I tried to find it in musty-smelling books, scrawled on bathroom walls, in love letters and newspaper articles and secret blogs that met quick deaths over the Internet after the administration decided that they had laid claim to the letters W and U.

During my junior year, I traveled to France, then Spain, then England. I tried to say it in different words: université, universidad, university. I looked for it in blasé students looking at masterpieces in the Musée d’Orsay, in long Madrid nights ending with churros dipped in thick hot chocolate at sunrise and in dreamy days spent curled over T.S. Eliot in an ancient stone library.

I thought I found it in my senior year, leaning bleary-eyed against friends in cabs home from Morgan Street, lingering over coffee in Whispers, collecting grass stains and pizza grease from W.I.L.D., pretending like I had a thesis for my thesis and taking classes that didn’t seem to matter with people that matter too much to say.

It was a long exercise in investigative reporting, culminating in this small 500-word column. Of all the pieces I’ve written for this newspaper, it’s this one that contains the most fieldwork. Sometimes I wish I’d done my research differently, that I’d taken up slam poetry, fallen in love more, taken political science classes or joined an a cappella group, read more philosophy, because all of that might have helped me understand.

Now, as the year draws to a close, I can’t really be sure that I ever will.

I suppose I could say I found it after four years, whatever it was that I was looking for. But I have a feeling that I’ll never really know what college was, its 21 grams of soul that extended beyond the parameters of four-to-six-to-eight page papers. It was a lot of things. But it was more than that. It was more than the sum of its parts. It was a fast, furious, curious search for knowledge, and it’s been worth every minute.

If worst comes to worst, I could always say that college is where I got an education.

Godiva Reisenbichler | Student Life

Soon, I’ll join the land of politicos in Washington D.C., to whom political arguments come more naturally than breathing. My family has lived in D.C. since my freshman year, and although I love living in a 68.3 square mile area packed tightly with a sea of navy blue suits, it’s hard to acknowledge that I will have to join the fray of voices in the most political city in America.

When I espouse my opinions, at Metro stops, in line for coffee, at post-grad parties, people will argue back with the authoritative tone of rabid World of Warcraft fans: heated, hands flourishing, eyes rolling emphatically toward the heavens. They’ll ask me what I know. They’ll try to out-wonk me. “But I’m published!” I’ll cry, insisting on my legitimacy.

“Where?” they’ll ask, listening eagerly for the names of great political journals, of mainstream media, of prominent blogs.

Then I’ll play my power card. “StudLife!” I’ll cry. I’ll nod eagerly, forgetting momentarily that this sounds like a website for the pornographically inclined, and smile with a smug sense of pride as they regard me with wary smiles.

It’s the sad reality of a college political commentator. Never again will I experience the rush of seeing my name in print—accompanied of course, by head-scratching obtuse illustrations and snide online comments questioning my rationality, or sanity, or both. There’s something about the distance. Being an idealistic student unmarred by the threat of the dreaded word “pragmatism” is OK on a campus newspaper. It’s naïve and undereducated anywhere else.

Just down the street, at an astonishingly close distance from my home in D.C., lie the halls of power that I have written about routinely for the last year. And the suits that I see in bars, getting belligerently intoxicated on shots of Jameson, are the ones wheeling and dealing inside those grand white buildings. It’s all a little too surreal to stand.

It’s a bold, exciting time in politics, one that keeps me consistently fascinated and irresistibly drawn to the goings-on of a community that remains largely mythological to the American populace. So alien, in fact, are our politicians that their existence as citizens is called into question on a regular basis (see Obama, Barry). But rubbing shoulders with the power elite and the powerfully opinionated doesn’t mean that my thoughts don’t matter, unpublished though they may be.

So, the next time I find myself in a crowded bar, shouting to be heard about the fray, rest assured, I’ll continue to shout. Maybe over shots of Jameson, I’ll bump into a navy blue suit, carrying a briefcase full of referenda, and bill proposals, and secretive reports. And maybe, if I just keep talking, they’ll listen.

Keep talking, Wash. U. Somewhere, I’ll be listening.

Godiva Reisenbichler | STUDENT LIFE

California has taken steps to prevent this longstanding issue of ignorance, and other states should do the same.

