Great American General George S. Patton should have been a Cyclone.

He was, however, a little busy preserving freedom and all that. But General George did pause every now and again to reflect — something entirely appropriate for the nearly ended fall semester of 1996. And when he did, General George looked back bearing one question in mind: “If a man (or woman) has done his (or her) best, what else is there?”

So then — my classmates and friends, instructors and educators — now that it’s nearly done, now that the fat lady is all that remains, ask yourself this: Have you indeed done your best?

If so, good for you. Stop by Hamilton Hall and I’ll give you a pat on the back.

If not, do better. You see, that’s the great thing about semesters. As sure as they start, they end and start anew. You’ll get a fresh chance next month, but General George won’t at all be happy if you snub him in consecutive semesters.

We don’t want that to happen. So sit back and read. Arm your passion with that which came before, because the future lies not in the present, but in the past (That’s a Chris Miller original.):

* Returning and new students were greeted with a Big Mac attack. Over the summer, university administrators toyed with the idea of putting a McDonald’s in the Hub. The only problem: Not everyone was crazy about planting a fast-food chain in the middle of central campus.

Some thought the university was selling out to the corporate world in search of big bucks. Others just wanted a quick stop for a happy meal. In the end, administrators dropped the idea, citing a lack of student support. Still, the “McHub” has become the battle cry for a relatively new issue: the commercialization of campus.

It’s a issue not endemic to Iowa State, by any means, and one that promises to rear its head with regularity.

* The first of the academic year signaled a new area for the Iowa State Registrar’s Office. After 29 years here at this great land-grant institution, John Sjoblom retired as registrar. Administrators looked inward for his replacement, naming Kathleen Jones, former associate registrar, to the post.

* Staying true to the “over-commercialization” theme, the long-awaited renovations at the Memorial Union were unveiled shortly after students began flocking back to Ames. The new Union offered more fast-food choices in the Food Court.

But again, not everyone was happy. Some said the loss of the Union’s long wood tables and some of its traditional nooks and crannies gave the Food Court a plastic look that said little for aesthetic qualities. Others wanted Chinese and had no problem with new tables and chairs.

As students and faculty realized the renovations were likely here to stay, the controversy faded. It flared back up again but died almost as quickly as Union officials drew limited criticism for converting to styrofoam dishes.

* Big-time salaries were the name of the game in late August, when the university released its list of those ISU employees pulling in some serious cash. The list was chock full of interesting things.

Among the most striking were the gender statistics. Of the 141 ISU employees who made more than $100,000 during the 1995-96 academic year, just eight were women — despite the fact that 48 percent of the faculty were women. Not surprisingly, ISU President Martin Jischke commanded the biggest salary, $198,000 annually.

Dean Elizabeth Hoffman is the highest paid woman on campus. She made $135,000 last year, good enough for spot No. 21 on the big-buck list.

* Students looking for a way to pay for those ultra-expensive text books were taken aback this semester. University officials, in lieu of heavy criticism from the private Campus Book Store, scrapped a service that let students charge books purchased at the University Book Store to their U-bills.

* A new vending contract made for an interesting few weeks at the beginning of the semester. Students seemed to like the option of bottles of pop instead of the traditional cans, but it was at times tough to find a vending machine that actually had pop.

The vendo gods had trouble keeping the machines stocked, being how they were new to the business. But it’s better now. The machine in the basement of Hamilton Hall even spits out Cherry Coke on a good day.

* For a while there in September, it wasn’t a news day at the Iowa State Daily unless there was some new development in the continuing battle between President Jischke and members of the September 29th Movement. The group remains vehement that the name of Catt Hall must be changed. Jischke has repeatedly said that isn’t going to happen.

Earlier in the semester, Jischke and the Movement were at odds over a moderator for a scheduled get-together. Movement members wanted one. Jischke didn’t. The result? No meeting.

