ABOUT a year and a half ago, partly inspired, I believe, by my frenzied attempt to find direction for the rest of my life, I wrote a column advising students like me to be pro-active in the quest to declare a major.
AHH, THE fraternity party. It has become the ultimate symbol of the debauchery possible in a parent-free environment.
THESE MONTHS away from academic strains have made me particularly cognizant of the fact that the University offers endless outlets for student involvement through service and leadership.
"WE WILL be friends forever." "You are going to be a bridesmaid in my wedding." "We will never lose touch." My high school senior book is flooded with comments like this.
SO YOU'RE not from Virginia. Welcome to the Thirty-five Percent Club, because only about 35 percent of us come from somewhere outside of the Old Dominion, which is one of Virginia's nicknames.
ON THEIR way to class many incoming first-year students might be surprised by the multitude of nationalities represented by the University's changing population.
THE STUDENT experience: "So you're going to U.Va
"WE HAD an honor system at my high school, but then everyone kept cheating and it went away." These are the words I heard from a group of incoming first years as I was introducing the University's honor system to them earlier this summer.
FOR THREE years I have been writing for this paper, and for three years I have been giving the same advice in my annual mail-out column.
As an institution dedicated to the critical enhancement of the mind, a university should provide a unique arena for open dialog, freedom of thought and the unfettered debate of all controversial ideas.
THE AVERAGE student spends nearly one and half of their four years here at the University partaking in one single activity: sleep.
IHAVE a confession to make: I am an engineer. Yes, they really do let us write (occasionally). All joking aside, welcome to U.Va.
THOMAS JEFFERSON said a lot of things. And a lot of them are written down on the books, buildings, papers and walls that make up his university.
"C'MON AMEY," he said. "You know you don't belong at U.Va." Um, excuse me? Stunned, I interrogated him as to what exactly he meant by that.
LAST WEEK, the world was saddened to learn of the deaths of two conjoined Iranian twins connected at the head.
ON MONDAY The Justice Department rebuffed a six-month-old order from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to allow Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," access to another imprisoned member of al Qaeda.
LIVING the privileged lives of University students, it often -- if not always -- proves easy to forget the world outside of the "U.Va.
THE VERY core of the government of the United States of America is under attack. These attacks are not coming from disgruntled citizens or terrorists from another country, but from the nine judge council that sits at the head of the judicial branch of our government.
GOOD NEWS, everyone. The Supreme Court has upheldthe use of race in college admissions. Whew, for a minute there I thought I'd come back to school in the fall, and everyone would be white. Because that's what would happen, right?
DURING April of last semester, the James Madison University Board of Visitors voted 7-6 in favor of a controversial motion that banned the distribution of the "morning after" contraceptive pill in JMU-affiliated health centers.
