At this paper, it’s often difficult to sort out the stories from the news. This may seem a contradiction in terms, but considering the bevy of information that flows through both the producers and consumers of a media outlet even so small as this, separating the wheat from the chafe is often a separate task.

One of the beauties of campus press in general is the planned respite each year, not only for the sanity of the editors, but for the opportunity afforded readers in issues such as this ? an opportunity to recount the past for progress and for meaning. The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune can’t take a day and tell you what happened over the last four months and why it’s important. We can, and I relish it. In our burgeoning digital society, in which we replace paper and VCRs but leave behind pause buttons and trash baskets, maybe this is just the leg up we’ve been searching for. Yet another reason to read the Badger Herald … we shut up when you’re not around.

But the stories don’t stop when the ink dries up, and this summer looks to be particularly active.

In one sense, some things never change. In our bubble world as innocent students, a fleeting existence most of us enjoy to the fullest, we drink. And we enjoy it. That’s been the case, particularly in Madison, for generations. And it appears said bubble is about to take another jab from the university.

The PACE project released its six-month findings from the Drink Special Inquisition yesterday. The group announced a perceived decrease of police incidents in corroboration with the drink-special ban, based on this ridiculously flimsy conclusion, it looks like Thursday drink specials may now find themselves inside the regulatory crosshairs. And, as was the strategy last year, a good bit of the discourse and policy-wrangling will occur while most students are out of town.

Be aware of what you might return to find. After having been swept under the rug for the better part of the last few months, the fight to preserve a basic freedom of legal adults (who happen to be overwhelmingly students) is back on with a loss for liberty in Round 1.

Yet, more importantly, we’ve just seen a victory for liberty unfurl half a world away in nearly the same time span. The protests of the war in Iraq are now quelled, but the debate over reconstruction and the long-term ramifications for foreign policy have only just begun. One need not look farther than the reception of Daniel Pipe’s last week to understand the contention regarding the Middle East and American policy towards it. As the conflict becomes heated and the issue of free speech intertwines, the suit is trumped again.

One gets the feeling America is just now starting to crawl from the cycle of its Sept. 11-induced stupor, then obsession, then shock. All of the worries about how we “live in a changed world” seemed oddly distant from the Midwest for the longest time, just as the infernos of New York and Washington were hundreds of miles away.

But, on a post-war campus, we’ve seen hot flashes of the broader world we now live in ? both in general and on campus. This, from the standpoint of our education, is good. Perhaps only two years ago, the overarching scuttle surrounding discussions of “campus climate” involved a controversial advocate and his advertisements, which offended a portion of the campus population. Today, “campus climate” issues extend to UW’s acceptance or rejection of controversial federal policy with serious national security implications. Not to trivialize the Horowitz controversy in the least, but the issue currently at hand with the SEVIS fee has potential significance that extends far beyond the borders of campus and will touch communities beyond our own.

We even see the vestiges of crumbling towers as this institution struggles to right itself in the face of economic hardship. Few economic analysts or prognosticators ever agree on anything, but one is pressed to not concede that the university, city and state wouldn’t be in the kind of fiscal mess we’re in had those towers not come down ? and the stock market with it.

The coming weeks and months will undoubtedly shape this institution and the education we glean from it. A lot of us, Midwesterners especially, walked on two years ago without feeling the “changed world,” and a lot of us found fewer classes on the timetable last month. We just had to be patient for the trickle, the two aren’t unrelated and we often lose the connection. Unfortunately, unless the ship is righted, the damage to the empirical value of our education didn’t begin with economic tragedy and won’t end with a few trimmed classes.

But all is not lost. The stakes of campus politics, traditionally so confined, are clearly raised and are now hedging ever higher. The storylines of campus and the discourse about how Americans will handle the new realities they face are now intertwined; we will begin to sort them out in these halls and in these streets. How does this generation view personal responsibility, privacy, civil rights, economic and foreign policy? You can learn about these things in classrooms at small liberal arts colleges. They certainly teach them here, too. But you can also find them in the community ? a quality unquantifiable in tuition dollars or general public revenue.

So enjoy the break. But we’re all coming back to a broadening campus infused with new issues to hash out and new sparring matches of ideas. I, for one, am excited by the challenge and the possibility for history on a campus that has seen Rose Bowls, Final Fours, protests, sit-ins and serious national discourse on immediate local issues. Ultimately, what more could we ask in the name of education?

Eric B. Cullen ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and history.