* Shooo Lancelot, shooo. A couple of new very non-traditional students — swans Sir Lancelot and Lady Elaine — had trouble staying home during much of September. Department of Public Safety officials were called on frequently to herd the wild trumpeter swans back to Lake LaVerne. Sometimes they’d wander over to the Union or Alumni Hall or to Campustown for some Subway.

Officials eventually put up a couple of “Swan Crossing” signs and called on students to “chase the swans back to the lake” when spotted on campus.

* As if cuisine gripes weren’t enough of a headache for Union officials, some student groups were really torked about their allocated office space after the renovations. Some said the two chairs and a counter just weren’t enough to conduct business. Among the most miffed were Veishea officials.

Union types had a simple response: There is no more space.

* Numbers are money and money is good. Enrollment figures released in mid-September showed ISU’s numbers had jumped about 1 percent with an addition of 266 students, for a total enrollment of 24,899 students. The business and graduate colleges posted the biggest gains.

* Can’t make it to class — ever? That’s no longer inherently a problem. A new note-taking service, called “Notes,” hit ISU this semester. “Notes” supporters said the business is a service to students to supplement their class information. Most faculty said “Notes” gives students yet another reason to skip class.

* The state Board of Regents passed a relatively small tuition increase this semester, but not without controversy. The increase — 3.9 percent here, 4.0 percent at Iowa and 3.9 at Northern Iowa — was more than the projected inflation rate. Government of the Student Body President Adam Gold and his staff lobbied hard for a lower hike.

The increase will add about $100 to an in-state student’s tuition bill next fall.

* President Jischke’s recently appointed diversity adviser Derrick Rollins took some faculty by surprise in September with a two-page memo e-mailed to several faculty and staff. In the memo, Rollins called on faculty to join in the call to rename Catt Hall.

The memo, many argue, took the Catt Hall debate to a new level with the backing of a high-ranking administrator. Jischke, who said he didn’t know about the memo before hand, has said since that he and Rollins simply disagree on the issue.

* One of the largest single gifts ever to a public university came ISU’s way in late September. An anonymous couple pledged $34 million to ISU’s College of Agriculture. Most of the cash will flow into university coffers after the couple dies.

It is the largest capital gift given to any college or university in the history of the state. Officials estimate it is the eighth largest gift ever given to a college or university in the United States. The announcement of the gift kicked off the aggressive “Campaign Destiny: To Become the Best,” ISU’s $300 million drive that officials hope will further the university’s goal of becoming the best land-grant institution in the country.

“With this lead gift — a gift that leaves a lot of us shocked, although it’s a good kind of shock — I am happy that we are able to announce today that we have already reached more than 40 percent of our goal,” Jischke said at the time.

* At a time when diversity and minority recruitment issues are considered volatile campus issues, university officials announced a small increase in minority student enrollment this fall. There are 1,703 minority students enrolled this fall, up 0.2 percent from 1995.

* In a move typical of Midwestern values, the Ames City Council voted this semester to ban lap dances at local strip joints. But most admitted the ordinance would do little. What it did do was force stripers to cover more parts of their bodies when dancing, something many local joints already required.

* The continuing push to rename Cyclone Stadium in honor of Jack Trice, ISU’s first black athlete and the only Cyclone competitor to die because of injuries sustained during competition, made tangible progress this semester. Most agree that Jack Trice Stadium is closer to reality than ever.

This semester’s Trice push got underway with a GSB resolution that supported a renaming the stadium and moving a bronze statue of Trice — now located in front of Carver Hall — to the stadium grounds.

The issue is now in the hands of a university committee that will pass on a recommendation to President Jischke, who will in turn pass on a recommendation to the regents, who must make the final decision.

Last week, Jischke gave his strongest indication yet that he may be in favor of Jack Trice Stadium. “Trice is an important person by the sort of individual he was. As an individual, he’s heroic. He is a symbol of a moment of change,” Jischke told the Daily’s editorial board.

* University officials said no in early October to “Stormin’ Norman.” Residents in Norman House of Helser Hall rigged up a Cyclone logo, complete with a Medieval sword and armor, to be used as their house symbol.

