When some of us here at the Daily first learned about President Martin Jischke possibly leaving Iowa State for Purdue, a range of emotions was displayed. I, for one, was pleased at the prospect of Jischke’s leaving because I’ve always believed that he acted more like a free-speech stifling headmaster than an administrator who gave a care about the students or faculty of this university.

Now that we all know Jischke will indeed be leaving Ames for West Lafayette, Ind., there’s bigger issues to be concerned about — namely, if the Board of Regents is going to put a carbon copy of Jischke in his permanent place. It’s kind of hard to be enthusiastic about Jischke’s departure if there’s inevitably going to be just more of the same.

Last week, the board announced that it had selected Richard Seagrave, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, as the interim president. While I’ve largely heard only positive comments about Seagrave, board members have always vehemently denied that the interim president will be a candidate for the permanent position.

According to board members, the search for Jischke’s heir could last many months. This indicates that Seagrave may have to deal with the subject of dry Veishea, arguably the topic that drew the line between many ISU students and the administration.

Typically, ISU student groups start the debate on dry Veishea early in the fall semester. Many student leaders have given the indication in the past that as long as President Martin Jischke was at the helm of Iowa State, there’d be no wavering on the alcohol issue from the administration’s side.

Now with his departure, maybe we can re-open the issue of alcohol-free Veishea with a discussion from both sides. You could argue that the discussion is broached every fall with the student reps discussing it, but that’s really not true.

A true discussion, an examination of the issues, would involve some introspection on both sides.

Since 1998, it’s been Jischke saying the celebration would have to be one way, the administration’s way, and student groups feign little protest before they bite the bullet and take the alcohol-free pledge, with the full knowledge that most ISU students don’t want Veishea that way.

Veishea, to me, was the turning point in ISU students’ relationship with the president. When asked by several journalists after Jischke’s announcement that he was leaving for Purdue, Veishea was my most-cited example of Jischke’s blatant ignoring of the very students he’s supposed to be held accountable to.

I can understand why Jischke made the decision he did — there was significant pressure after the 1997 murder of Harold “Uri” Sellers. And the statistics do speak for themselves: Arrests are drastically down at the alcohol-free Veisheas.

But that’s just the bottom line — the real story is that few students are happy with the way Veishea is run now, because their control over the celebration is just a formality.

Their discontent over Veishea is indicative of the larger problem students have with Iowa State’s administration.

I’m not naive. I don’t really believe the ISU administration will suddenly change face and allow alcohol back into Veishea just because the top administrator left the institution.

Even if students aren’t happy with the celebration, the outcome still looks better and it makes Iowa State look better.

But the issue of Veishea, as students know, has little to do with alcohol and more to do with civil liberties and freedom.

I think it’s a totally appropriate time for students to broach the issue again, because they aren’t happy with the way the celebration is now. And they shouldn’t stop there — Jishcke’s departure should be a wake-up call for students to finally start speaking up about what they really want in a university and what Iowa State is lacking.

Students aren’t happy about being restricted to free-speech zones. Students aren’t happy about research taking precedent over teaching, and we know many faculty members aren’t happy about it either.

These are areas that members of the ISU community need to keep bringing up. They don’t deserve to be swept under the rug. Instead of the regents and several Hixson scholars gushing about what a wonderful president Jischke was, we need to revisit the issues that are problematic to this institution and try to get them fixed with the next generation.

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Kate Kompas is a junior in journalism and mass communication. She is editor in chief of the Daily.