On his first day of kindergarten, my 5-year-old son got on the bus and waved goodbye. I cried all the way to work. Thirteen years later I put the same child on an airplane to Whitman College, a small liberal arts school located in a high desert paradise between vineyards and apple orchards in southeastern Washington. His journey westward toward independence left me sobbing. How could his field trip driver, jazz band booster and brownie-making mom both hold on and let go?

		Rosanne Skirble, a Pittsburgh native, is a reporter for the Voice of America in Washington (rskirble@starpower.net).

I didn't have a clue. I had just written a tuition check and was suffering sticker shock when a letter came from Whitman with an offer: Did I want to "participate vicariously in life on campus"? Free for the taking was a one-semester Web-based course that would follow the required freshman core curriculum, book-for-book. "Unlike your first-year student," the flier read, "there are no papers to write or exams to take. You don't even have to finish the reading." It's called "Parents Core."

I studied the syllabus and got to work. The course begins in the fall with Homer's "The Odyssey" and ends 11 books and 14 weeks later with Augustine's "Confessions." Parents take the course at the same pace as the 400 campus freshmen.

Parents Core is a virtual community dreamed up by Rogers Miles, adjunct assistant professor of religion and general studies and 13-year veteran teacher at Whitman. He says the idea for Parents Core came to him in 2002 when he was grading papers. "Parents are largely ignored by higher education," he says. "They pay the bills. The children go off, and you don't hear from them anymore."

While many universities and colleges offer core courses, only Whitman College takes parents along for the ride. Blackboard Inc. provides the Internet platform for this cyber-classroom where course documents, book discussion boards and a virtual refrigerator with postings of student papers are available with the click of a mouse.

While a friend and classics professor at Georgetown University came to my aid early on with a short tutorial on Plato, it has been my new virtual neighborhood of psychologists, teachers, doctors, a timber company operator and a former Lutheran pastor that is getting me through the readings. "I hope the core class will slow the onset of senility," says one new cyber-friend.

My feeling exactly.

Discussion is loaded with a heavy dose of personal experience. Commenting on the first four books of "The Odyssey" one cyber pal ruminates, "These books are about growing up. It is the transition from childhood to adulthood. I see these transitions occurring all through life. It is not specifically midlife crisis; it is simply the crisis of everyday decision. The only major difference is the size of the consequences."

From "The Odyssey" adventures we journey on to Greek tragedy. "Medea" left a lot of us feeling very sad. Seeking revenge from an unfaithful husband, Medea carries out a plan that culminates with the murder of her children. That brought this remark from a woman in Minneapolis, who reflects on Medea in the context of her family breakup:

"I am caught up in the re-enactment of old drama and choose to tell you that in the time long ago when I was closest to Medea, I felt ragingly glad that someone, somewhere, had written 'Medea.' " But, she adds, "even in my greatest bleakness, I knew that her vengeance was no chariot I wanted to ride in. How glad I am that our children are reading these stories at Whitman. Knowing the ground they spring from, the stories that have fed and tormented their forebearers, perhaps they will choose paths of greater generosity. Coming face to face with Medea and with Jason, perhaps they will forgive us."

The heaviest traffic on Parents Core is a cyber-section called Trading Notes. Subjects such as homesickness, academic competition and second thoughts on Whitman volley back and forth to bring student life into closer focus. Disturbed about being out of touch, I post: "No news is good news?" Among the responses is this shared tidbit: "I have several friends who sent their boys off to college this year, and they are telling a tale similar to you. Little to no telephone contact and few e-mails. The moms are pretty hurt. My daughter throws a few more crumbs."

Juli Dunn, head athletic trainer at Whitman, navigates between students and parents as both a core professor and the muse who sends e-mail reminders to parents to keep them up-to-date on readings. "Don't worry that the core books provoke little response from your son," she says. "It will come back to you when you least expect it."

That was surely the case on Parents Weekend when Parents Core had a scheduled face-to-face get together. As we were sorting through faith and suffering in the Book of Job, one of my cyber-buddies told us she had spoken with her son's core professor. "He said Troy had made an outstanding presentation. Did I hear about it from Troy? Of course not! Do I plan to ask him about it? Absolutely! But I wouldn't have a context to discuss it, if it weren't for this class."

Connections with my son have come in shorter bursts: Over dinner he casually mentions that he was surprised to find a reference to "Odyssey" heroine Penelope in "Lazarillo de Tormes," a 16th-century Spanish novel that he's studying and I had read in college. I am amused when back home I inquire about his whereabouts in an instant message and get the auto reply: "Comiendo [eating] Virgil."

My odyssey continues with Homer's transitional mantra: "As soon as young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more..." I wake to a new day and begin to accept that while I am lonely, I am not alone and that my college son is on a journey to manhood.