Norman Housers said the new logo was harmless.

University officials said that wasn’t the point. “… it’s a matter of being consistent with our image and our marks,” said Juanita Lovejoy, assistant director of the Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer.

* For members of Theta Chi Fraternity, fall semester 1996 is a term they won’t soon forget. The Theta Chi house was destroyed by fire in the early morning hours of Oct. 2. The house has since been torn down and members are living out the year as guests of Adalante Fraternity.

Two left-on gas burners in the fraternity’s kitchen caused the fire. No one was injured in the blaze that left little to salvage for the 22 in-house members of the fraternity.

“The worst part is picking your life back up and starting all over six weeks into the semester,” said Theta Chi senior Brian Vandall.

* Change was a consistent theme for several university offices this semester including the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. Dean Beverly Crabtree, ISU’s most senior dean, announced that she will step down effective June 30.

Crabtree, 59, has served as dean of the college since 1987. She will remain on faculty for the 1997-98 academic year as a professor of family and consumer sciences. “Thirty years of administration and I’d like to reduce my stress and spend more time with my husband and family,” Crabtree said.

* GSB broke into the controversial campus news category this year when Student Body President Adam Gold asked Terri Houston, assistant dean of students, to resign as GSB’s adviser. Gold cited critical remarks that Houston made of the Senate following a meeting at which senators debated a partial funding bill for the upcoming Big Eight Conference on Black Student Government as part of his reasoning.

Houston refused to resign, saying, “My agreement to resign would make it seem that I have done something wrong and I have not.”

But the issue died quickly, and Houston remains GSB adviser.

As far as the funding bill, despite resurging amendment proposals at several of GSB’s weekly meetings, the $5,000 originally allocated to help fund the February conference remains in tact.

Gold was again in the spotlight when some senators proposed that he be formally censured, but that resolution failed on an 18-12 vote.

* Department of Public Safety officials reported a sharp increase in the number of documented alcohol-related incidents on campus in 1996. Up from 188 a year ago, DPS reported 247 incidents this year. The biggest jump came in OWI offenses. There were 40 in 1995 and 102 in 1996.

* In one of the strangest events of the semester, more than 7,000 students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences got an e-mail reminder about upcoming touch-tone registration for spring. The problem: Because the message wasn’t properly formatted, the students who got it had to first scroll through a list of 7,000 names to get to the brief reminder.

Students then got torked at the hugely long message and began sending not-so-nice responses, but that only compounded the problem since many inadvertently sent responses to all 7,000 names on the list. Some students got the message or responses more than ten times.

The ordeal caused “serious disk storage problems” for the Computation Center.

* Perhaps sadly, fall semester 1996 will likely be remembered most for its events involving racial tensions. And by all accounts, the most significant was a reported racial beating.

Deantrious Mitchell, a black student security officer and a sophomore in computer science from Waterloo, told DPS officials he was beaten and cut with a razor by about eight white individuals in mid-October. Mitchell said the beating occurred at or near Clyde Williams Field.

Weeks later, after the crime was tagged a “hate crime” and FBI investigators were called in, Mitchell admitted he made up the beating. He was then arrested, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor crime and has been sentenced to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service.

* In what’s becoming an annual process, impeachment proceedings were set in motion again this semester against ISU’s student body president. But like most year’s before, this attempt to oust GSB President Adam Gold, too, was short-lived.

Senator Mike Pogge, LAS, had accused Gold of failing to abide by GSB bylaws. The two have since worked out their differences.

* In the days just before the national, state and local elections on Nov. 5, the Iowa State Daily and GSB held a riddled-with-controversy mock election. Ballot counters discovered that someone had stuffed the election’s only ballot box with votes for Republican candidates.

The election results were then tossed out and the hunt for those responsible began. Several fingers have been pointed at a former GOP senatorial candidate Jim Ross Lightfoot aide, but conventional wisdom holds that the whole truth may never come to light.

