To our new students, welcome to Trinity University! When the Trinitonian staff asked me to write this letter, they asked me for a photograph of myself from my first day in college. I am sorry to share I could not find one, but I am not sorry to tell you why. I was a first-generation college student raised by a single parent. My mother did not know parents were expected to accompany their child to college for move-in day; I suspect she also worried about getting the time off work. All she knew was she had to get me there on the date printed in the welcome materials. (This was long before email or the internet; all information for new students came in a packet you got in the mail.)
So when we attended the welcome event in our hometown about a month before move-in, she introduced herself to two returning students and asked if I could ride to school with them. I was deeply embarrassed. I did not know these people who were rising juniors and also seemed like the most sophisticated people I had ever met in my life — and it was a ten-hour drive. That is a long time to spend with people you don’t know. But they said yes, and that was that.
On the big day, they showed up at my house in a rented U-haul truck. The two of them were going to take turns driving, and I was going to ride between them in the front seat because I was too young to drive per U-haul rules. (Did I mention I was 17 when I went to college?) This scenario was so much worse than the total awkwardness I had already imagined. Then, when we opened the back of the truck, I saw their stuff: several boxes, at least one new television, multiple kinds of stereo equipment and assorted furniture. I had two suitcases and one box with my bedding in it. Clearly I did not have enough stuff. Over my first few weeks and even months of college, I translated this experience and others into a clear message to myself: I was not enough. I did not belong there. I would never fit in.
And although I do not have any photographs from those days, when I think about that time in my life, I can still feel the deep sting of those thoughts. What I wish I’d known then — what the 2025-me would tell the 1984-me — was there’s a good chance most people around me were feeling the same way. No matter how much stuff they brought, how they arrived at this new place or what accomplishments had gotten them into college, the feeling of not being enough when you are in a new and challenging environment is very common. You don’t know other people are feeling it because we tend not to talk about such things, now or then. Let’s face it: “I don’t feel like I fit in here” is not a great opening line when you are trying to make new friends.

Yet, over time I did make friends. I found my people and the places where I started to feel like I belonged, including the campus radio station near where this photo was taken, probably around 1987 when I was a junior. I also pushed myself to learn new things and get more comfortable with being uncomfortable, both of which have proven to be valuable skills in my life.
So here is my welcome message to you and also the conversation I would invite you to have with yourself. You are enough. You have what it takes to succeed here. Yes, you will have to work at it, and yes, that work will be challenging. It should be; challenges are how we learn and grow. Yet you are here because a group of wise people in Admissions saw that you have enough within you to rise to these challenges and learn from them, too. They also believed you would contribute something great to our Trinity community.
How you do that is going to be up to you, and how you make others feel like they are welcome here is going to be up to you, too. Even if we have not met yet, I am confident you can do that … and I know you are enough.
Sincerely,
President Beasley