Who is Matthew Branson, and what's an ombudsman? As the academic year gets rolling, and my weekly column makes its debut, I hope to answer both of these questions. I graduated from the University in 1996, and I am currently in my final year of law school at the University.
STUDENT Council has earned a new name: Stupid Council. It has placed such a strong priority on something it really cannot affect - eradicating the "Not gay" chant in the Good Ol' Song. First off, this is not to condone the chant.
FOR UNANNOINTED first years, the first few weeks of college are full of adventure and discovery.
SCHOOL is back in full swing. Classes have started, orientations are over and everything is settling down into a nice routine.
A FRIEND of mine recently stu- pefied me with a very pecu- liar question. He asked me, "Who is this Chandra Levy chick that everyone keeps talking about?" After asking him if he had lived the past few months under a rock, he explained that he had spent the summer in the Middle East in a study abroad program and obviously had been a little cut off from the ever-so-significant events of life back here.
EVERY year, thousands of colleges and graduate programs are ranked. Every year colleges and graduate schools complain that the rankings are unfair and do not clearly show which schools are better.
WITH EVERY new school year, an integral part of life at the University arrives: a new football season.
THE LIST is long and impressive: Secretary of State Colin Powell, Environmental Protection Agency Director Christie Todd Whitman, Pennsylvania Sen.
Tomorrow Secretary of State Colin Powell will not be in Durban, South Africa at the United Nation's World Conference Against Racism.
KUDOS to the Princeton Review, those infamous test-prep gurus in New York City. They have effectively created a set of rankings that no college actually wants to win.
SOMEWHERE out there, in a smoky, dimly lit room, there is a wild-eyed credit card company executive, fine-tuning his latest nefarious plot to drive college students to financial ruin.
THE WORLD finally has turned against Gary Condit. After months of knowing basically everything one can know about a Congressman's dating habits, popular opinion in America has swung decidedly against the Democratic representative from Modesto, California.
BEFORE I went to France this summer, I didn't really understand why a lot of Europeans think Americans are idiots.
IF YOU opened a newspaper or newsmagazine, listened to a radio or watched a television for any amount of time this summer, brace yourself.
VIRGINIANS are everywhere. From every corner of the state, they come with parents and siblings and even dogs in tow, having loaded up large vehicles with apparently everything they own.
CAMPAIGN 2000 introduced the nation to "fuzzy math" when it came to national fiscal policy. Now the phenomenon has crept across the Potomac, down to the executive office of the Capital building in Richmond.
WHETHER it's your first time moving in or your fourth, some things never change. Oppressive heat, carpet sales, U-Hauls and traffic jams quickly come to mind.
THERE is nothing more annoying than a driver on a cell phone. I think so, many professional comedians think so, and a majority of registered voters in New York think so.
AS ORIENTATION rolls around this year, I am reminded of one of my experiences from my first-year orientation.
UNLIKE some of the more vocal callers who appear on C-SPAN's television show "Washington Journal" - the political version of "The Jerry Springer Show" - I don't hold the belief that a vast left-wing conspiracy exists in the media.
