able to think, do, and act as you please. No one will tell you to go to bed or to get up, to make your bed, wash the dishes, or do your homework. But there is a catch. How you handle your new freedom will shape the rest of your life.

You will discover, for instance, that bright young people do not always behave in intelligent ways. For instance, it is not wise to use your Master Card to pay off your VISA bill.
Perhaps the most common mistake that freshmen make is to become so intoxicated by their new freedom and the enticing temptations of college life that they quickly get behind in their schoolwork. Before they know it, they are in a deep hole.

So remember what you're here for and be careful about what you fall for. "Always do right," as Mark Twain suggested. "This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

Over the next four years we will do our best not to give you an education but to help you seize one. In the process of stimulating your curiosity and unleashing your potential, we want to help you understand the difference between wisdom and intelligence, freedom and foolishness, convictions and dogmatism.

This much we can ensure: if you make your selections wisely, if you discover early on that your self-worth does not rely on how much you drink or party late into the night, if you recognize the benefits of not majoring in minor things, then you will thrive in your new setting. So by all means get off to a good start. Set aside study time each day-and when you study-really concentrate.

College is great fun, but it is not painless. You will encounter discomforting ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and personalities. At some point, you will have to deal with homesickness, dating problems, roommate problems, academic problems, financial problems, and parent problems. Learning to deal with such differences is the mark of an educated and mature person.

As the days and weeks pass, I hope that we will communicate openly and honestly and humanely with one another, that our relationships with one another will go deeper than our masks of acquaintance, and that we will develop some significant commitment to rejoice together, struggle together, and to delight in each other.

Be assured that this learning community is going to become a bright thread in the fabric of your life. We're glad you're here. Before long you will recognize the wisdom in Robert Frost's observation: "If you have to fall in love with something, you can do a lot worse than a college."