I think you are sick to require your incoming students to read this dumbo's book!

Let me guess. You did drugs in the sixties, but now you do them at any temperature?

Why not make them read Mein Kampf? Same book, different author.

This is a sampling of the emails I received after asking incoming freshmen to come to campus having read Barack Obama’s coming of age story, Dreams from My Father. I should perhaps admit that I have read Mein Kampf, and a copy of the book stands on my shelf. That is not unusual among people who have made their living as a teacher of the tumultuous politics of 20^th century Europe. I am happy to report that reading the book did not turn me into a Nazi.

I doubt that reading Dreams from My Father created any new Democrats among our freshmen either, but then again that was not the point. Obama wrote this book to record experiences and thoughts as a young man growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, as a college student in California and New York, as a community organizer in Chicago, and as a family-seeking pilgrim in Kenya. Far from being a political manifesto ( I agree with my critics that it would be inappropriate to assign a campaign book as required freshman reading), Dreams from My Father tells of Obama’s search to understand where he fits in with family, community, and people in general. Though his life circumstances are highly particular, Obama’s core questions are the questions every young adult must answer for himself or herself: “Who am I?” “Where do I belong?” and “What is the purpose or meaning of my life?”

Not that Obama’s background is as unusual as one might believe. One fifth of Americans under 21 have at least one parent who was born in another country. Sure enough, though every freshman in the small discussion group I led grew up in the United States, one had grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Costa Rica and another had family in India. Just as Obama found his first visit to Kenya revelatory, concluding “that on this earth one place is not so different from another … one moment carries within it all that’s gone before,” so too was it eye-opening for these Ithaca College students to travel to their respective ancestral lands. One found new insight in discovering “the part of me that had been missing.”  The other felt repulsed by attitudes and social practices that she could not accept. Both were doing what all thoughtful young adults must do: figure out who they are and decide what they believe in. 

To us older people, the book is a reminder that we all came into the world as strangers in a strange land and that we had to make sense of the world around us. For at least some of our students who read the book, on the other hand, its central revelation seems to have been that the powerful, self-assured leaders they see in the world in around them were once as young and as uncertain about life’s mysteries as they are today. “How does anybody get to be anything?” asked one of the students in my discussion group. The answer she discovered in the book was that the journey of life is taken one step at a time. You progress in that journey by reflecting on the difficult questions thrown up by your experiences.  The young Mr. Obama did not start out with a fully-formed plan -- a great relief to those of our students who know they don't have any such plan themselves.

Discussion groups formed around Dreams from My Father last Tuesday, and then on Wednesday classes began. As happens every year at this time, it is a moment for students to examine the most important questions in their lives and to set their goals for the year ahead, before the intensity of daily class assignments and projects fully sets in. 

To those who fear the college campus as a place of indoctrination, I suggest simply that you spend 15 minutes with a real, live student. Experience the idealism, the established foundation of values, the questioning of everything around them, the sheer depth of insight.  And then feel very, very good about our future as a society.

Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Blank your mind and turn inward. Feel the slowing of your pulse, your heart, and your breathing. You are at rest, and yet you are also poised for the next burst of activity.

You are just like the Ithaca College campus today. 

I often focus on how an Ithaca College education transforms our students. But the opposite is also true: our students transform the College. Though we have students in residence year round taking courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level, the campus is fundamentally at rest and we are counting our pulse rate while waiting to burst back into life in mid-August. 

In less than three weeks, approximately 4,000 returning students will be joined by 2,000 freshmen in the Class of 2013. They are a remarkably diverse and talented group whose experiences, abilities, and enthusiasms will galvanize and challenge the campus. They are people like Haley Meadows of Calabasas CA, who was diagnosed with skin cancer at age 10, underwent surgery to remove part of her back, later in life was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and was told to stay away from sports … and who nonetheless led her high school basketball team in scoring and was named second team all-league.

They are Emily Miles, of Prospect KY, who founded the Dream Weavers Mentoring Program at a local homeless shelter, and whom I met this summer, along with her mother and her aunt, during a trip to the area. They are Elizabeth Stoltz of York PA, who founded a 501(c)(3) organization called Food for Thought that is dedicated to eliminating childhood malnutrition. They are Zack Turner, who grew up in a family that traveled up and down the east coast with the carnival, and who along the way discovered a love for photography as well as becoming a certified elephant trainer. 

The Class of 2013 includes Yanna Lantz of Tyngsborough MA, who has narrated children’s audio books and is a non-fiction book illustrator, who has received state-wide acting awards, and who found enough additional time to be valedictorian. It includes Emma Walker of Waitsfield VT, who created a rap video promoting sustainability and the use of public transportation. It includes Matthew Pappadia of Bay Shore NY, who was selected from among 500 auditioners to play the lead role in an independent film, Just Like Joe, which won the award for Best Feature Film at the Long Island Independent Film Festival. The freshman class includes MollyRose Mendell of St. George VT, who performs with the Vermont Children’s Theater on Ice, a competitive theatrical skating troupe that placed second in international competitions held in France and Spain. It includes Jeremy Coman of Tulsa OK, who broke barriers as the first male cheerleader at his school. It includes Lauren Mateer of Richboro PA, a weekly columnist in the teen section of the Bucks County Courier Times. 

The freshman class includes Jessica Burrell of Owego NY, who was captain of her softball team until a car accident caused severe spinal injuries. Her determined commitment to recovery enabled her to cheer on her teammates during her senior year, graduate on time, and graduate first in her class. And it includes Chloe van Alstine, who saved a life this summer when she dove into the cold waters of northern Cayuga Lake, near her home in Wells NY, to rescue a man who had driven his van off a bridge and into the lake. Chloe is trained as a lifeguard, but noted in an interview with NPR that “It’s just human instinct to want to help another person.”

The Class of 2013 also includes nearly two thousand other sparkling individuals. You can see why we are excited to welcome them to campus and why we believe they will have a huge impact on Ithaca College! 

Our freshman class will bring with them to Ithaca their TVs, fish tanks, iPod docking stations, and favorite pillows. They will also bring with them their hopes and dreams, their external bravado and their internal doubts. Most of them will be aware that the transition to college is one of the most significant moments of their lives. It is a voyage whose destination cannot be known. It is a voyage from which there is no coming home (figuratively speaking, of course).  It is a voyage that we at IC cannot wait to begin.

Zach Turner, the incoming freshman who grew up with the circus, concluded his application essay with the following thought: “For my next journey [in college], I want to be around beautiful, open-minded people who want to explore, read, discuss, argue, think, create, and always, always play. Although I may now be far from my carnival roots … I am ready for my next creative endeavor, and I can’t wait to see what the next sideshow will be.” 

You speak for all of us, Zach.