Dear Chancellor Cantor,

As you know I started off my career as a columnist last semester with a rather sarcastic open letter to you addressing what some people might call your personal defects. I’d like to follow my own precedent and start this semester by discussing a few things you could do to improve your image on and off campus.

For example, you could score a few extra points with the student body if you outlaw those nauseating skin-tight leggings as a form of indecent exposure. I mean, think about it – thousands of students are practically streaking through the quad as you read this.

Something also has to be done about the parking situation around here. Specifically, we need more parking area – I nominate the ESF quad – and we need to open the Carrier Dome parking for South Campus students during the day. That way they won’t be slaves to the immense inconvenience we call public transportation. Sadly, you’ll probably have to build ski lifts up to the main campus to completely satisfy them.

But seriously, this university needs to take steps toward fighting global warming. There are a lot of students who still don’t buy it, even though 2006 was one of the warmest years on record and we’re in the middle of our second temperate winter in a row. I recommend commissioning an exhibit on the crisis with copies on display in the Schine Student Center and other prominent areas on campus and around the city of Syracuse. You might also collaborate with the city and Centro to make public transportation more eco-friendly by transitioning the buses from natural gas to ethanol. This move might also appease ESF after you’ve hot-topped their quad.

And because you’re so big on connecting with the city of Syracuse, I have another recommendation. Syracuse University could host a party in Thornden Park and invite all students and Syracuse residents. Everyone would get to know each other better in a fun picnic or carnival-like setting. Maybe some new ideas about how to better connect the city of Syracuse and the University would come out of it … assuming no one gets robbed or sexually assaulted, of course.

Finally, we have to talk about your wall. No one’s really sure why it’s there, but some assume it’s a trippy public restroom. If that was your intention, then you are required by state law to post appropriate signs for men and women. Otherwise, Chancellor Cantor, tear down this wall.

Zac Cummings is a featured columnist whose columns appear weekly in The Daily Orange. E-mail him at zacummin@syr.edu.