On Thursday, a landmark bill was passed in support of including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people among a list of social and ethnic groups that must be covered in social studies lessons in California public schools. If signed by Governor Jerry Brown, California would be the first state to include the teaching of gay history in its curriculum.

As a college student, I wish that I had the same opportunities to learn about LGBT history at my Arizona high school. While I have long been familiar with the debate surrounding the place of sexuality discrimination in the legal system, my interest has been purely extracurricular, gleaned from newspaper articles and debates with friends. As a senior, I have spent 16 years of formalized education without a mention of a minority that has just as legitimate a voice and history as any other group. Legislation is making some progress to even the playing field. However, it seems that this process is weighed down by the issue of ignorance—which could be mitigated by following California’s example.

While society is making strides, schools should be as well.

Of course, this raises the question of what merits inclusion in a textbook. Some will argue that the murky lines of sexuality make a definitive, cohesive educational effort an almost impossible task. Even the term LGBT has a negative connotation with those smaller communities that do not identify with the four-letter acronym. If we can’t decide on a chapter name, how on earth can we decide on the content? More specifically, which voices deserve recognition within a text that will be read by millions of young minds? All of them. Whether this is possible at this juncture is debatable. Whether this should be a point of open discussion and understanding in a formal, safe setting is not.

Sexuality is complicated. I’m pretty sure that hormonal high school students will have no problem grasping that concept.

The recent wave of suicides among students due to bullying as a result of sexual orientation proves that what we need is more understanding, not less. Ignorance is not bliss, but a burden and a barrier when what we need is to understand each other in an increasingly complex world. With more education bills similar to California’s, we might just be taking a step in the right direction.

Last week, David Cameron decried the scant admissions rate for blacks at the university. Only one black student was admitted last year, he claimed. Oxford countered, saying that it had admitted not one, but a grand total of 27 students. But as an Oxford alum himself, what exactly was Cameron seeking to prove? His comments have provoked a torrent of criticism from those who argue that it is not racism that is institutionalized, but class. Critics of Cameron say that low acceptance rates are symptomatic of an educational system in which minority status is synonymous with the lower class.

Like some critics, I believe that while Cameron’s views are justified and improvement should be made at Oxford, his attention should be turned elsewhere. While racism might be institutionalized at an educational level, it’s more broadly based at a socioeconomic and political level. This is what Cameron should be focused on, which could be tricky, given his recent musings on the failure of multiculturalism.

So where does Oxford, at the pinnacle of the education system, stand? It is, after all, where the term “ivory tower” was coined, as homage to the creamy architecture of All Souls College. It stands as the object of intense fascination, its cavernous libraries and stony-faced colleges crowded with the weight of centuries of knowledge and those who sought it— a list too long to begin here.

However, it has not, and never will be, the site of a revolution, social or otherwise.

Oxford is an institution that stands apart, whose inner workings progress like gears bound in molasses. There is a hesitancy to admit that adjustments to this small world might be necessary, which could disrupt its quiet defiance to the passage of time.

And yet there are those who gain coveted access to those hallowed halls, and have found that the illusion is shattered. The patriarchy has diminished, yet women still battle for equality in the ultimate boy’s club, which did not begin to integrate female students until 1974.

The realities of class differentiation still linger, casually implied by your choice of prep school.

Oxford is an elite university, and an elitist world.

It is changing, but it hasn’t changed fast enough.

At a national level, in 2009, more than 29,000 white students received the grades necessary for admission to Oxford. Only 452 black students met the qualifications. And while the United Kingdom is a predominately white nation (92 percent compared to 2 percent black in 2001), these statistics still don’t make the cut.

Coming from an American perspective, this seems especially outrageous. Ours is an admissions system that qualifies and contextualizes. It is a more sensitive system, but it is also a more subjective system. In England, there is no emphasis on the mercurial “well-rounded” student. It is the grade that counts in university admissions, no matter the cost, or who can afford it—which is what makes class so important an issue to address.

Should Oxford (and the rest of universities in the United Kingdom) start to evaluate its applicants based on a complex rubric of how well Applicant A balanced football practice, show choir, and six honors classes against overwhelming socioeconomic, racial and sexist adversity? Maybe.

