Opinion

Opinion

If you build it, will they come?

By Managing Board | October 31, 2013

So CSU has devised a plan: to build an on-campus football stadium that will lure better athletes, increase sports revenue and attract more out-of-state students. Or so administrators hope. This plan seems unconventional. But it is in line with a cynical philosophy that too many mid-tier schools have bought into: that the pathway up the U.S. News & World report rankings consists of fancy buildings and bigger stadiums.

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Opinion

CONNOLLY: Separate but legal

By John Connolly | October 31, 2013

I would argue that if a state were to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples that are equivalent in everything but name to straight marriage, this would be constitutional, and would not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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Opinion

BOGUE: Credit where credit is due

By Russell Bogue | October 31, 2013

Do we risk overwhelming students who come in with many AP credits and find themselves struggling in higher-level classes? Yes, of course we do. But that is a problem that can be remedied with higher standards for scoring on the AP tests. Perhaps a “5” should be more difficult to attain, or perhaps credit should only be granted for students who receive this top score. If the problem is lax standards, then the solution is to tighten those standards, not eliminate AP credit altogether.

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Opinion

WHISNANT: Public support

By Gray Whisnant | October 31, 2013

With real estate scarce in downtown Charlottesville, developers hope that by accessing the public housing units they will be able to demolish them and build condominiums and apartment complexes for wealthier tenants. This will result in higher profits for landlords, but it will come at the expense of displacing of existing public housing residents no longer able to afford their rent.

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Humor

HUMOR: Fourth-year trustees begin ‘one-fifth compromise’ initiative

By Chris Hutson | October 31, 2013

“My Wednesdays are basically a wash ‘cause I have to go out Tuesdays in order to handle all this stress,” fourth-year psychology major Ryan Molhauen pointed out. “And don’t even get me started on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays,” he added. “ I can’t get anything done four out of the seven days of the week because I have so much stress. Something is wrong here.”

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Humor

HUMOR: 19 signs you're a 90s kid

By Peter Simonsen | October 30, 2013

19 things only true 90s kids will understand…

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Opinion

At a loss

By Managing Board | October 30, 2013

Brown’s life differed from the lives that many students lead. He had a daughter, and had to contend with all the responsibility that comes with being a parent and holding down a job. But in other ways he was a peer as much as Schulman, Goldsmith or Gilliam was. He was a happy 22-year-old who drew smiley faces on Sbarro pizza boxes. He was like us. Our willingness to see Brown as someone alien, someone detached from our concerns, points to a failure of imagination.

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Opinion

YAHANDA: Don't stop believing

By Alex Yahanda | October 29, 2013

Competent adults are free to make autonomous medical decisions regardless of how they justify those choices. But when children are concerned, the distinction between paternalism and autonomy becomes less clear.

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Opinion

HAYS: Kick this can to the curb

By Gregory Hays | October 29, 2013

So what is The Can Kicks Back? It’s an astroturf (fake grassroots) organization with close ties to an outfit called Fix The Debt. And what’s Fix The Debt? Glad you asked. It’s the pet project of a Wall Street billionaire named Pete Peterson, who’s spent recent decades pushing for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Another Peterson-funded group is called “Up To Us.” It has similar goals — and a branch at U.Va.

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Opinion

KABIR: Freedom to disagree

By Fariha Kabir | October 29, 2013

The idea of academic freedom is a concept that naturally developed in the West; therefore, we need to be careful in applying it to other countries.

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Opinion

A Halloween history lesson

By Managing Board | October 28, 2013

The best colleges strive to prepare students to function in a pluralistic society, in which they will work and interact with people who are different from them. So censuring racist costumes is consistent with a college’s aim of preparing students for an increasingly globalized and multicultural world.

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Opinion

KNAYSI: Work smart, play smart

By George Knaysi | October 28, 2013

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention cites several of the biggest mental health and safety challenges facing college students on a daily basis. These include “social and sexual pressures, the temptation of readily available alcohol [and] drugs,” as well as stress from managing classes, friends, athletics and leadership positions. “Work hard, play hard” as a college lifestyle not only fails to effectively combat these issues but also usually worsens them.

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Opinion

BERNSTEIN: Pick one of the above

By Dani Bernstein | October 28, 2013

For the first time in the paper’s history, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has opted not to endorse a candidate in Virginia’s gubernatorial election. Not only is this a cop-out on the part of the paper’s editorial board, but the paper’s refusal to take a position on whom to vote for is irresponsible to its readers.

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Opinion

KELLY: Sit down, you're rocking the vote

By Conor Kelly | October 28, 2013

If you’re registered to vote here in Virginia, you may want to check again. The statewide process of removing incorrectly registered voters from Virginia’s voting rolls has been anything but smooth; errors have abounded, removing many correctly registered voters from the rolls.

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Opinion

The curious incident of the dog and the M.B.A.

By Managing Board | October 27, 2013

It’s hard to say what consultants do, exactly. (A Google search for “What do consultants do?” yields 217 million hits.) But friends who know Pete say that his consulting knowledge is limited, at least for someone with a graduate business degree. Although Pete’s views on ball sports, meat texture and cuddling are finely nuanced, he lacks expertise in a host of other areas. This is because Pete is a dog.

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Opinion

BERGER: Running on faith

By Meredith Berger | October 27, 2013

Growing up, I was never very religious, even after going to a Catholic all-girls school. Once I took the initiative to join Chi Alpha, though, my faith grew immensely in a short time and I found myself feeling accepted by them, despite my faith background.

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Opinion

SPINKS: Placing out of learning

By Ashley Spinks | October 27, 2013

Besides the fact that the skills necessary to succeed in AP classes differ from those necessary to succeed in introductory college classes, I found that the curriculums were not analogous. I covered a vast amount of material in AP Chemistry, but it simply was not the same as the information covered in general chemistry at the University. I have found time and time again that the understanding of historical events that I gathered from AP World History and AP Government is shallow or insufficient as well. My high school experience was not worthless — I obviously learned a lot and grew significantly as a person and a student. That said, I don’t think I learned the same information that introductory courses at the University have taught me. Thus, to grant me (or anyone else) credits would be misleading and undeserved.

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Opinion

FINOCCHIO: The truth hurts

By Peter Finocchio | October 27, 2013

Last week second-year College student and Virginia Young Democrats Political Director Jarrod Nagurka authored an article published by The Cavalier Daily rebuking Charlottesville’s sitting Congressman Robert Hurt for voting against the compromise measure which ended a 16-day government shutdown and blaming the shutdown entirely on Republicans. Jarrod’s opinion reflects the common narrative portrayed by the media and every card-carrying member of the Democratic party, but it is not at all an accurate depiction of recent events.

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Opinion

BROOM: Too little, too early

By Christopher Broom | October 27, 2013

Sometimes breaking news or news that is time-sensitive will require going to press with what is on hand in the moment. Then the charge is to build on that information and update the readers. When time allows, however, building the information should happen first.

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Opinion

FETZER: Truth or conspiracy?

By James Fetzer | October 24, 2013

As a long-time student of the death of JFK and a former visiting member of the University faculty in the department of philosophy, I was fairly astonished to watch Larry Sabato, Ph.D., a prominent member of your faculty, maintain to a national television audience that, even though the Warren Commission’s investigation was bungled, it correctly identified Lee Oswald as the “lone, demented gunman.”