Denison Class of 2030,
I am excited to welcome you to Denison. We want your next four years to be filled with friendships, fun, and intellectual and personal growth. For this to occur, I want to share some advice on the best way to take full advantage of your Denison education:
Be fully engaged in your courses and the campus community. Classes are small, and the learning is active. Dive into your classes. Enjoy the books you read, papers you write, labs you complete, rehearsals and performances you are part of, and discussions you have in class. Take 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. And we are small enough that students can try new things. Think of your first semester as a chance to try things, change your mind, and try again. Get involved in different ways.
Participate in campus activities you already enjoy and explore new interests. Try things that were not available, or you would have been too embarrassed to try in high school. You don’t need to commit to everything at once, but approaching with a sense of exploration will take you far.
Attend talks by visiting speakers and professors, concerts, art openings, and academic department events. Try some wellness programs offered by the Hoaglin Wellness Center or the Mitchell Athletic Center. Visit the Denison Museum. All of those, along with athletic events, academic support, and tutoring, are part of your student experience.
Develop a wide range of relationships. Relationships define Denison.
This starts with our exceptional faculty. Introduce yourself to every one of your faculty members during the first week of classes. Go to their office hours. Our faculty care about our students and want to unlock your intellectual potential. 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 people you can learn from and who can be a source of support for you. Get to know them.
And form a wide circle of friends. One of the great things about Denison is the wide array of interesting people. Make it a point to get to know everybody in your orientation group, residential hall, and classes. Find friends who share your interests and open yourself up to developing friendships with people who are 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.
Expect a lot of yourself, adopt a growth mindset, be performance-oriented, and ask for help early and often. Denison is designed to challenge you in a supportive environment with faculty and staff who believe in you and want the best for you.
Everything is not going to go well all of the time. You will get a grade that stings. You will say something awkward and regret it. You will discover you’re not as good at something as you thought. All of that is the point. If you’re not falling short sometimes, you’re not reaching far enough. Struggle is part of growth — for everyone.
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.
We don’t expect you to always get it right, but we do expect you to focus on learning and growing. Be excited about being challenged and 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. Enjoy the moments that go well, and don’t be surprised when some things don’t go as planned. You don’t need to have it all figured out when you arrive. Ask for help early and often.
Everything above depends upon you being driven by curiosity. Arrive on campus with curiosity about the courses you take, the people you meet, and the new things you will try. Curiosity is a gift the liberal arts will give you that will enhance your life. It will make your world broader, more interesting, and fun.
An essential 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.
Fear and anger make our world small, uninteresting, and stifling. Avoid it.
- Replace fear of failure with a curiosity about how you can learn 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.
Lastly, a word about AI. Follow the lead of your faculty. You are coming to a college that does everything with intentionality and purpose. There will be courses where you will be encouraged to use AI. And there are also going to be courses that don’t use it, because it stunts the learning goals of that course. The future will belong to people who have both durable liberal arts skills that have always been important and the AI skills that are redefining a lot of professions. Follow the lead of your faculty, and you will graduate with both. This is another reason why you take a wide range of courses across the curriculum!
I realize this letter is long and contains a lot of advice. I will repeat these messages on the day before classes begin 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! If you are inspired, let me know what advice was helpful 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 an excellent choice for college, and we are excited to welcome you into our community.
And one last piece of advice and a favor: As you do all the above, make sure you go to the Knowlton Center for Career Exploration to explore potential careers and internship opportunities. They have a lot of resources and super nice and supportive staff. Start early and go often.
The favor is to embrace a tradition called the “Denison Hello.” When you are walking across campus, say hello to the people you pass. It is one way we create and sustain community.
Adam S. Weinberg
President
Denison University