Should the United Kingdom begin to evaluate the system that produces such a paltry number of qualified minority applicants, as they stand at the gates of these institutions? Definitely.

While it might be easy to point a finger at Oxford’s notorious elitism and unwillingness to change, it isn’t the cause here. Instead, it’s something greater, something that’s more worthy of analysis—that even the brightest minds at the tallest of ivory towers will be hard-pressed to figure out.

As my fellow columnist Eve Samborn commented a few weeks ago, in “The Obama Doctrine”, the emergence of a new policy wasn’t too much of a surprise given the events of the last few weeks.

In recent days, the United States has involved itself in yet another conflict that bears little relation to the woes of the American people. Our economy is crippled, we are involved in two other wars and our polarized government threatens to tear itself apart. While the early days of the no-fly zone stressed the limits of America’s involvement, we have emerged as the natural forerunner of a combined effort that still falls under the rhetoric of an altruistic endeavor.

And although the current administration’s dedication to protecting Libyan civilians is admirable, Obama’s rhetoric surrounding a slaughter of the innocents does not constitute the whole story. Now, Washington is considering arming Libyan rebels, a loosely defined group that has emerged only with the vague descriptor of “the opposition” to Gadhafi. As soon as such militaristic action enters the picture, humanitarian efforts are disqualified. It seems that consent has already begun to disintegrate among the allies on this issue, and the legitimizing support of the U.N. will not last.

In the meantime we can rest assured, since the United States is holding on to all that dirty money that Gadhafi had stored up under his bed. “After all, this money does not belong to Gadhafi or to us,” Obama said on March 28. “It belongs to the Libyan people, and we will make sure they receive it.” And while the role of the United States as an economic guardian is nothing new, this is perhaps what I found most disconcerting about Obama’s address. At what point will the Libyan people be worthy of their own $3 billion? When can they be trusted? How many recent large-scale democratic efforts can be seen as successes in the eyes of the American people? None come to mind.

Understandably enough, Obama was sure to shy away from comparisons to the persisting war in Iraq, which marked yet another tyrannical fall amidst threats of a humanitarian crisis. “Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our troops and the determination of our diplomats, we are hopeful about Iraq’s future,” Obama said, in the same speech, “But regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.”

As a world superpower, we undoubtedly have the responsibility to promote justice. However, with the rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air, we must again reevaluate the issue of “peace through strength.” And while stability might come with an iron fist, sustainable peace certainly does not. As we stand on the brink of another conflict, let’s not confuse one for another.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, British ambassador to the United States, delivers a major policy address in Holmes Lounge on Friday afternoon. Sheinwald detailed the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K. that began during World War II.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald gave a lecture entitled “Britain and America: An Easy Commerce of Old and New” in Holmes Lounge.

The speech is one of three major policy addresses given by Sheinwald across the Midwest.

Throughout his address, the ambassador stressed that the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom would continue to adapt and evolve in changing times.

“For while [the Anglo-American relationship] is deeply rooted in shared history and shared values, it is a relationship which is oriented towards the future as much as the past,” he said.

Sheinwald’s speech drew from the intellectual and political history shared by the U.S. and the U.K. He used examples ranging from the Magna Carta to the large number of Nobel Prize winners from the U.S. and U.K. to illustrate the transatlantic “easy commerce of the best ideas, the best people and the best products.”

The ambassador specifically addressed the changing relevance of transatlantic relations to the present day and their role within China, the world’s rising new superpower.

He referred to the transatlantic culture of innovation on which China and India have modeled their universities, stressing that this tradition would continue regardless of any country’s position as the world’s superpower.

In an interview with Student Life after the speech, Sheinwald addressed the U.K.’s complex relationship with Libya and the joint approach that his country will take with the U.S. in its stance on the current crises in the Middle East.

He said that the U.K. has imposed sanctions to isolate Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and has made it increasingly difficult for Gadhafi to travel. The U.K. has also worked to remove its citizens from Libya and to provide humanitarian aid to the area.

The turmoil in Libya has impacted the crude oil market in both the U.S. and U.K. Gasoline prices in the U.S. have increased by an average of 33 cents nationwide in the past two weeks.

