We have a challenge for you: wherever you are, be there. So now, for example, you are about to start at Cornell. You will be in cow country. You will be in a place unusually addicted to caffeine. You will be at a school with so much spirit, it didn’t see fit to just make its mascot an animal and call it a day — no, your future school has laid claim to an entire primary color (Go Big Red!). You are about to be at a college with as wide an array of course offerings and activities as any college has.

And we want to see you make it yours.

Take advantage of everything Cornell has to offer. Get involved on campus. If nothing else, it appears to be correlated to success later in life: former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger ’67 was President of the Interfraternity Council; former Attorney General Janet Reno ’60 oversaw the Women’s Student Government Association during her time on The Hill (Cornell vernacular); and Oscar Meyer ’34, Kurt Vonnegut ’44 and E.B. White ’21 were all editors of the very publication you are currently reading.

More importantly, these people have all attested time and again to having loved their years at Cornell. Regardless of the activity, those active on campus tend to cherish their term here.

This year you will experience Orientation Week; next year, plan it. In August, 2003, the Senior Class President advised the starry-eyed freshmen of the Class of 2007 to “be” at Cornell. It took three years, but we finally get what he meant.

College isn’t a spectator sport. Some of you may treat it that way initially as you timidly break out of your high school bubble. There’s no doubting that the transition from Varsity Captain to left bench is a tough one to make. And you will undoubtedly have one or two moments in a difficult class when the best you can do is just sit back and wonder how you could possibly have gotten into Cornell. (When we run into you stumbling to Louie’s Lunch after a night at the frats, God knows we will wonder that ourselves.)

But as you sit there plagued by self-doubt, paling in comparison to the Bergers and Renos of the world, just remember that yours was the class to set Cornell’s record for the lowest percentage of students admitted. Ever. So at the very least, you can rest assured that your odds of admission were slimmer than ours or any of those other guys’.

You have four years to complete your task.

Go.

— EBF