The sun is shining off the mirrored façade of Hunt Library, but on this February day it's just a Pittsburgh mirage. It's 20 degrees without the wind chill. A group of fundraising students huddled in parkas outside Doherty Hall offers me hot chocolate. I reluctantly decline, running past them. The CrossSeekers Christian Ministry group by The Fence offers me a Krispy Kreme glazed donut, but I don't have time to talk.

In fact, I have to do the unthinkable for a senior at Carnegie Mellon. Every student, except some naive freshmen, knows it's imperative in winter to avoid the "wind tunnel," the covered walkway on the side of University Center. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to take the shortcut. I'm 20 minutes late.

I'm rushing from an accounting exam to a Carnegie Mellon Today assignment. I'm covering Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon's Open Forum in the UC, where he will converse with staff members and students.

Nearly frostbitten, I enter through the wrong door, the one at the front of the room. I'm less than five feet from the president's podium, and my hair is blown up into a Mohawk from the wind tunnel.

Cohon is having a face-to-face conversation with a faculty member at the Qatar campus, thanks to Web cameras and flat-screen monitors. But all eyes shift toward my entrance--from the 50+ in attendance in Pittsburgh to a half-dozen puzzled onlookers in the digital windows to the other side of the world.

The president, to his credit, never pauses or seems flustered.

As I scramble for a seat, I sneak a glimpse at the crowd. The audience is awash with muted cardigans and tan sport coats--the preferred attire of the Carnegie Mellon professor set. I expected to see more sweatpant-clad students airing their typical grievances about dormitories, dining standards, and tuition. Most of the talk surrounds the proposed expansion of satellite campuses in the Middle East and the now defunct but sorely missed faculty holiday party.

There are only a handful of students in attendance. A couple ask questions--one about the university's green practices and another about financial aid. Cohon reconfirms the university's commitment to both. Neither asks a follow-up question, which may concern the president that students, in general, have nothing to discuss. Don't worry, Mr. President. It's not that we're apathetic; we're just busy.
--Sean Patrick Conboy (HS'08)