Does this have any far-reaching consequences?  I feel like we were on 1.6 for a reason.  I know that on the Janeway side Swing code would have a completely different interface on 1.7 or some such.

Even if it's kosher for the core, consider potential student confusion if we're juggling different Java versions in different projects. (I'm all for getting our stuff upgraded, but it may be beyond the scope of this PR).