The ability to go to a museum and enjoy the exhibits, being able to walk into an emergency room and explain an illness or injury, going to a movie for pleasure, the safety net of an emergency phone in an elevator — these are all things most people are able to do with ease, and often take for granted.

With the Egyptian Revolution leading to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year authoritarian rule and seeming unrest sweeping across Iran, Algeria, Bahrain and much of the rest the Middle East, democracy is becoming a cultural buzz word.

Last week, Baylor University regents met in Dallas to consider a variety of issues of importance to the continued growth, prosperity, impact and influence of Baylor University. Amid reports from university President Ken Starr and other administrators on a variety of topics, including Baylor’s popularity as measured by the strength of its expected incoming freshman class, and the vitality of our endowment during the first half of the current fiscal year, regents voted to retain the services of an architectural firm to help us begin to consider our next campus residential community.

It is no surprise that the American public takes guilty pleasure in celebrity happenings, from their plush lifestyles to their frequent tangles with the law, alcohol, drugs and extramarital affairs. Tabloids and gossip blogs are not bereft of juicy material with big names like Christina Aguilera, Charlie Sheen and the infamous Lindsey Lohan stumbling down the streets of Hollywood this year.

aylor has recently pulled out all the stops in its efforts to create a sustainable and picturesque campus. From the demolition of Ivy Square to the newest plans to fill in the roads surrounding of Fountain Mall, students have been subjected to the forces of the administration who are determined to fulfill the Baylor 2012 imperatives calling for “useful and aesthetically pleasing physical spaces” in order to “create a truly residential campus.”

As much as we would all like to think that romantic relationships spring up out of nowhere and happen simply because two people are “meant to be,” such notions only apply in rare circumstances.