The first section is entitled "Students and Faculty." It shows that the total number of students has increased by just under eight percent, from 11,959 to 12,882. Most of that increase is in the form of undergraduate students -- up 860 since the fall of 1991. The memo also notes that the University has "made the decision not to grow beyond 13,000 students." During the same period, the number of full time faculty increased less than five percent from 543 to 569.

The memo mentions some other achievements, such as an increase in the percentage of minority students from 1,092 in fall 1991 to 1,643 in fall 2006, an increase in the percentage of minority faculty from ten to sixteen percent, and an enormous increase the the number of volunteer hours donated by WCU students to the community, from 12,667 to 185,316, and an increase in the "Economic Impact Benefitting the Region" from $60 million to $212 million between 1993 and 2006). It concludes with a list of some of the more noteworthy achievements of the past fifteen years include a partnership that brought fifty Steinway pianos to the music school, the creation of the world's first undergraduate Pharmaceutical Product Development program, the establishment of exchange programs with a Chinese university, and many more.

As someone who spent four of the past fifteen years serving on the committee that evaluates professors for tenure and promotion, WCJIM has seen a definite increase in the quality of the faculty and the research that they produce. He has also noticed (and benefitted from) some remarkable efforts to improve the way that professors teach, and has also seen graduates from his own department gain admission to increasingly competitive schools for masters and doctoral studies. Although West Chester University is not (yet) on a par with Ivy League schools, it has certainly raised the standard for what were once known as "state teachers colleges." Based on WCJIM's own classroom experience, the best students at WCU rival the best students at any other school in the country. As the beneficiaries of these changes, today's graduates will leave with more than enough education to get started on the rest of their lives.

One pleasant surprise was the relative ease with which the Borough modified its trash collection policy for the second time in as many years. The new policy yielded immediate benefits, and none of the doomsday scenarios predicted by opponents have come to pass. Instead, quietly and quickly, the new policy has saved the Borough money by reducing the amount of trash taken to the landfill, helped the environment by increasing recycling, and cleaned up a substantial number of the Borough's neighborhoods.

One issue that hasn't gone away is the "South Walnut Street" problem. That's the one where crowds of night-life seeking young people flood the neighborhood on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, waking up the people who have to go to work in the morning, and occasionally committing acts of vandalism. Although the issue has recently gotten more attention thanks to the 2005 mayoral race, Borough Council's Neighborhood Task Force, the police department's Source Investigation Project, and heightened concern by University officials, no one has figured out how to change things. WCJIM has shared his ideas on the subject at Neighborhood Task Force and Town Gown meetings, but is reluctant to editorialize on this page while others are still working on the problem. He will make one observation however -- the people who cause the problems cannot be intimidated into stopping, so answers that depend entirely on law enforcement are not going to succeed. [NOTE: WCJIM is organizing a panel discussion on "who defines the standards for neighborly behavior?" at "Civility Day" on the West Chester University campus at 9:30-10:45am on Thursday, February 22. If you would like to participate or offer a suggestion, email WCJIM.

Perhaps the most amazing thing in 2006 (other than the Philadelphia Eagles resurgence behind quarterback Jeff Garcia) was the Democratic Party's sweep of the state house and senate elections for the West Chester area. Although Republican strategists have attributed it to "a bad year for Republicans," that is clearly spin since Andy Dinniman's senate victory occurred in mid- May, well before the bottom dropped out on Republican poll numbers. No one believes that the Republican Party has lost its grip on local politics, but for the first time in decades, there are two legitimate parties in the County. It will be interesting to be see how that will affect local government. [If you think that Main Line Life should name the Dinniman victory as its "Top News Story of the Year," tell them by email using this link.]

Looking beyond West Chester, 2006 was a year full of disturbing things. The world's environment continued its decline, aided by the US government's denial of global warming, and accelerated by the Third World's rush to reach American consumption levels. Internationally, the Middle East provided more than its share with violence in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. In Africa, several recent conflicts subsided, progress was made on both AIDS and malaria, and several countries held elections without problems, but the "situation" in Darfur (Sudan) -- civil war, famine, drought, and/or genocide -- is spreading into neighboring Chad while Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia is unlikely to bring stability to that country.

Here in the USA, the social contract had a bad year. That refers to the unwritten agreement that everyone will sacrifice a certain amount of self-interest in order to preserve civil society. (For example, it's the kind of thing that makes drivers stay to the right of the center line, even when crossing it to cut off a curve would permit them to go faster.) Philadelphia's record homicide rate, the number of shootings in schoolyards, the proliferation of aggressive drivers, and lots of other acts of the "me first" society suggest that there are less restraints on anti-social behavior than there used to be. The alternative -- more laws, more police and more prisons to scare people into behaving correctly -- has gotten a lot of verbal support from people who, for whatever reason, prefer to offer a simple solution. As a historian and someone who has travelled in a lot of different countries, WCJIM is completely skeptical of claims that a police state can replace a social contract.

