Opinion

Opinion

April showers

By Managing Board | April 25, 2013

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.

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Opinion

PARTING SHOT: My final roll

By Katie Urban | April 25, 2013

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.

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Opinion

PARTING SHOT: Turning the page

By Matthew Cameron | April 25, 2013

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.

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Opinion

PARTING SHOT: Fitting in and growing up

By Abbi Sigler | April 25, 2013

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.

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Opinion

An honorable alliance

By Luis Ortiz | April 25, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Twist and shout

By Managing Board | April 25, 2013

Upstairs, the Board discussed the University’s budget in dry, even tones. Downstairs, protesters shouted and clapped.

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Opinion

Emerging from the ashes

By Russell Bogue | April 24, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Trial by fear

By Forrest Brown | April 24, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Combating the bystander effect

By Anna-Sofia Olesen Yurtaslan | April 24, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Ask your TA

April 24, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Eastern promises

By Managing Board | April 23, 2013

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.

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Opinion

It does not take a village

By Sam Novack | April 23, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Abortive measures

By Fariha Kabir | April 23, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Retaining knowledge

By Alex Yahanda | April 23, 2013

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.

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Opinion

An open letter to President Sullivan

By Melanie Snail | April 23, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Making a public ivy

By Managing Board | April 22, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Overarching powers

By Walter Keady | April 22, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Bullet points

By Meredith Berger | April 22, 2013

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.

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Opinion

Sweet serendipity

By Kelly McCoy | April 22, 2013

For some of us, serendipity means being able to attend our Friday classes safely because we chose not to go to school in Boston. For some of us, serendipity means having our elementary school experiences not be clouded by the terrors of Newtown, Connecticut. For some of us, serendipity means returning home safely from our study abroad experiences. For some of us, serendipity means being mentally, physically and monetarily able to study at the University of Virginia. And yet for all of us, serendipity means waking up each and every morning.

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Opinion

Forget the price tag

By Ashley Spinks | April 21, 2013

Money in politics is undesirable because we don’t want our legislators obligated to anyone but their constituents. We hope that when our Congressmen are casting a vote on important pieces of legislation, such as the gun regulation bill the Senate voted on April 16, they are concerned with what is the best idea for the largest number of people. They should not be worried about pleasing corporations or interests groups or ensuring their own re-elections — they should be thinking about how to keep people safe or protect their rights.