Right now, the campus is buzzing with talk of semesters and petitions and protests. Facebook groups bemoan 2013 as the end of RIT as we know it (this presupposes that the world will not end in 2012). Alumni and students alike feel betrayed by a man who, until two weeks ago, was by all accounts a well loved president.

I find it absolutely hilarious.

It’s got everything that makes for great television. A bleak wintry college campus! An evil banjo-wielding president hell-bent on making children and women cry! Secret votes! Protests! Bread riots! Communism!

The only things we’re missing is a mad Cossack monk and a balding leader of political dissidents, and we’re ready for an RIT Revolution.

Now, I don’t mean to sound callous or insensitive to people’s concerns. I just happen to think this might be the funniest way to end my college career. Never would I have imagined that a campus community so frustrated with itself could suddenly become so passionate about the loss of a calendar that drew so much hatred. It boggles my mind.

The outrage over this transition has been made even better due to Student Government’s supposed “secret vote.”

As much as I love to see SG be vilified, they had the best of intentions, which were colored by bad execution. I was at that meeting. This is what happened: Following the official vote on what to recommend to Destler — which resulted in a majority vote for the quarter system — they decided to hold a straw poll to test “the purity” of the actual vote. Where they screwed up was when they closed the meeting, turned off the cameras and kicked my staff reporter out.

The poll, which was unanimously for semesters (minus my abstention — I never vote, even when it doesn’t count), was done behind closed doors, just ripe for misunderstanding. The results showed this: While Student Government had voted for quarters, effectively representing the “majority” of student opinion, the senators themselves believed semesters were the best course of action.

Pile on a confusing email from Dr. Destler, the announced implementation of +/- grades, and the shitshow that is Week 10, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a PR nightmare.

Just remember this as you’re about to storm the Hermitage: It might be emotionally satisfying right now to sign a petition or write nasty things on Facebook, but the decision has been made. No amount of internet-ing will change that.