Hargadon Hall, 4th floor: A Tragedy of the Commons

Together, the fourth floor of Hargadon Hall, Whitman College stands united. Once home to arguably the most foul one-person bathroom in all of Whitman, the residents of 4th floor Hargadon, have successfully ended what should only be known as one long "semester-of-smell."Sometime around Tuesday of the past week, the following civic-minded declaration was posted on the door of Hargadon's oft-clogged, regularly-defamed bathroom.A call to arms. An inward-turning civil war. "Our greatest enemy is only ourselves." Many have signed the declaration and many more have upheld its premises.Since Tuesday, neither remnant nor totality has been found disgracing wall, floor or roof. As we look to a fresh new semester, it's time to declare this case closed, at least for now.But there's a bigger moral lesson to be learned here. Changes can be made on this campus silently and unanimously; all it takes is a mess that needs cleaning (literally) and the gumption to bang out a few bullet points of instructions.