As a member of the press, I will be the first to tell you — the press is not your friend. This is especially true if you attend the University of Virginia, where the story of President Teresa Sullivan’s botched ouster, handled with all the grace of Janet Jackson’s historic Super Bowl dance, haunts our hallowed Grounds even a year later.
Only by looking at multiple perspectives can we really begin to understand what it means to live and study here in Charlottesville.
After spending six months in Houston, Texas last year, I was really craving a great Charlottesville cupcake.
We spend our entire lifetime trying to figure out how to live. As college students, we pull all-nighters to make better grades to get better jobs to make more money to improve our quality of life and “live better.” Your train of thought may not exactly follow those lines, but in general, that’s pretty much how it goes.
This spring break I spent eight days in Brazil with the Seeds of Hope trip, a much-needed departure from my life in Charlottesville and the anxieties and fixations that accompany it.
Sleep upstages food, water, and shelter among my primal needs. Seriously though, this business of calling 2 a.m. an “early bedtime” is absurd. I aim to land in my bed somewhere between 11 p.m. and midnight — and by 11 I actually mean 10:15 p.m.
There was a little bit more color than usual around Grounds last week. If you looked hard enough, you could spot the small squares of pink, red, orange and green that added subtle springtime decorations to some libraries, hallways, and even a few bathroom stalls.
Astrophysics major and Christian girl share little in common.
In mid-January, the revamped Jefferson City School Center held its opening ceremony and official rechristening at the site of the 90-year-old Jefferson School, a historically rich building that previously housed the first site of racial integration in Charlottesville.
As the pain of the fractures from my biking accident eased throughout the spring semester of my first year, I retained a healthy fear of moving vehicles.
There’s something oddly comforting about studying in a cubicle. Perhaps these are just the crazed ramblings of someone who has been inside looking at book pages for too long, but I haven’t been able to shake this thought for a few weeks now. What once was a sad, drudging plod to Clemons has become a ritual.
It’s the beginning of March and in a few days I will be boarding a plane headed to Key West, Fl. It’s my first “college spring break;” the first time my final destination has been somewhere other than home in Gloucester.
!["Like many scholars and practicing writers who also teach," writes Lisa Russ Spaar, "I do so because I loved being a student and am grateful for the ways in which teaching invites a lifetime practice of intellectual, creative rigor and (re) visiting texts in fresh ways." Described by colleague Michael Levenson as a "teaching legend," Spaar is praised by students for giving them "new ways to think about poetry and the recurring themes of love, death, truth, beauty, God and time."
A former student writes, "She expected us to move fluidly between critical and writerly lenses. In this way, Professor Spaar not only supported my developing sensibility as a writer, but also as a young scholar." English department chairman Jahan Ramazani summarizes: "Lisa Russ Spaar is a stunning teacher, one of the very best at the University and quite possibly anywhere in the country."
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“Is courage artifice? / As though to answer were within my means,” Lisa Russ Spaar writes in her poem, “Midas Passional.” It is this characteristic acceptance of the unknown that has set Spaar apart from many of her colleagues.
Whenever I play the classic “random fact” icebreaker game, I always manage to surprise people with one fact.
When my sister Jennifer was born nearly 20 years ago, I didn’t quite understand the concept of having a sister.
It’s been a couple months since I’ve seen my parents, but this past weekend they came to visit me.
Every phase of my life has come and gone with certain eating woes I only later learned to appreciate. Once upon a time, all I had to do was sit in my high chair and watch people act like idiots to get me to open my mouth.
Without any way to circumvent the point, I’ll go ahead and write bluntly. An old friend died this weekend.
1. The texter: I don’t know what it is, but during my semi-annual, once-every-never workouts I always come across this guy.
