After five years, it’s again time to put an era in a shoebox and stash it in the closet.

Ames, Iowa State University, and I are finally parting ways, which in many senses, is a divorce that’s a long-time coming.

I won’t deny that there have been times of bitterness during my stay here, times when I resented having to constantly deal with the bloodlines of bureaucracy, apathy, and irresponsibility.

But undoubtedly, there have also been times of blinding, ass-kicking bliss.

My stint here was simply just life. One that goes up and down like any other, bends its spine in the wind, and stains with exposed to blood, tears, and footprints on its back. A personal, individual life.

Filling this space isn’t always easy; exposing yourself to tens of thousands of people on a consistent basis is often trying.

But that’s why this, my final column, my final byline, is important to me. A responsibility to lay a few girders of insight that can be thought about and built upon.

I would be naive to try and pretend that the behavior of this institution doesn’t make my head spin. I’ve learned to expect that for every boon and amenity it has the means and liberty of providing, it also has the uncanny ability to spawn undeniably nasty disputes which only serve to fragment the entire university community. Disputes which pit students versus faculty, administration versus students, faculty versus administration.

Disputes like the residence hall door policy, or the controversial naming of Carrie Chapman Catt Hall. Disputes like the fervor over McDonald’s in the Hub, the shortage of campus parking, demolition of the old horticulture gardens, the renovation of the Memorial Union, and the near desecration of the Browsing Library and Chapel.

The lack of communication between the warring “factions,” if you will, is pretty scary.

The fact that ISU, as an educational breeding ground, devoutly professes the importance of interpersonal interaction and audibly preaches tolerance, but itself fails to act upon the principles it strives to disseminate is something to both laugh and cry at. It’s an oxymoron. It undermines the notion that ISU should be taken seriously by the rest of the academic world.

And that, after all, is the focus of ISU—education. As much talk as I hear about ISU needing to be a more efficient business, the fact remains that it’s not meant to be a business per se.

It’s meant to be something more than that, something which sets itself above the lures of greed and gluttony.

It’s a business only by chance, by virtue of the fact that it’s an educational institution first and foremost!

Controversies the caliber of which ISU has seen in at least the past five years desperately need more communication prior to the masses hearing word that major decisions have been handed down. And this goes for all parties, all discernible cross-sections of this campus.

Potentially volatile issues need more attention than Vice President for Business and Finance Warren Madden saying, “Could we have … a better way of communicating? Sure … you can always do better.”

No more saying it’s possible to make it happen. Just make it happen. Immediately. Why wait?

The issues that divide this campus need more attention than President Martin Jischke saying absolutely nothing at all, sealed off in the Knoll, high and mighty atop a leather chair.

They need more attention from the the Faculty Senate, a body which too often is caught sitting on its hands.

They need more attention than the beleaguered and self-impotent Greek-brothel of a student government has ever given them.

Lastly, spoiled brat representatives like Adam Gold need to go somewhere other than People’s to gauge public opinion before so readily speaking on behalf of the student body.

To be expected to do so, “just makes sense.”

Unfortunately his statements such as those addressing students on the McDonald’s issue confirm his ignorance. Quotes like, “You weren’t consulted, I was . . . [so] realize you are a vocal minority,” clearly stamp the word “ass” square on his forehead.

It’s not much to ask that the leaders striving to give others the image that ISU is the finest land-grant institution have enough common sense to make sure its participants feel the same way — authenticated.

Increased levels of communication are vital if this institution is to succeed according to its own plans of manifest destiny.

ISU’s campus climate is a growing time bomb, and from my observations, the fuse is getting pretty short. Don’t let it burn too long.

Either way, I’m outta here — look for me when you’re east-coast cityside.

I’ll be the one with the bagel.

David Ptak has a B.A. in philosophy from Iowa State University and hails from Long Island, New York.