Every door on every floor is closed, whether or not students are present. This seems so different from my days as a student, when you always left your door open if you were in, I suppose to signal your willingness to talk and to avoid homework if you could just find the smallest pretext to do so. It helped with circulation as well, also a crucial matter in our un-air conditioned rooms.These days you could launch a flare and not harm a single student. The students who answer their doors invite us in kindly, and seem generally pleased with the attention. Some of them have maintenance complaints, which we address. All of them have television sets connected to cable (cable TV had not yet hit Southwestern in my era), and of course each student has a computer, and an Ipod, and usually video games. Each room seems so self-contained, so independent, and seemingly so isolated from any group activity. -- Todd Diacon, Inside Higher Ed
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