CONSENSUS IS DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE. The Lutheran Campus Ministry has raised six crosses, to represent the six dead in our Valentine's Day shootings. Not everybody agrees with the gesture.

A wooden cross from the Lutheran Campus Ministries memorial site was found burned Monday morning.

Sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, an unmarked cross from the memorial site at Lutheran Campus Ministries, 401 Normal Road, was set on fire. It is believed the suspects attempted to light the cross on fire at the site and then moved it to a spot 100 feet north of Lucinda Avenue and set it on fire there, said Lt. Gary Spangler of the DeKalb Police Department.

The article notes that no person's name has been assigned to any of the crosses, although an Army scarf, honoring veteran Julianna Gehant, is on one of them. There are notes honoring each of the dead, including at least one to Stephen Kazmierczak, who was a prize student in sociology, on the crosses. The crosses are on church property, not university property, and variants of Lutheran theology have the dead, however they got there, with God, or being judged by God. Thus six crosses. Debate the theology if you wish. Write letters to the editor if you wish. I really don't want to deal with a replay, even on a smaller scale, of Sterling Hall, where some people get tired of talking about it and do something about it, a phrase from a communique issued by the bombers.

But when you talk, perhaps you'll not reach agreement. President Peters would like to have a "consensus" on what to do with Cole Hall, preferably by early May. I'm no fan of consensus. A quest for consensus will degenerate into an agreement on something empty, if it doesn't culminate with the most persistent faction cajoling or mau-mauing or bulls****ing everyone else into accepting something just to end the misery.

We don't have the option the New England Puritans have of setting up a Northern Illinois Center and a West Northern Illinois and a Northern Illinois Heights so each faction can have "consensus" with like-minded people.

Although the university has great support from residents of the State Line in recovering our spirits, there is much less support for spending large sums of money to replace a still-serviceable building. The quest for consensus over Cole is impeding other, potentially more urgent permanent improvements. Word has also reached me of an even more dangerous elevator on campus. The north elevator in Zulauf is going to hurt somebody. There is one in Stevenson that has the potential to kill somebody.