On my seventh birthday, I received a birthday present from my parents that I will always cherish. This birthday gift was not a toy, a doll, or an awesome Game Boy that most “90s kids” asked for. It was a book of Aesop’s fables.
By virtue of my position on the staff, I conducted research for The New York Times Magazine, stayed in the Rotunda until 2 a.m. waiting for the Board of Visitors to emerge with a decision that failed to reunite the University community, and sat in a courthouse listening to a video recording of George Huguely recounting how he killed Yeardley Love, while the real Huguely wept into a tissue 30 feet in front of me. I also spent far too much time in Newcomb basement with some of the people who are my best friends. I can’t find a single theme that threads through this rollercoaster of experiences, but each was exciting in its own way and each helped to cushion the other blows of these past few years, like the morning I awoke, dazed, to find my foot broken and my friend hospitalized. I would hardly be arrogant enough to call myself an “adult,” but I am no longer a child.
Each year brings changes in the University’s intellectual landscape. The academic makeup of a school is contingent upon the students and professors it attracts and retains. This community is nothing more than the people who are a part of it and the ideals that shape it. These ideals, from student self-governance to honor, require continual buy-in from students, faculty and staff. The semester’s end reminds us of this contingency. We’ve weathered a year together — and in the fall, we’ll do it all again, somehow.
This column marks my final roll. It’s the last time my name will appear in this paper and the last time a piece of my writing will be — digitally, of course — rolled up and sent to the printer. Even though my career of writing columns and attending final rolls ends here, this paper will march on long after I am gone because it is bigger than me, bigger than anyone else writing a parting shot this week and bigger than any of us combined. And that’s just one of the reasons why I have always loved this paper — even when it had that terrible masthead featuring Thomas Jefferson’s bust.
Many people don’t realize that The Cavalier Daily is more than just an extracurricular activity: It is a student-run business. The five students on the managing board are charged with running the paper’s financial, legal and editorial affairs, and there are no professionals, faculty or other “adults” at the newspaper to offer assistance.
And somehow, after those first two experiences, I wasn’t fired or even politely asked to find a place I may better thrive. It wasn’t by some miracle, but by the fact that the editors took an interest in getting to know me and helping me to be better. They were people who took a chance with me and took the time and effort to help me improve. This is what I love about The Cavalier Daily.
On Monday night, the Cavalier Daily published an article to highlight the failed attempt by the Office of Dean of Students and the Honor Committee to engage the Hispanic community in dialogue about the honor system … The Latino Student Alliance cannot be held responsible for this failed event.
Upstairs, the Board discussed the University’s budget in dry, even tones. Downstairs, protesters shouted and clapped.
No two terrorist incidents are the same, and many of the errors in judgment that have followed in the wake of national tragedies can be blamed on people drawing too many connections between attacks. However, I think it is useful to remember how our nation reacted to 9/11 in order to see how far we have come in terms of facing terrorism on our soil.
There is no benefit to treating terrorists, whether they be enemy combatants or domestic criminals, differently than any other defendant in our criminal justice system.
We often respond to the brutality of physical violence, because it is easily noticeable, but structural violence is overseen due to the way it is invisibly integrated into our social structures. Yet structural violence is just as damaging as physical violence to a community, and is affected far more by the bystander effect. It is too easy to be apathetic about the negative effects produced by societal institutions, because we are so habituated to the system that we are blinded to the damage it is doing. Though some may think it is a bit dramatic to call instituting a living wage a matter of life and death, it certainly has a significant impact on the health of workers.
I’m Trudie, your friendly teaching assistant, and I’m here to help. Sure, you might think, what does a TA have to offer in the world of advice? Well, I’ve seen quite a bit in my time. And believe it or not, I was once just like you. That is, before I went to graduate school.
Though Schwarzman says he was inspired by the Rhodes scholarship program at Oxford, the Schwarzman scholarship lacks the Rhodes’ intellectual flexibility: the program’s founders seem more interested in creating statesmen than scholars, which may limit the level of prestige the program attains and narrow its applicant pool. But students lucky enough to nab a scholarship will still enjoy a superior academic experience, including an immersion into Chinese culture and instruction in Mandarin.
The movement to push children, or at least the responsibility for rearing those children, from parents and families is one that echoes more radical regimes.
The Virginia Board of Health gave final approval last week to a new set of regulations on clinics that perform abortions. This issue has been live since 2011, when the General Assembly decided to tighten the standards abortion clinics are obliged to meet. The Board of Health had initially decided to exclude existing clinics from having to meet the regulations but changed its mind because all 19 clinics in Virginia renewed their licenses last year. Those clinics are now being treated as new clinics and must abide by the new regulations, which primarily mandate architectural changes such as wider hallways like those usually found in hospitals.
For STEM fields overall, around 40 percent of graduate students are foreigners. And those percentages are constantly on the rise. Yet with the current number of H1-Bs, many soon-to-graduate foreign students will not be able to remain in the U.S., even if they want to. The U.S. is therefore using much of its higher-education system to benefit other nations when it could be using much more of the intellectual capital American schools generate. We are squandering talent that we could easily retain.
Last year, a close friend of mine was raped by a fellow student. She bravely decided to take action through channels offered by the University, but the University process proved fruitless and, in fact, subjected her to the same kind of humiliation and indignity that she had suffered only a short time before at the hands of her rapist. Her case is only one example of the profound injustices that many rape and sexual assault victims face here at the University because their school has failed to protect and support them.
The Williamsburg school unveiled a new tuition and fees structure Friday. The operational model, dubbed the “William & Mary Promise,” resembles the high-tuition, high-aid approach many selective private institutions, including most ivies and Ivy League equivalents, employ.
Paul’s argument — that no citizen should be subject to a drone strike without first being accused of a crime and without a proper trial — is in response to the prospect of drone strikes on U.S. soil exclusively. Paul contended that drone strikes on American soil give the government undue power. This concern should allow apply to American drone strikes abroad.
Last Wednesday the Manchin-Toomey amendment, which would have required background checks for all commercial gun sales, received just 54 of the 60 votes it needed to pass in the U.S. Senate. The legislation’s supporters argued that the bill would have been a helpful preventive measure against gun violence. While I understand this perspective, it is important to see how the legislation would have affected United States citizens negatively.