“If we have a change in system, by all means, we’ll continue [to maintain ties with Libya],” he told reporters. “But while the crisis is going on, you’ll have to look to other methods to decrease the oil price. Some countries might have the capacity to increase their supplies, and that’s one of the things we’ll be looking at.”

Following his address at Washington University, Sheinwald gave another policy address at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., the site of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s iconic “Iron Curtain” speech. Churchill’s address is seen as a crucial point in the beginning of the U.S.-U.K. alliance forged during World War II.

Sheinwald reflected on the changes in this “special relationship” since Churchill’s speech, saying, “Even if you’re the world’s only superpower, as the U.S. is, you need to check your bearings with other countries, you need to share strategies, you need to build coalitions….The United Kingdom tends to be the main sounding board for the U.S. in those circumstances, and that remains the case.”

Sheinwald also referred to the importance of candor in the relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. as one of the main factors in their success as allies.

“I think if you look at any aspect of our relationship, whether it is economic, national security, working together on energy, working together against terrorism, there is still a huge amount of collaboration and a huge degree of openness and candor in the relationship which exists between Britain and America,” he said.

Sheinwald’s speech was part of the T.S. Eliot lecture series, which was named in honor of the poet and grandson of Washington University co-founder William Greenleaf Eliot. As a nod to the author, Sheinwald derived the title of his speech from a line in T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding,” which speaks of the “easy commerce of old and new.”

Sheinwald has been the British ambassador to the United States since October 2007. He has also held a variety of political and diplomatic appointments, including foreign policy and defense adviser under former Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2003 to 2007.

I had been on my way back from winter break when I was stopped in the middle of a crowded train car. As I fumbled for my U-Pass in my luggage, I felt 50 pairs of eyes swivel toward me to relish in my discomfort.

“If you just hold on a second, I’ll get out my other wallet!” I cried, stalling for time, frantically digging through my bag.

In the end, because I wasn’t sure what else to do and because the U-Pass did not materialize, I chatted with the security guard as he gleefully handed me my ticket. I left the MetroLink station feeling strangely resigned but also incensed. I’ll admit, it may seem like a small thing to get so worked up about. A part of me didn’t want to fork out $90 for an easily avoidable mistake. But at the same time, I wanted to distinguish myself from the people who abuse Metro, those who carelessly board buses and trains with no ticket and no intent of doing their meager part to support the sad, slight system that we have here in St. Louis. As someone who relies on the excellent D.C. public transportation system as my sole method of transit at home, St. Louis public transportation feels like an endangered species, increasingly threatened by misguided legal propositions and ambivalent riders. And finally, I’ll confess, there was some sort of strange morbid curiosity that compelled me to contest the fine, appeal the ticket and wait for the gavel to fall where it landed.

So great was my dedication to achieving legal justice that I had braved eight inches of snow to arrive at court on time, only to be told that all cases had been suspended for the day due to weather (if only we could merit the same stunning snow day casualness at Washington University). As I passed back through security, I stole a backward glance at the police officers loitering around the lobby, gossiping and sucking down coffee; their thumbs snugly secured in the tight waistbands of their regulation uniforms. They didn’t seem too bothered to see me leave.

So back I went last Thursday (following the second court summons) and as I pulled into the parking lot, I began preparing myself for an impassioned appeal to the stony-faced judge. “It was an honest mistake!” I would plead, casting a tearful eye to the sympathetic jury, who would nod with empathy. But striding briskly into the courtroom, ready to meet my fate, I found something far different from the court drama I had conjured in my head. Rows and rows of defendants sat on benches, looking bored in the florescent lighting. As soon as I sat down, the federal employee announced that all first time offenders would be dismissed. A collective cheer rose from the audience as we impatiently awaited our turn to be excused. When my name was called, I flashed my student ID and pledged to never again travel without a ticket.

The whole thing took less than 30 minutes.

So there it was, my heroic crusade in the Clayton courts had come to an abrupt end. And though my initial intent had been to rail against the U-Pass system, to demand that student IDs be recognized by Metro as a valid form of ticket, I’m not so sure anymore. Yes, you run the risk of a hefty fine by traveling without a U-Pass. Yes, a sticker of some sort on your student ID would probably be a lot easier. But as I found through my recent experience with the ins and outs of Metro misdemeanors, there could be worse lessons in civil society than that brief encounter of the U-Pass kind.

