Over the last few days I have been reading the Collegian's editorial page and feeling a bit sick. I don't understand how some of my peers can be so selfish and short-sighted about the recent National Governors' Association conference.

First, maybe I missed something, but wasn't this conference (like all of the other NGA conferences) set up for the governors from both parties to get together and talk about issues that could make their states better places to live for the people who elected them? So, if I'm not mistaken, by the very nature of what the governors' conferences are set up for, they don't have a place for public forum, because they aren't sessions for the governors to talk about policy and issues. They are designed to help the governors do their jobs better.

Now, the other thing I don't understand is all this talk about exclusion. I just finished volunteering for four days at the conference. I'm not a Lion Ambassador and I'm not a Scheryer Honors College scholar. I'm just a regular student who wanted to volunteer, so I asked around and figured out who was coordinating the local volunteer effort. Apparently about 300 other people (more than for any other NGA conference in history) figured this one out too. So basically, if you really wanted to be there, you could have.

Finally, and this is where the selfish thing comes in, shouldn't we be proud to have such an important conference here? This was the first time ever that the governors' summer meeting was not held in an urban location. Once again, Penn State has pioneered yet another area. That alone is a reason to be proud. The site selection committee chose us for a reason, and now that all the hoopla is over we lived up to our reputation.

And shouldn't we be happy about that?