This year, there’s been only one piece of Binghamton news that has sparked a campus-wide debate. The back-and-forth has been intense, passions are running high. That’s right. Snooki is coming to town.

And for the most part, we think we’re OK with it. Snooki is a phenomenon, for lack of a better word. And we get to watch the magic.

Next Thursday, the Anderson Center will host the be-poofed jester of reality television for an evening dedicated to secondary education (fist-pumping lesson) and college health (ab contest).

If anything, this is our main problem with Snooki’s booking ‘ we feel the itinerary is uninspired. It’s not that she’s a walking paradigm of American degradation, or anything. It’s just that there are so many better ways to take advantage of a celebrity with such a distinct lack of class, especially at a university.

Instead of having Snooki simply play up the jokes we’ve all made about her, she should have been put out of her comfort zone. Perhaps the event could have included a general knowledge, Jeopardy-esque trivia game between Snooki and the deans of Harpur, Watson and SOM. Maybe she could have discussed nuclear policy with Joe Leeson-Schatz, director of Binghamton University’s debate team. Maybe she wouldn’t have agreed with all of these ideas, but something more creative could’ve been agreed on.

But even if we feel she’s being mismanaged, props to the Student Association Programming Board for taking a risk on Snooki. At least it got the school talking. Facebook news feeds have been consistently crammed with Snooki-related posts, links and shouting matches. Some people are excited to host the precious little drunkard, while others think her appearance is an embarrassing waste of money.

We’ve noticed, though, that most people are at least somewhat proud of having Snooki come to Binghamton. Even if a person is genuinely angry that we’re paying money for her visit, he or she seems excited to complain about it. ‘Poofin’ Around with Snooki’ is only her second appearance on a college campus, ever. Which is sort of cool ‘ we guess?

This strange Snooki pride is fine, harmless probably. We booked someone everyone we know has heard of, and has seen get hit in the face.

But Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi is arguably the most prominent (non-comedian) public speaker Binghamton has had on stage in years. This is what’s embarrassing about Snooki ‘ not that we’re paying her, it’s that we haven’t paid anyone else. We didn’t even have a real commencement speaker last year.

In comparison, SUNY Buffalo ‘ in many ways equivalent to BU ‘ has this crazy little thing called a Distinguished Speakers Series. In the past five years, UB has hosted Al Gore, Kofi Annan, Tony Blair and (seriously) His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since the Series’ inception in 1987, UB has hosted two presidents, three Pulitzer Prize winners, four Nobel Laureates and Carl Sagan.

And we’re all getting excited about a semi-literate, off-color dwarf from outside Poughkeepsie? Oh well. It’s not like we’ve had anything else.