Becky Zhao | Student Life

Talbott advocated a stronger sense of moderate discourse, with an emphasis on facts over rhetoric. He recommended that we demand a higher sense of responsibility from our news media, which have devolved into talking heads hurling spittle and spite at one another. The truth has become secondary to entertainment, and while the masses might not have found politics particularly appealing in the past, they can certainly find it entertaining with today’s cocktails of spin and anger.

In a world that values fabrication over fact and rhetoric over reality, research and dialogue have indeed been pushed aside, deemed irrelevant and, in some cases, elitist. It’s difficult to imagine where moderation fits into this scheme. As the consumers of this so-called news, we deserve better than having to endure unmitigated, inexplicable anger pouring from our radios, streaming from our televisions, flooding from our computers.

My point of contention is the model used by Talbott to illustrate a better age of moderation. In his speech, Talbott used measured examples from the 1950s and 1960s to illustrate his point, looking to the gently color-tinted pages that, to him, did not signify consensus politics. But what Talbott missed, in my mind, is that the 1950s and 1960s were also a time of political and social repression. And in part, it is avoidance of the facts of this era—which sparked a generation of nationwide discontent—that has both plagued and been perpetuated in the current government. Members of the baby boomer generation, many of whom now hold the most powerful seats, have seen the ascent of polarized politics in the last 40 years. They don’t want to go back to being stifled by consensus. They also don’t have to.

As students, we stand on the threshold of a new era of moderation. It is up to us to redefine what moderation encompasses, even with the overwhelmingly unforeseeable future of the Internet and new media. It doesn’t mean the repression of ideas outside the norm or caving in to societal pressures. It does, however, mean promoting civil discourse, for the millions who share their voices and ideas across the world every day. We have all experienced the thrill of enlightening conversation—the kind that challenges and provokes thought, the rhetoric of arguments that actually lead us to actually reconsider our perspectives and redefine our positions. We’ve seen it around seminar tables in classrooms and huddled around steaming cups of coffee in Whispers. It does exist here at Wash. U., and it’s up to us to bring the spirit of real, factual and civil discussion to the world we will soon inhabit—a world that is real and more in need of our fresh perspective than ever.

Hanna Xu | Student Life

The results, shall we say, weren’t pretty. The leaks covered everything from nuclear dealings with Pakistan to proposals for a unified Korea and the fate of Guantanamo’s detainees. These revelations have been accompanied by a mixture of outrage and weary resignation that feels all too familiar from the days of the Afghanistan war documents in July. It’s yet another ugly scar on the already pockmarked complexion of America’s international reputation.

But the latest in leaks leaves us wondering: If loose lips once sunk ships, what can a click of the mouse do to entire diplomatic networks? In his time as the face of WikiLeaks, the flaxen-haired Assange has been denounced and deified. He has been condemned as a megalomaniac with a nasty habit of putting the very real lives that exist outside of a paper trail in danger. But he has also been hailed as a whistleblower who fights for transparency and truth.

The issue of transparency is brought up a lot in modern American politics. We hold our elected officials responsible for everything, from the superficial to the significant, from marital conduct to corporate corruption. But we have become reckless in our quest for truth and the ensuing collision with endlessly expanding cyberspace. This year has been marked by a cry for accountability—for the economy, for the war, for a general lack of action. At this point, we might as well make like the Bible and send a bleating scapegoat out into the wilds to pardon us for our sins. It would certainly be a lot easier.

Yet what WikiLeaks represents is not accountability in the right light. Instead, this latest influx of information has cast a harsh mirror on our zeal for scandal, to the point where our international relationships could be irreparably damaged—not to mention the thousands of diplomatic associates and informants whose lives are now at risk.

In this age of technology, it is easy to gaze at the warm, anonymous glow of a computer screen and see what we wish to see in flickering black and white. But it has also been equally easy to dismiss the responsibilities of such free disclosure. So in our pursuit of accountability, we should remember a few things: The truth has always been murky and the lines have always been gray. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any to cross.