A lot of these ideas came together on Monday, October 2, when a deranged individual shot ten Amish schoolchildren in Lancaster County and then killed himself. Neither his family nor his friends knew what was inside his head, which appears to have been to gather the most public attention he could by committing the most horrific crime he could imagine. He succeeded. Everyone in our country forgot about everything else, including another school yard shooting in Colorado, the murder of a five-year old boy in Philadelphia, and the weekly casualty count from Iraq.

Despite all that, there was a moment when it seemed as if his crime might result in something positive. Instead of revenge, the relatives of the victims offered forgiveness, and did what they could to comfort the family of the shooter. On October 5, the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted one Amish man who explained "We have to forgive just like Christ forgave us," and a day later, a non-Amish relative of one of the dead children wrote:

A statement from the "Nickel Mines Accountability Committee" (which appeared in the October 11, 2006 Centre Daily Times of State College, Pennsylvania) elaborated on the idea of forgiveness:

WCJIM concludes: Nearly three months after those words were written, our society has moved on and revenge -- the emotion that rationalized the post-911 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq -- rules once again. It is not clear how to counteract that, but it is clear that the desire for revenge does not fix anything. If you doubt that, look at what it has done in northern Ireland and in Palestine, and what it seems poised to do in Iraq. WCJIM's New Year's wish is that everyone who reads this will get through 2007 without expressing the need for revenge. His New Year's dream is that your example will motivate others to do the same.

Have a healthy, peaceful year in 2007.

The third network is called the Global Positioning System (GPS) and is created by radio emissions from satellites in orbit around the Earth. If you remember your trigonometry, the principle is simple -- using the beams from three or more satellites, you can establish the coordinates of any place on the Earth's surface, or above or below it, for that matter, using devices that now small enough to hold in your hand.

GPS systems also lend themselves to entertainment by providing the basis for a hi-tech hide-and-seek game called geocaching. "Cache" is the French word for "hide" and back in the days of fur trappers, a "cache" was a package of food and other supplies that the trappers hid along their route so that they would not have to carry everything with them. Mountain climbers use caches (pronounced "cash") to stockpile supplies for the ascent of major peaks, and WCJIM has used them to stash clothing and supplies during his travels in Africa.

A "geocache" is a cache that you locate using a hand-held GPS appliance. That's a battery-powered device that senses the signals from overhead satellites to determine where you are -- latitude, longitude, and altitude. It can also store other data -- like a local map -- to allow the user to see what is located nearby, and if you program it with the coordinates of your destination, it can even give you directions.

The other part of geocaching is creating geocaches that are well-hidden, yet accessible and fun to seek. A sequence of geocaches can have a historic theme, or one can offer information used to locate the next one, must like the clues in a treasure hunt.

That place is the Singer Farm, a 175-acre parcel on rolling hills located northwest of the Borough. In 2000, the farm's owner, Michael Singer, granted a 15-year "public trail easement" to the Township as a way to prevent the school district from taking it for a new high school. (The school district eventually built its new high school on land located south of the Borough.) The easement allows the farm to continue to operate, but provides for three trail loops totalling about 2.5 miles around the fields.

The beauty of the trails is that they offer views of what we all think Chester County should look like. Rows of corn stalks give to texture to rolling hills, while hardwood groves shade the parts that are too steep or too wet for planting. Surrounding the entire system are thorny hedgerows that for some reason appear purple during the winter.

No doubt, there are deer in the surrounding woods -- the entrance is clearly marked with a warning to hikers to stay off the trails during prime deer-hunting hours -- and there are certainly rabbits and a large variety of bird life. This time of year, the views are enhanced by the absence of tree leaves, and the low sun elevation which lights everything from the side. That provides the kind of scenery that Andrew Wyeth made famous in his paintings of the area around Chadds Ford.

Of course, hikers can't miss the Borough water tower and the County Justice Center which surmount the skyline to the southeast. But Strasburg Road, which passes the farm to the south, is barely visible even when hikers approach it, and PA Route 322, which passes to the northeast, disappears as soon as hikers cross the first ridge. On a busy day, there may be about a dozen cars at the Route 322 parking area, which translates into less than a half dozen encounters on the trail (since most people follow the signs which point in a counter-clockwise rotation). Most have dogs (which are supposed to be on a leash) and a few bring along children.

In a County where farms are giving way to houses at a rapid pace, the agreement between the Singers and East Bradford is a welcome exception. Some time before it expires in 2015, the Township will consider whether to buy the easement or perhaps the entire property, and if they do not, then the last bit of open space within sight of West Chester will disappear. If that trend continues, we may need to drive to Lancaster County to see what Chester County used to look like.