My family is liberal. When I say liberal, I don’t mean they jumped on the Obama bandwagon in ’08. I mean really, really freakin’ liberal.

The expectation to have successful time management during college is truly a remarkable thing.

For some reason, people expect you to be able to take on a ridiculous amount of things and be able to pull it all off. A challenging course load, extracurricular activities that demand at least five times the time they would have taken you in high school, paying your bills, doing your laundry (and the dishes!), doing homework, keeping fit, eating healthy, having a job (or five), having a relationship, and not going nuts.

Well, people really do not require you to not go nuts. That’s just a personal preference.

In light of Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing last week — the loss of the patriarch of America’s “royal” family — I’ve been thinking about legacy and its role in present day America, as well as within the country’s university system.

Though Ted Kennedy inarguably had a profound impact on American politics during his 46-year reign in the Senate, the degree to which his success was “deserved” so-to-say is debatable. While he may have been the beacon of modern American liberalism, championing equality and a better life for the underprivileged, he was hardly a man of pristine moral stature.

I hated beer, my jeans were too loose and I was scared of dancing in public. It’s hard to remember much else from four years ago because so much in my life has changed (e.g., I would now kill to be able to fit into those jeans). I arrived at Cornell with the self-image of a true high school nerd. I had been to band camp, five consecutive math fairs and every midnight Star Wars premier. Left to my own devices, I probably would have spent my freshman year hiding in my dorm room with my stuffed animals, leaving only for classes and my a cappella group’s rehearsals. Thankfully, two things saved me from this disturbing fate: a preference for really geeky guys shocked by the prospect of a girl noticing them let alone hooking up with them, and my incredible roommate.

As summer fast approaches, students’ thoughts turn from prelims and papers to the three months of freedom ahead. For some, these months will be filled with more hard work — pre-professional internships, grueling summer courses, long hours at a job — while for others they represent an oasis of laziness and tranquility.

To the Editor:

Re: “A Long Way Come, A Long Way to Go: Race Remains an Issue at Cornell 40 Years Later,” News, April 16.

In her thought-provoking article on diversity issues at Cornell, the author quotes me as saying that a focus on “numbers” (of minority faculty — or minority staff and students, for that matter) is not enough, and that in fact it can be misleading. I went on to add a practical proposal that the author was probably not able to include in her story.

People put a lot of weight on last words.

So I’m going to do it too, running the incredible risk of doing something that’s been done before — something that a columnist must never under any sane circumstances do — because I’m in an altered state of mind. Altered, mind you, because of words. I watched the sunrise through the blinds and I have yet to go to sleep and it is all words’ fault.

Under sane circumstances, I myself am fascinated by the idea — what are the last, and I mean the Last, words I want to spend my ultimate breath on? The ones that will just hang there, in the air, until someone opens a window or maybe writes them down and they live on, for a little longer at least?

This is a critical time in the life of our University to recognize how far we have come in creating a diverse and inclusive community, but also a time when we must face squarely the long distance we still have to travel. In the wake of our commemoration of the 40th anniversary of The Straight Takeover, I feel compelled to elaborate on my commitment to diversity by sharing some thoughts about what we aim to achieve and how we will know if we are successful. I also want to alert you to some upcoming opportunities to engage the administration and other Cornellians on this set of issues.

When making an important life-altering decision, I like to pretend that all of my options were trapped on a desert island, engaged in a Battle Royale of theoretical proportions. It’s a methodology that has been passed down in the Scarselletta clan for generations; it’s how my sister decided to go blonde, and how my mother chose which children to keep.

A department has merged. A visual facility has been cut. A library is closing.

Across the pond, universities throughout the United Kingdom have either closed departments or are considering closing them due to a lack of funding.