* A College of Family and Consumer Sciences study, released in late October, found gambling to be a considerable problem for many ISU students. The study indicated lots of interesting things. It said students blow an average of $50 when they gamble, some up to $700 in one sitting.

* Early in November, long-time Vice President for Student Affairs Tom Thielen announced he was stepping down. Thielen, 62, has been at the university for nearly 20 years. Thielen will leave his vice president post Dec. 31, but will remain on faculty, teaching one class in the Department of Professional Studies in Education, through the spring semester.

He will retire May 31.

“I want the freedom to do what I want to do when I want to do it. This job is so consuming that you don’t have the freedom to do that,” Thielen said.

Some GSB senators are now pushing to get the new Student Health Center named after Thielen.

* Continuing federal government cutbacks forced Ames Laboratory officials to lay off 21 workers in early November. Projected federal funding for the lab is down about $5 million next year.

* In the midst of one of the most visible First Amendment issues to hit campus in recent years, the Inter-Residence Hall Association passed in November a resolution that would allow residents to decorate the hall side of their doors if adapted by the university.

The issue has long been a source of campus controversy. The proposal must still go through several channels before it’s enacted, and students still won’t be able to hang just any old thing on their doors.

If displayed material is found to be questionable, a vote of one-fourth of house members is sufficient to call for the material to be removed.

* Despite the university’s objections, about 200 people participated in an unauthorized protest in Beardshear Hall on Nov. 5. The protest, organized by members of the September 29th Movement, signaled the first time that Movement members used civil disobedience in protesting the name of Catt Hall.

About 20 Movement members have been charged with violations of the Student Handbook. They have since retained legal counsel.

* After months of waiting, the 1996-97 ISU Directories arrived with just a few weeks left in the semester to spare. A problem with the printing quality delayed the distribution of the phone books for more than a month.

Officials at ISU’s information line had to bring in extra staff members because without a phone book, students turned often to the free info line for directory assistance.

* A report presented to the regents in mid-November indicated that Iowa State’s six-year-or-better graduation rate is slipping. The rate was at 63.6 percent in 1995. It fell to 60 percent in 1996, slightly below the national average.

* Early this month, some GSB senators proposed legislation to formally reprimand the Iowa State Daily, saying ISU’s student newspaper has “consistently misrepresented the truth, and has greatly lacked in its ability to communicate the simplest ideas to the Iowa State student population.”

Senator Mark Holm, liberal arts and sciences, proposed the resolution. He later withdrew it after senators voiced their concerns about the Daily. Holm said he just wanted to give Daily officials a “wake-up” call.

* A comprehensive student survey, published in the Daily on Dec. 11, indicated that there isn’t massive support for changing the name of Catt Hall. Of the students surveyed, 19 percent said they favored a new name, 47 percent were against it and 34 percent had no opinion.

There was, however, overwhelming support to rename the football stadium. Of those surveyed, 68 percent said they would support renaming the stadium Jack Trice Stadium, 12 percent were against it and 19 percent had no opinion.

The survey also indicated that most students don’t consider racial tension on campus a major problem. Of those surveyed, just 7 percent said the campus’ racial climate is “very tense” or “extremely tense.” Most, about 62 percent, said ISU’s racial climate is “somewhat tense.”

* And finally — as with last fall — Iowa State’s own Troy Davis provided the last bit of interesting news. Davis was denied the Heisman Trophy Saturday for the second straight year despite leading the nation in rushing.

Doing so, Davis became the only back in NCAA history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in consecutive seasons. Before Davis, no 2,000-yard back had ever been denied the Heisman.

For Davis, the biggest question now is whether to turn pro or stick around for another season in the Cyclone backfield. Davis has said he wouldn’t make an announcement until after the season is over. Well, it’s over.

And there it is. For better or worse, richer or poorer, good or bad, ugly or pretty and all that other good stuff.

Would General George be proud? Hard to tell. He’s dead. And I’m not even real sure he’s ever been to Iowa. Maybe he wouldn’t have made the greatest Cyclone.