1. HOO: Tradition! Thomas Jefferson : Virginia :: Mickey Mouse : Disneyworld. Forget Cavman - TJ is our [unofficial] school mascot. Tradition plays a huge part in everyday life at the University. For example, despite a push from the athletic department to start wearing orange to our football games, many opt for the traditional "guys in ties, girls in pearls" attire. More than most colleges and universities, the University has a litany of traditions that ritualize the college experience, which explains why many alumni (those who drink the Kool-Aid) are so enamored with their alma mater. These traditions have a way of setting aside the ordinary and making the student experience at our University something special.\n2. BOO: Tradition!\nWhile tradition does give the University a sense of continuity and permanence, it has a tendency to foster a subculture that is introspective, reactionary, and sometimes oppressive. For example, the University didn't officially co-educate until 1970, after four women and the ACLU sued the University for gender discrimination. In fact, the administration was onboard with coeducation, but had not implemented reforms because the momentum of tradition held it back; alumni threatened to withdraw support and current students protested the idea. The Richmond Times Dispatch even records one student saying "If we let women in here in more than token numbers it would be the end of the University. The honor system would go immediately, if not sooner."\nIt may have been the end of the University as he knew it, but it certainly wasn't the end of the honor code. The trick (and hardest part) is piecing out which traditions are timeless, which need edited, and which need to stop. [And now the obligatory TJ reference...] Thomas Jefferson believed that the US Constitution should be rewritten every twenty years for the new generation, so it stands to reason that he would support the students of his University rewriting their traditions from time to time. Unfortunately, the University community often forgets that change is our greatest tradition.\n3. BOO: Our "community of trust" is dissolving into a community of silence and shouting.\nThe honor code is a big deal - and a big mess. Students love to talk about politics and religion - it's the honor code that's the real taboo subject in polite conversation around grounds. The subject carries a lot of emotional baggage for those who have experienced personal loss at the [metaphorical] hands of the single sanction, while many other students experience the benefits of the code daily. Despite calls for actual intellectual engagement and honest attempts at resolving the problems within the current system, discussions descend into disputes and little progress is made.\n4. HOO: Student self-governance.\nIn case you hadn't heard, students literally run all of the organizations around grounds from top to bottom without direction from faculty or administration. Thus, not only do students have the opportunity for unparalleled freedom in running and organizing these organizations, but they also gain valuable leadership experience that students at other institutions do not.\n5. BOO: Student self-governance.\nBecause these organizations are completely independent of the administration, there is a steep learning curve for inter-group coordination and institutional memory. Many organizations do not focus enough on training future leadership and therefore take two steps back before moving forward after executive transitions. Furthermore, these frequent transitions in leadership and the lack of a common physical space that organizations could share stunts inter-group interaction.\n6. HOO: The opportunity for real intellectual, social, and spiritual growth.\nSimply put, you can come into the University one person and leave a completely different individual.\n7. BOO: Worse than H1-N1: the dreaded "bubble" syndrome.\nThe University operates as its own autonomous society in many ways, independent of the outside world. When constantly surrounded by people your own age in an academic environment, it is easy to become disconnected from world events. The "U.Va.-bubble" becomes dangerous when it starts to breed apathy.\nFurthermore, there is an even bigger danger if you let your social bubble shrink within the University, which brings us to...\n8. BOO: The opportunity for intellectual, social, and spiritual stagnation.\nThe University is a big place and you will probably want to make it seem smaller; but beware of becoming complacent within homogeneity. It is easy to find and completely feed your social appetite in one of the University's organized, and typically homogenous, outlets (e.g. religious groups, the Greek community and organizations that mimic them.)\nThe problem is that if you shrink your social world to a homogenous population, you aren't getting a realistic view of the world and are not learning anything new
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