Last Thursday, I heard Darth Vader talk.

In Eisenhower Auditorium, James Earl Jones gave a lecture about minority figures in Shakespearean plays. It was literary, intelligent, and very, very boring.

While he did bring up issues of historical racism, they were so veiled in 16th century prose that I'm fairly certain more than half of the audience missed the point.

It wasn't controversial or challenging or anything that the Penn State community really needs. Our level of debate on campus is still the same as it was before the presentation.

I doubt that anybody has reconsidered their opinions or seen a new perspective. This very opinion page was not ablaze with commentary for the days before and after his speech.

In the past, the Distinguished Speaker Series has done a good job bringing a variety of speakers with important things to say about pertinent issues. We've had such speakers as Greg Louganis, Janet Reno, Gloria Steinem, Charlton Heston and Linda Chavez.

This year's line-up disappoints. We've already had Jones, and Cal Ripken, Jr., James Lovell and Yolanda King are coming. An actor, a baseball player, an astronaut, and a civil rights advocate. The first three things sound like the top professions to which little boys aspire.

Students deserve speakers who can relate to them, engage them, and excite them. We should hear campus buzzing with anticipation before a famous person stops by to share ideas. We should hear the audience leaving Eisenhower Auditorium chattering about how amazing that speech was or how funny that joke was. A few days later, I'd like to walk through the HUB and hear, "Oh my gosh, you didn't see Margaret Cho? You soooo missed out; she talked about the most serious stuff in the most hilarious way." DSS has a responsibility to excite, educate and entertain their college student audience. This year just isn't cutting it.

Penn State is the perfect forum for learned speakers who want to increase awareness about something that deserves more attention.

There are a lot of students here and hopefully a lot of them are eager listeners. We're in the process of trying to figure out what to do with our lives; basically, we're looking around for something worthy of a lifetime commitment and praying that our majors will give us that.

Now is when we should open our ears to what the world has to say -- to what the world needs -- and it's time DSS committee responded to that.

The goal of DSS is to provide a forum for discussion on a variety of issues. With part of our $40 activity fee paying for these speakers, I think we deserve what they promised us. We deserve to hear about issues that matter and the campus-wide conversation that follows.

Especially last year, as a big university in an important electoral state, we saw our share of big-name political speakers. We had George H.W. Bush, Michael Moore, Theresa Heinz Kerry, Robert Novak and Howard Dean. While not all were part of the DSS, we were spoiled by their presentations nonetheless.

Jones did bring up some interesting points, but couldn't engage the crowd. He mistook his college student audience for Shakespearean scholars. While I doubt Ripken and Lovell will make the same mistake, what are the chances a baseball player and an astronaut will say something new and enlightening?

Ripken -- a national example of persistence -- is not going to inspire you to go to that early-morning class on the cold November morning. Wouldn't it be nice if he could?

The truth is human habits are much more entrenched than human thoughts. While hearing another perspective on an issue is almost always valuable, hearing another's idea of goodness or virtue is not.

Yolanda King might be the one bright spot in a not-so-engaging year of speakers. Human rights definitely one-up Shakespeare, baseball and space. Hopefully she'll get people thinking, but I doubt she'll get them talking.

Maybe it seems like a letdown after last fall's election-year speaker bonanza. I don't know if we fully appreciated how great being a swing state actually was. The issues shouldn't go away just because nobody is running for office. If anything, in a non-election year, we can achieve a higher level of debate. We can elevate instead of dividing.

This is a college campus. When I used to imagine college, I'd picture young people sitting over coffee, having long-winded political and philosophical discussions using words I'd never heard and would be likely to mispronounce. At Penn State, we get a little less of that and a little more beer pong.

So where's Jon Stewart? Condoleeza Rice? Bono? Bill Clinton? It's about time we got our 40 bucks worth.