Guest Room | Joseph Sabia et al.

For nearly 25 years, The Cornell Review has been a reliable bulwark against socialism, cultural relativism, and racial segregation. Despite operating in a hostile political environment, its writers have bravely carried the flag for conservative and libertarian ideas. And every few years, like clockwork, radical students try to shut down this indispensable newspaper.

Guest Room | Justin CassThe specter of failure in the global credit market, it isn’t a big deal. David Foster Wallace offing himself — that’s news. AIG doing the same just doesn’t strike a chord with me. The consensus from everyone sufficiently removed from the matter seems to be that fiscal elites in New York and Washington — including fellow Ivy Leaguers Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson — will more or less get their shit in order. Really nothing for us Cornellians to be concerned about.

Guest Room | Mike McDermott

Look around you because we, the elite, the cream of the crop Ivy-League-educated pioneers and leaders of tomorrow, are the ignorant idiots of today. Most students on campus might know that Michael Phelps won exactly 8 gold medals at the Olympics. Unfortunately, I doubt whether half of them could say who started a war during Phelps’ gold medal marathon (Russia), or even where the war took place (South Ossetia). I’d bet my Big Red Bucks that the average Cornellian could name more American Idol than nations with suspected illegal nuclear arms programs. But I’m not suggesting that heading to Yahoo or MSN for news is the solution. It takes a stretch of the imagination to argue that you can become an informed person by reading the headlines du jour.

Tbilissi, Georgia, nine thirty in the evening. August the 14th. Thursday. The tension is palpable. I walk down Rustaveli Avenue. I notice wounded soldiers in the streets, groups of refugees getting food from NGOs and war correspondents.

It seems ages ago that I was dressing like a Spice Girl and hopping around my room to the tune of “Wannabe” screaming “girl power!” with a British accent to imitate four of my personal heroes (I never really liked “Sporty”). Or maybe it was just last week. Either way, the age of “girl power” is upon us as the Republican Party runs this November with a woman — Governor Sarah Palin — on the ticket for the first time.

But this is a movement that hasn’t just begun. Before the age of Sarah Palin, before the Spice Girl phenomenon, and even before Barbie had more careers than there are majors at Cornell, another woman paved the way for our current vice presidential nominee: Geraldine Ferrarro.

I would to like to make clear several facts about Cornell's course schedule system and the business enterprise Schedulizer that may have been obscured in recent news reports.

The University has not changed its systems in order to thwart the popular commercial enterprise, Schedulizer — and the university is always working to improve its systems in support of students. Any changes in the systems run by the university have been made to improve the utility and functionality of those systems for the benefit of students. Schedulizer has been challenged by its inability to work with the university to, in an approved way, adapt practices to the university's new systems.

My term as president of the Cornell Police Union will expire on Labor Day. In over 25 years active in the union leadership, my signature failure has been attempts to diversify the supervisory ranks of the Department.

When I came to the Department in 1977, management was comprised of 14 white men. Today, there are 13 and one woman. This is our progress in over a quarter century. During this time one African American managed to break through to management — only to be demoted shortly afterward. Twice the Department has gone outside the University to avoid promoting highly qualified and senior minority candidates. Meanwhile, the union has had to resort to the grievance procedure and human rights organizations to protect women and minorities within the bargaining unit.

Better teaching, better living and better rankings: these were the three campaign promises I made for the student trustee election in 2006. As my term comes to an end, I feel it is my responsibility to compare what I promised to do what I have actually accomplished in the past two years. During my tenure, my understanding of the original platform was deepened and broadened, but I have never, never forgotten my promises to you.

Better Teaching

My primary instrument to improve teaching was to declassify the course evaluation results. We began our efforts in CALS first, which was considered the most difficult to overcome. Several years ago, the CALS faculty senate passed a resolution prohibiting the dean and associate deans from seeing the evaluations.

I’ll be the first to admit it. I slacked off. Instead of writing the traditional, post-Editor-in-Chief-behind-the-scenes-look-into-University-life column, I traded the proverbial typewriter for daytime drinking at CTB, spontaneous 2 a.m. road trips (siiccck!!!) and more-than-slightly-embarrassing appearances in senior prom promotional dance videos.

Nevertheless, with the final chapter in my collegiate career about to come to a screeching halt, I felt compelled to resurrect my old Daze column if nothing more than to provide some introspection into a lifestyle that only a handful of people experience.