They hail from Santa Fe, from New Orleans, from Berlin, Germany, and from Santa Cruz, Bolivia — among other cities. There are 121 of them in all, and they're ready to have their "lives changed," as their president put it, by four years of a liberal arts education at St. John's College.

St. John's, which was founded in Annapolis in 1784 and opened a second campus in Santa Fe in 1964, welcomed its incoming class of freshmen Thursday morning with its annual Convocation Ceremony. The outdoor event attracted about 300 people.

"It's a good opening, it adds a punctuation point for the new students," president Michael Peters said before convocation. "It gives me an opportunity to tell them what the college is about and set the tone for their next four years."

Enrollment among liberal arts colleges nationwide continues to decline — with 423 undergraduates, St. John's is about 30 below capacity, Peters said — and the president addressed this issue in his convocation address.

"You have elected to pursue perhaps the most pure liberal education in America at a time when the value of a liberal education is increasingly questioned ... the implication being that today a liberal education — a St. John's education — is an unaffordable luxury."

Peters stressed that the college's emphasis on reading, writing, discussion, philosophy and free thought — all revolving around a study of classic literature ranging from the works of Homer to the Bible — will in fact not "limit horizons ... but broaden them."

Peters acknowledged that during economically challenging times, more parents are encouraging their children to pursue college degrees that will help them land a career.

"It takes a certain amount of courage on the part of family members to support a student's decision to pursue an education that is not necessarily geared toward preparing one for a job," he said before the convocation. "It's geared toward preparing you for life."

Several students interviewed on campus Thursday agreed.

"I think of it as an education that teaches you how to think," junior Pierce Lively said.

Still, Lively said that when he tells people he's majoring in liberal arts, the inevitable response is, "What does that mean?"

Freshman James Nall said his parents questioned his decision to attend St. John's.

"I basically told them that I have four years to figure out where I want to go first," he said. "And those last words — 'where I want to go first' — are key. I'm not sure where I want to go now, but I'm going to be learning everything, and I think it will prepare me for anything."

In his address, Peters urged students to get off campus and involve themselves in Santa Fe at large. To that end, St. John's hosts a community fair day Sept. 1 in which invited representatives from various nonprofits in town — including Habitat for Humanity, SITE Santa Fe and the Lensic Performing Arts Center — come on campus and speak with students about opportunities within the community.

The college also officially opened its newest campus structure, the Levan Hall Graduate Institute Center, Thursday. Named after an alumnus who donated $5 million for the structure, Levan Hall has an auditorium, common space for students, faculty offices, and graduate program classrooms.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.