Next week marks the first homecoming the college has hosted in decades. There’s going to be a football game, pep rallies and tailgating, all of the standard events. How unfortunate, then, the state of the house that alumni are coming home to.

A recent Forbes article and a recent vote by the faculty expressing no confidence in President Breuder are only the latest in a string of recent embarrassments for the school. On Sept. 25, the Thursday of homecoming week, the next board of trustees meeting will occur, which promises to be as riotous as any of the planned festivities. Breuder is also hosting meetings regarding the proposed, and controversial, teaching and learning center to be built on the west end of campus. The political tension at the college, which has been simmering for some weeks now, promises to return to a rolling boil, right at the same time that we’re expected to bring back the tradition of homecoming.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have a homecoming. It’s a good idea, and to be fair many students here don’t really care about the administrative drama. They just want to keep their heads down and get through their classes.

To those who do care, though, the timing is rather unfortunate. Homecoming is an opportunity to show off the school, and to celebrate the institutional pride that is still in its fledgling stages here at the college. Though planned a long time ago, the confluence of next week’s events with what promises to be the next chapter of the suburban soap opera that is school politics renders it hollow. It feels like just another distraction, not something to get excited about.

We should probably just get excited and ignore all the bad stuff. Homecoming week has the potential to be a good time. Try not to think about the Tea Party circus raging at the meetings that dictate the cost of your education, or the shady financial dealings paid for by your tuition, or the fact that you have to pick up an extra shift next week to make your car payment, and you have a lab due that you haven’t had time to start. Just enjoy an administration-approved, non-alcoholic beverage in a Glen Ellyn parking lot and watch your first College of DuPage football game. That’s probably the right call.