Make It a Vanderbilt Summer

Summer is a time to head out with the kids for a fun family vacation, whether a long road trip or just close to home. On a recent visit to Nashville, I toured the Parthenon replica in Centennial Park, just across the street a ways from Vanderbilt University. A wave of nostalgia came over me for younger days when my kids were still impressionable and we took road trips around the country. I could imagine their awe at visiting a lifesized to-scale model of the Parthenon, complete with Phidias's four story tall statue of Athena. And one thing I know for sure is that we would not have left without visiting the campus of Vanderbilt University.

Touring college campuses with your children, no matter what their age, is important for many reasons. First, it lets children know that college is an expectation and familiarizes them with the rhythms of campus life from the football games to the dorms to the library and the Student Union. On a more subconscious level, our universities are the respected repositories of our accumulated knowledge, and their buildings embody that understanding. They represent possibilities for the future of our children, for societal advancements in health, technology, economics, and humanities, and for our country. If all else fails, taking children to your Alma Mater ingrains family traditions and legends of where and how Mom and Dad met and what they dreamed of being once upon a time.

You don't have to wait until your child is in high school to take that proverbial college road trip. The very least it could do is give your child a deeper experience while watching College Game Day and OU or Vanderbilt or Ole Miss or Texas comes on and he/she thinks, "Hey, I've been there. I know where that is."