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The college administrator asks the hundreds of freshmen seated before him to look to the left and right at the student on either side of them.

One of you, he says, won’t be here next year.

He didn’t intend to be flip, but to simply and soberly state the facts of life for freshmen: The distractions are plenty on college campuses, and not everyone can handle the independence.

Yet college is survivable, and some of the pitfalls are avoidable, faith leaders say. Some of them reminisced recently about their own campus days, considering the things they learned later that they wished they had known at the start. Starting this week, thousands of young people from the Triad will leave for campuses far and near. Those who have impacted their spiritual life want to send them away with advice for what’s to come.

Meet your professors

“I had the opportunity to take classes with world-class scholars in college but didn’t take the initiative to meet them personally,” says Rabbi Eliezer Havivi of Beth David Synagogue, who earned his undergraduate at Queens College, a branch of the City University of New York. “I later wished that I had pushed myself a little harder — to go up to them after class or see them in their offices.”

He learned to do that in graduate school and later rabbinical school.

“And I found professors who were willing to take a personal interest in me and help me grow in my own learning,” Havivi says. “One of our classic texts teaches: 'The bashful student does not learn.’ Whether bashful or, um, just unmotivated, that’s a good lesson.”

Keep your mind clear

There’s nothing wrong with being open to new experiences and new ideas and this wider world, says Max Carter, the campus ministries director at Guilford College and a Ball State University graduate. But it’s even more important not to get lost.

“When I began college 60 miles away from my small farming community in Indiana, it was like I had been dropped off on another planet,” Carter says. “As I often tell my students, I not only lived through the ’60s, I can remember them, since I didn’t do drugs.”

Carter connected early with other Quakers to stay grounded.

“Folks were going down in flames experimenting with mind-altering substances,” Carter says. “My Quaker faith, which teaches that it is of paramount importance to keep the mind clear, as God communicates directly to each person, and we’d darn well better be clear-headed when she chooses to talk, saw me through unscathed.”

Young people get so much advice, some of it conflicting, says the Rev. Julie Peeples of Congregational United Church of Christ, who graduated from Furman University in 1979.

“And honestly, the young people I know are much wiser than I was at that age. I often feel I am learning from them,” Peeples says. “My hope is they’ll trust that deep, inner wisdom, because that is one of the ways God speaks to us.

“And as always, I hope my daughter will remember to call her mother.”

Remember who you are

At an impromptu gathering of high school students and their parents at the altar of Providence Baptist Church on a recent Sunday, the Rev. Howard Chubbs and others in the congregation admonished the young people there to not to forget their “home training.”

“Don’t ever forget who you are,” he told them. “Whatever you do reflects upon your family, as well as you.”

And the “everybody does it” line?

“When I went to school, everybody drank but me,” says Chubbs, who earned his first degree from Tennessee State University in 1957. “As a result, there were parties and things that I didn’t get invited to — but I found out that wasn’t the end of the world.”

Choose smart habits

But choices — like those Facebook pictures — can linger.

“Habits formed in college tend to stay with us,” says the Rev. Michael Usey, a Baylor University graduate and the pastor at College Park Baptist Church. “Our personalities are more malleable during these years than they will be again. Many of the vices that are considered necessary for college life are easy to put on and hell to take off. They become marbleized into our personality, growing as we mature, so they are not easy to extract.”

At Baylor, for example, Usey ran in the early mornings with his friend Greg.

“He could kick my tail running, with his long legs, and not even breathe hard,” Usey says. “He would talk about theology or women or both, while I wheezed, trying to keep up.”

After running road races with Usey, Greg would light up a cigarette and have lung capacity to spare. Now at 50, Greg’s still a good friend and a minister, and he still smokes — but can’t run like he used to, and his lungs are greatly diminished, Usey says. Like most people who smoke, Usey says, his friend wishes he’d never started. It’s the same for all his Baylor roommates who dipped Copenhagen.

“I’m the furthest thing from a prude. There is a great goodness to life that God has given us that is meant to be enjoyed, including alcohol and sex,” Usey says. “However, many destructive habits — like abusing alcohol, dipping smokeless, smoking cigs or weed, cruising porn, etc. — began in our college years, when they were considered hip, long before they started to scab over.”

Avoid the herd

The pressure to fit in is often more self-inflicted than not, recalls Chris Hardy, a leadership development pastor at Westover Church, who earned a degree at Berry College in Rome, Ga.
Hardy recalls the time he went to work in the school’s business office because all his friends worked there. He was miserable.

Avoid the herd mentality, he says.

“After several months of sitting in front of a computer scanning documents, I realized I was not cut out for work in the business office,” Hardy says. “Not long after, I accepted an opportunity to work in admissions and serve as a host for visitors and guide for prospective students. This was a perfect match, and I ended up loving it.”

“I falsely believed the approval of others forged my identity,” he says. “In reality, my friends accepted me as Chris.”

As you continue to discover who you are, says the Rev. Natalie McLean, the chaplain at Bennett College, you develop a level of comfort and composure in being one of unique and intentional design. “Each of us is 'fearfully and wonderfully made,’” McLean says, quoting from Psalm 139:14, King James Version.

Be courageous enough to reach out to those who are not a part of the “inner circle” and celebrate the differences in others, McLean says.

“We have to like who we are first,” McLean says. “When others see our confidence, they will either choose to associate with us or find another friend. And we have to accept their choice. We, too, make decisions about friends and associates. From someone else’s perspective, we may be a part of the “popular crowd.”

Find your passion

This is the time when passion should fuel your choices, such as choosing classes or even a major, says McLean.

“Passion provides vision, inspiration and courage,” says McLean, who earned a biology degree at Bennett when she knew in her heart she was to become a minister. “Experience and training prepare us for gainful employment, but without passion, our work is 'just a job.’”

But have fun

It’s still OK to have fun, says the Rev. Monica A. Coleman, a former Bennett College religion professor who is now an associate professor of constructive theology and African American religions near Los Angeles.

“There’s nothing sinful about partying,” she says. “Just keep it clean, sober and stay up until the early church service the next morning.”

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com