FRESH LESSONS ON COLLEGE LIFE

Having just left home for their first year of college life, hundreds of
Duke University freshmen gathered inside Baldwin Auditorium last week with
roughly the same thought in mind: How does one go about catching a good
buzz around here? Standing on the auditorium stage, faculty member Cynthia
Kuhn was ready to oblige.

"I'm not here to discuss the legality of things," Kuhn said to the group of
more than 500 freshmen, not one of whom looked old enough to buy a beer.
"You're going to find alcohol and other drugs on this campus. You should at
least know how to use them intelligently."

Such blunt discussions of controversial topics are now the rule during
freshmen orientation sessions at many universities throughout the Triangle.
New students also learn about topics such as date rape, cultural diversity
and credit-card debt.

If all of that sounds a bit scary to parents, that is OK. From better
communication with school officials to tips on marriage counseling,
universities are also paying more attention to the transitions parents make
when their high school graduates walk away from the nest.

"These are issues that we've been dealing with for years now," said Susan
Kitchen, vice chancellor and dean of student affairs at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "But we are finding the students now come to
us knowing more than they once did. So we need to figure out how to move
our programs to the next level."

The next level, for many schools, requires that they acknowledge the sorts
of open secrets that typically weren't discussed much before.

It means telling students and parents that alcohol abuse is routinely a
problem; that students end up in emergency rooms every weekend from abusing
drugs; that the recipe for date rape starts with finding young women who
are willing to drink from an open punch bowl when they have no idea what is
in the mix.

Those who work with freshmen have different opinions about whether freshmen
absorb much from these messages during the first week of school.

"When students first arrive, they aren't really wondering about diversity
and alcohol abuse," said Roger Callanan, director of new student
orientation at N.C. State University. "They're afraid they won't find their
dorm or their English class, or what to do if they lose their ID card."

Unsure about exactly when students will begin to explore other issues, some
schools now work with freshmen throughout the year. Although most
conversations with advisers typically focus on academics, no issue is
considered off-limits these days.

That approach is particularly comforting to parents such as Richard and
Buffie Tucker, whose daughter Ashley arrived at NCSU last week from Iowa
City, Iowa.

"Knowing that she meets regularly with an adviser reassures me that she
won't get lost once a routine is established at the school," said Buffie
Tucker. "She's our second to attend college, but she's a lot farther away
than the first one. I want to know she has someone to turn to that we also
trust."

Balancing act

Keeping parents informed while encouraging students to become fully
independent is a balancing act for every school, particularly at this early
point in the school year. The job also differs depending on the makeup of
the university.

At smaller schools such as Shaw University in Raleigh, many students are
the first in their families to attend college, said Quincy Scott Jr., who
oversees freshmen programs at the school of about 2,500 students. That
means parents are often less likely to question the details of school programs.

But at a school such as UNC-CH, many of the 3,600 freshmen who enrolled
this year have parents who also graduated from college. Questions from
those parents can be pointed and skeptical.

"They are less intimidated by the orientation process and less inclined to
believe every wonderful thing they hear," Kitchen said. "They've been to
college. They know there are rough spots."

And they are more involved in their children's lives than were parents of
previous generations.

"Students today are the children of baby boomers," Kitchen said. "These are
parents who took their kids to gymnastics and soccer practice. Some of them
really aren't ready to let go, and they have high expectations about
remaining involved."

It is important, counselors say, to make sure such parents know what is
going on at school. That means responding quickly to e-mail, sending out
regular newsletters and generally keeping them informed.

"This is a very difficult time for some parents," said Johnne Armentrout,
the assistant director of the counseling center at Wake Forest University.
"After years of focusing on their children, many spouses have to learn
again how to focus on each other. But their children haven't left entirely,
so we see it as our job to help them make the transition. They need to know
what is happening in the world of their children without intruding on it."

Informed decisions

Kuhn, the faculty member and pharmacologist at Duke University, is familiar
with this crossroads. She is also a mother of two college students. She
knows this year's freshmen are hardly the first -- and won't be the last --
to experiment in all sorts of ways with their new independence.

"We are committed to the belief that the more information we give you, the
more intelligent the choices you will make," Kuhn told the group at Baldwin
Auditorium.

Students need to know, for example, that most college students can consume
a drink an hour for four consecutive hours and still handle their alcohol
fairly well. But four drinks an hour over the same amount of time can kill you.

Students also need to know they can't kill themselves by smoking too much
marijuana in one night, she said. They can impair their short-term memory,
though. They need to know that the drug Ecstasy creates a feeling of
euphoria by causing the brain to release serotonin. It also damages those
brain cells and increases the likelihood of long-term depression and anxiety.

Some first-year Duke students said they appreciated Kuhn's effort to reach
beyond the common refrain of "just say no."

"If kids are going to drink, they are going to drink no matter what you
tell them," said Karen Antos, a freshman from Winter Springs, Fla. "At
least you know what you're dealing with when they explain it this way."

The harder question, said Brynne Holt of Stone Mountain, Ga., is whether
the lessons will be remembered on a Saturday night. "I probably won't drink
as much after listening to this," she said. "But I bet there are a lot of
kids who would tell you that right now. You'd probably need to come back
this weekend and ask again if you really want to know."