By Nika Madyoon

The topics of Senior Prom, Advanced Placement exams, and pending summer vacation plans were joined Monday by debates about an issue of much greater historical significance: the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

After President Barrack Obama addressed the nation Sunday night to announce bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals,  Facebook was flooded with students updating their statuses. There was a resounding enthusiasm and sense of triumph surrounding the matter, with occasional hints of skepticism and a few appeals to human nature asking whether any death is cause for celebration.

McAllister was watching “60 Minutes” at the time, and recalls that a story about a horse race was on when the program was interrupted with the announcement.

“I think it’s a big accomplishment, but I don’t think it will actually do that much since I think someone else is going to step up as leader [of Al Qaeda],” Ryan Blackwell ’12 said.

“I just don’t think anything that important really happened, unless this is the start to the ‘end of terrorism,’” he said. “Killing him is just an execution. We have to see what happens.”

“My first response was ‘Finally!’” he said.

Maddock was surprised to hear that bin Laden was hiding in a suburb in Pakistan, and noted that it took a long time for bin Laden to be located.

“It’s not an area of the world that we have that much access to,” he said.

Maddock said that students in the future will see the assassination of bin Laden as “an inevitable outcome.”