The conclusion of this semester sees Pomona College, as always, in flux. But while significant change at Pomona has been always inherent to its nature as a community of changing people, our upcoming return to the "real world," if only temporary, will be affected by a historic shift in context; we will go, now, to see how much of our world we still recognize.

While it is an unabashed cliché to comment, as so many have done, that the world changed irreparably and forever when the first images of a collapsing World Trade Center took over America’s televisions, it is perhaps more deeply affecting to consider the ramifications of that collapse on a small collective of aspiring world citizens in suburban California. And in the long view–after we’d cried and talked and laughed–it seems safe to say we’re alright.

We processed the infamous events of that day even as our innately separate community experienced its own upheavals and triumphs. This semester was marked by the typical controversies, the expected ambitious debates between young, bright people trying to make sense of a senseless world, and trying to cull something meaningful from the unhindered humanity that formed our first reactions. The inaugural TSL featured a prominent front-page photograph of Dean Quinley, her somber pose recalling the emotion that rippled through us one bright morning in September. In the same issue, we laughed at the words of an obnoxious father to his son. ("I note below," he wrote, "that you seem to think dropping a course so as to sleep later is a positive development worthy of approbation") And we called home to our own parents, who replied with the same critiques, the same news about grandma, the same important, unquestioned affection.

Now, for us, it’s over. Some of the staff will be replaced next semester, a transition applauded from some quarters and greeted with apprehension, perhaps, in others. But for all of us, the time we spend, with whomever, for a month or so will be exceptional, even if it’s in the shadow of something incomprehensible, because where we were lacking before we now have something tremendous to add. It is a tribute to the nature of our collective worth that the progress we’ve made has been defined not by what we lost, but what we gained; and to the conversation, the discussion, the debate that hail our arrivals home, some of us will bring something unique and enduring. To that, we say, bravo.