Where We Stood

A look back at a yearA look back at a yearwe will never forget.A look back at a yearwe will never forget._______________________ The world of January 25, 1993 was a radically different place. Sheldon Hackney still lived in Eisenlohr, Claire Fagin was in retirement, free speech was considered safe at Penn, and the word "water buffalo" meant nothing to those of us not in the Vet School. But we still had a sense that we were standing on a precipice. "We sense a monumental bend in the flow of history both in our country and at our university," we wrote. A new President convinced us to believe in a place called Hope, and we extended that idealism to the future of the University. But as everyone from Washington to West Philadelphia learned this past year, change is not without a price. 1993 was a sobering year. It was a hard year. Our world and University kept changing at a dizzying pace. But it is a year which we will neither forget, nor will we regret. We began the year pointing out a laundry list of problems that the University had to deal with: social life, residences, racial divisions and the quality of education. We followed up by re-affirming our commitment to uncovering that which is hidden and to crafting a newspaper that would "spark debate, challenge, amuse, and anger." We felt this was the best way we could help bring the change that our University needed. Yet even after documenting sleeping security guards, improper phone calls, judicial code conundrums, racial strife and administration turnover, we realize we were just a bit too idealistic to believe that one year was enough for the University even begin to tackle the problems it faced. The process of changing the University has just begun, and the debate of where this change will take us is just beginning. The University must commit itself to the principle of free expression. Only an open forum unencumbered by intimidation and constricting rules can guarantee that true knowledge is pursued. Without free speech, learning becomes indoctrination. And our learning must not be compromised by budget constraints. We are saddened at the loss of the American Civilization and Regional Science departments, and hope that Religious Studies will survive. We hope that the study of these disciplines can survive in some form, albeit meager, with departmental status. Students must demand more from their self-described leaders. Abusing privileges and pandering to administrators will only mean the continuation of student leader types and the absence of student leadership. Racial problems demand more than just talk. The University has spent the year talking, and now the problem demands action. We hope that the University realizes the walls that it builds between groups and makes every effort to tear them down. Finally, the future of undergraduate social life is intimately tied to the Revlon Student Center. With the plans back on the drawing board, we hope that planners do not forget that they are not building a monument to Revlon, but a new center for life at Penn. After witnessing first-hand some of the problems that plague our University and our country, we leave our posts worn out, but wiser. We leave a job unlike any that we will ever have, and go out into the real world. But we leave behind for our successors the charge that we took one year ago from another group of editors that stood at a crossroads, the 79th DP board. Their words guided us, and we are confidant the 110th board will heed them as well: We shall not claim to be right all of the time. All we can pledge is to report the news to the extent of our ability and to speak out to the limit of our courage.