The local television access feed of the Lincoln at Gettysburg Book Project panel discussion in Barton Hall on Sunday upset me. But before I could complete a post about the choices some students made during their first intellectual experience at Cornell, I had a conversation with a distinguished university alumnus who boasts not one, but three grandchildren currently at Cornell. He related that he had taken them out to dinner the evening before and they had all proceeded in turn to tell him that they had navigated the course selection process (not one is new to Cornell) without so much as a conversation with a faculty advisor. The alumnus-grandfather expressed disappointment with Cornell; I was thoroughly embarrassed for the university that is my intellectual home.

I grew up during a politically turbulent age in a politically active family whose dog joined us at marches and rallies with a sign around his neck. So I have been following the primary season like a political junkie.

Consider this: the Class of 2008 will be the last Cornell class with any memories of West Campus before the West Campus House System opened its first house, Alice Cook House, in August 2004. Since then the House System has tripled with Carl Becker House opening in 2005 and Hans Bethe House opening this fall. Next August, house four, William Keeton House, will open. When as yet unnamed house five join this lineup in a few years, 1,800 Cornell sophomores, juniors and seniors will live, eat, work, debate, reflect, recreate, and relax in the West Campus House System together with five House Professor-Deans, five assistant deans, 29 graduate resident fellows, 15 student assistants and 150 House Fellows — Cornell faculty and senior administrators who venture down the hill to participate in various House activities.