The university's own signature Quad in particular, while still beautiful, clearly has suffered from the summer's drought. The poor grass has fought root and leaf just to stay alive; the once vibrant green space that unites our community has rarely looked so unhealthy.

With the grass under such duress, can there be any good reason why some unnamed students felt the need to further abuse it during the torrential rainstorm last week on Sept. 18?

I was horrified to see a large group of careless and irresponsible students thoughtlessly mud-sliding on the Quad close to Davis House.

Perhaps I could forgive a kindergartener not understanding the difference between play space and sacred space, but I cannot excuse bright young men and women who really should know better.

The fleeting fun these students enjoyed we will not soon forget: the large patch of brown on the Quad where the grass was ripped out will not grow again until spring.

And while the good folk at facilities management always seem to magically make the grass on the Quad vibrant and beautiful for graduation, why should their task be challenged by the poor decision making of a handful of reckless students?

I fear that the disrespect for our community space displayed by these individuals is indicative of a larger ill in American society as a whole. There seems to be a general disregard for the consequences of actions.

Many Americans ¯ and many students on this campus ¯ enjoy the roomy comfort and driving mobility of an SUV, but then question why we as a nation are so dependent on oil from Arab nations and why our air quality keeps going down.

Many carelessly throw away recyclable products in a society obsessed with packaging and disposability, and then question the sustainability of the planet.

Like it or not, the Earth is not our playground to use of and dispose of at will.

Decisions have consequences, and we must be conscious guardians of shared spaces and do our part to make sure the land we enjoy can be enjoyed by our successors.

Although students on this campus are fortunate not to have to lift a scrub brush in the restrooms they sully, sweep the broken glass from the beer bottles they break or clean up the toilet paper from the trees they roll, perhaps the university really is doing them a disservice by all of this coddling and servicing.

Perhaps students are not learning one of the most important lessons of all as they go out into the wider world outside the ivory tower. Perhaps they do not get the opportunity to learn the basic rule of cause and effect, and we are sending out tomorrow's leaders into the world without giving them an understanding of their responsibility as citizens in the wider community.

In the end, what does it matter if the university graduates can take the derivative of an equation in calculus, determine the cost-benefit ratio of a business plan or point out the rhyming heroic couplets in Alexander Pope's works if they have not learned to value and respect the land they live on?