Dear Denison Class of 2028,
Welcome to Denison! I am excited to welcome you to campus at the Induction Ceremony in a few weeks. Denison is a fantastic college, and we are excited to welcome you into our community.
As you prepare for your college journey, I want to share some observations and advice.
Everybody at Denison wants your next four years to be filled with friendships, fun, and intellectual and personal growth. The liberal arts education you are about to receive will be life-shaping. For this to occur, we are going to ask you to do the following:
Be fully engaged in your courses and the campus community. We don’t expect our students to show up already knowing everything or having perfect skills. But we do expect our students to be fully engaged and to show up ready to work hard and to be challenged. Denison will ask a lot from you, and it will give a lot back in return.
This starts with academics. Classes are small, and the learning is active. Faculty will expect you to show up and participate fully in your courses. Enjoy the books you read, papers you write, labs you complete, rehearsals and performances you are part of, and discussions you have in class. Also, embrace the robustness of the curriculum by taking a wide range of courses across the humanities, social sciences, arts, natural sciences, and interdisciplinary programs.
This also applies to campus life. Denison is the perfect size. We are larger than most liberal arts colleges, which means there are a lot of opportunities to be engaged. And we are small enough that students can try new things. Get involved in different ways.
Participate in campus activities you already enjoy while opening yourself up to exploring new interests and developing new passions. Try things that were not available, or you would have been too embarrassed to try in high school.
And be sure to take advantage of the intellectual and cultural life of the college. Attend talks by visiting speakers and professors, concerts, art openings, and academic department events. Try some of the wellness programs offered by the Hoaglin Center for Wellness or down in the Mitchell Athletic Center. Visit the Denison Museum.
Develop a wide range of relationships. Relationships define Denison. Embrace this wonderful and unique quality of the college.
This starts with our exceptional faculty. Get to know them. Start by making it a point to introduce yourself to every one of your faculty members during the first week of classes. Go to their office hours. Ask faculty out for coffee! Our faculty care about our students and want to unlock your intellectual potential by provoking, inspiring, and challenging you. Getting to know faculty is a core part of the Denison experience.
Do the same with staff. From our Student Life team to people who work across campus, Denison is filled with talented people who you can learn from and who can be great sources of support to you throughout your time at Denison. Get to know them.
And, of course, get to know your peers. As you develop friends, make sure you are getting to know a wide range of people. One of the great things about Denison is that our campus is filled with interesting people with diverse backgrounds. Make it a point to get to know everybody in your off-campus orientation trip, residential hall, and classes. Find friends who share your interests, and open yourself up to developing friendships with people who are really different from you.
The deeper your relationships with faculty and staff, the wider your range of friends, the more you will enjoy and grow at Denison.
To do all the above, scale back on social media. Spend less time on your phones and more time interacting with people across campus. We have a tradition called the Denison Hello. When you are walking in your residential hall or across campus, say hello to the people you pass.
Expect a lot of yourself, be performance-oriented, and ask for help early and often. College is about growing as a person, which can be hard and messy as well as fun and exhilarating. The goal is to pursue your interests by learning to perform at a high level. For this to happen, Denison is designed to challenge you in a supportive environment with faculty and staff who believe in you and want the best for you. We only learn to do hard things by doing hard things.
Know that everything is not going to go well all of the time. When things are difficult, avoid the temptation to believe that everybody else is succeeding and happy while you are not. Instead, seek out support from faculty and staff. Our campus community wants to help you grow and flourish. But they can only help when you ask.
While we don’t expect you to always get it right, we do expect you to focus on learning and growing. As part of this process, we expect you to be excited about being challenged and focused on learning to perform at your highest level academically and in your athletic, artistic, and other campus pursuits.
This is particularly true during your first semester. There will be some wonderful moments, and you might stumble. That is normal. Enjoy the moments that go well, and don’t be surprised when some things don’t go as planned. See the stumbles as part of the process of learning to “fail forward.” And ask for help early and often.
Take advantage of our location. The campus is spectacular and has so much to offer. Take a hike in the Bioreserve, attend lectures in Swasey Chapel, go to the Eisner Center for the Performing Arts and Mitchell Athletic Center to watch your peers perform and compete, and enjoy the Bandersnatch, the Doobie, and campus traditions. Embrace life in the residential halls. Check out WhatToDU to keep up on campus activities.
Then get off The Hill. Granville has coffee shops, restaurants, and local stores. A few minutes from campus, Newark and Heath also have a lot to offer. Get off campus and enjoy the local community. Visit Easton Town Center. A new local shuttle will take you from campus to various local places in Heath and Newark.
And Columbus is a thriving city that is on our doorstep. You don’t need a car. Pay attention to emails from the First-Year Office and CLIC on opportunities to attend events and concerts in Columbus and to spend time at Easton Town Center, the Short North, and other fun parts of our metropolitan region.
Everything above depends upon you being curious about everyone and everything. Arrive on campus with curiosity about the courses you take, the people you meet, and the new things you will try.
Too often, we are driven by fear and anger, which makes our world small, uninteresting, and stifling. Avoid it.
- Replace fear of failure with a curiosity about how you can learn from it and improve.
- Replace fear of embarrassment with curiosity about trying and doing new things.
- Replace anger over the views of others with curiosity about why they see things differently and what you can learn from them.
Curiosity is a gift the liberal arts will give to you that will enhance your life in ways large and small. It will make your world broader, more interesting, and fun. And it will lead to success in every part of your life.
An important part of being curious is keeping your mind wide open. A college campus isn’t expected to reflect or speak with one voice. At Denison, this is true about even the most pressing of issues that you may think have a clear “right” answer. The purpose of a university is to give ourselves space to explore, create, and refine ideas, thereby adding to the world’s knowledge and understanding. We should always challenge orthodoxy, starting with our own.
You will hear views you find deeply challenging, and the college does not shield students from those views. A liberal arts education is about engaging with ideas, even distasteful ones, as part of the process of learning to understand the world and contribute to it. Make sure you read Denison’s Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom.
I realize this letter is long and it contains a lot of advice. I will repeat these messages on your first night on campus at the Induction Ceremony. Keep this letter and read it every few months during your first year. Each time, you will read it slightly differently in a good way! If you are inspired, let me know what advice was useful and what you might add or change.
To summarize my advice: Show up eager to dive into your classes, be deeply engaged across campus, and develop relationships with faculty, staff, and a wide circle of your peers. Don’t be surprised when something is hard or a lot is asked of you. We will challenge you because we believe in you and want the best for you. Ask for help when you need it. Embrace all that it means to be a Denisonian. Create your own Denison experience in ways that prepare you for the life you want to live. You made a great choice for college, and we are excited to welcome you into our community.
Adam S. Weinberg
President
Denison University