Osborn Cottage, the former home of the University Honors Program, has become just part of campus lore. The Honors Program was moved to a temporary location in Pearson Hall last year while Osborn was bulldozed and built over. Last May, though, the program made the awaited transition to a completely new facility, the Martin C. Jischke Honors Building.

The open house was scheduled this summer at a time when a bulk of the student body was away, including almost 500 incoming members of the Freshman Honors Program. Open invitations were sent to several departments on campus, but the milestone was not publicized. The Jischke Honors Building has gotten more than its share of negative publicity since its inception.

Last spring, as final touches were being made, a nearby sign was vandalized. Where once it touted the to-be home of the “Martin C. Jischke Honors Building,” unknown vandals, by way of black spray paint, decided the true name was simply “Honors Building.”

The remains of Osborn Cottage aren’t the only things being buried at the university. We’re also entering a post-Jischke era, a time when many incoming students don’t have a clear memory of former ISU President Martin Jischke, or have no recollection at all.

Even this year, as the references to nonsensical remarks like “don’t get Jischke’d” or “he was Jischke-fied” are lost upon those new to the ISU community, there is a small buzz regarding the naming of the building the Honors Program is in – the Jischke Honors Building.

The new building smacks of modern architecture, but its look isn’t all that’s changing the landscape of campus. It’s also several months past the time many of us – students, faculty, staff and alumni – should have loosened the grip on the burning hatred for Jischke. President Gregory Geoffroy, it seems, was well briefed on what Jischke did that earned him, years after he left for Purdue University, more than a handful of “Jischke-isms” to describe any sort of money grubbing action.

He’s gone, and we’re all safe now. While the name on the Honors program’s new building may rub some the wrong way, it’s no cause for backwards action. Embrace the post-Jischke era for what it is.

And leave the black spray paint at home.