Rethinking Student Aid, a group of higher education policy experts, published its findings Thursday regarding two years of meetings about simplifying and improving the federal financial aid system.
The report focuses on improving both financial aid and the student loan system, said Rethinking Student Aid member Kathleen Little, senior executive director of College Board Financial Aid Programs. The proposals stand on seven core principles that emphasize clarity and predictable availability.
“The most important thing is that the proposals are comprehensive and integrated, and all are designed to meet a particular national goal and all support the seven principles that we came up with,” Little said.
Although the report has only been available for a few days, Little said the proposals have been met with both enthusiasm and concern. The most important thing, however, is that the proposals are sparking a dialogue that will hopefully lead to change, Little said.
University Financial Aid Director Yvonne Hubbard expressed a similar sentiment, noting the findings offer a starting point for debate.
“What I love about this [process] is that it is the beginning of a discussion,” Hubbard said. “People are going to have problems with it … but it begins the conversation.”
The proposals suggest basing eligibility for Pell grants on readily available IRS data on families’ income tax returns, rather than the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
This proposal has sparked concerns about the IRS’s willingness to take on the responsibility of providing information on families’ tax returns, Little said.
“I think they [the IRS] are not excited about the idea, but they will do it if Congress tells them to do it,” she said.
There is also the possibility of an oversimplification of the process, making it unable to account for the more subjective differences between family situations, Little said, adding, “we really worried about that a lot.”
The proposals also suggest the establishment of a loan-repayment system that abolishes government payment of subsidized loans for students still in college. Loan payments would increase as graduates’ incomes increase, with a backup plan available for those unable to make payments.
The proposals also suggest a new government system — likened to Social Security — that would create savings accounts for children from low-income families that would ultimately be used to pay for their college education. Little explained that this would allow families to plan further in advance for their children’s education. Some higher education experts, however, worry this may put pressure on an already strained federal budget.
In examining how these proposals could affect the University, Hubbard noted “it’s years away until we see any action off this.” She added, though, that the reports add to the dialogue that marks the beginning of the next congressional reauthorization of financial aid.
“We’ll study this and be part of the conversation as it goes on,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard also stressed President John T. Casteen, III’s commitment to improving financial aid and noted that the University has been promoting the simplification of the loan process for some time.
“This report follows us, rather than us following it when it comes to loans … that conversation is one we’ve been leading for a while,” Hubbard said.
The proposals may open the doorway for discussion that would facilitate changes, making financial aid options simpler and more available, Hubbard said.
“People don’t think college will be affordable,” Hubbard said, “so they are not encouraging their students to prepare for college.”

Though some students may believe the practice commonly described as “Facebook stalking” is limited to their own generation or potential employers, a Kaplan survey has found that social networking profiles are also sometimes reviewed by undergraduate and graduate schools’ admissions offices.
Ten percent of the 320 undergraduate admissions officers in Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions’ survey reported they had looked at the profiles of applicants to help them make decisions about applicants. The rates for their counterparts in business, medical and law schools were 9, 14 and 15 percent, respectively.
The survey involved one admissions officer at 320 of the top 500 colleges during July and August, according to Glen Stohr, Kaplan director of pre-law programs.
Stohr noted that there may be some significance in the higher rate of monitoring by law school admissions officers.
“I think one of the reasons you see more of this for law schools is that they almost never do face-to-face interviews, like [medical] schools and MBA programs,” Stohr said. “The other side of it is that in the legal profession, as you’re getting ready to pass the bar, your character is evaluated rigorously by the bar association.”
Officials at both the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Office of Law School Admissions said their officers do not actively search through social networking Web sites.
“It’s very rare that we would have the time to look at something like that,” College Admissions Assoc. Dean Greg Roberts said.
Moreover, Roberts said, his office does not put much stock in those sites because he believes many students tend to exaggerate on their personal Web sites.
“There are some things that are alarming, certainly, but we wouldn’t take them at face value,” Roberts said. “We would go to the student or school first, but in the end, we want good students and good people, so you never know if it could make a difference.”
Jason Trujillo, senior assistant dean for admissions and financial aid at the Law School, said his committee does not actively monitor students’ social networking profiles for information contradicting what is in their applications. He added, however, that the practice will not necessarily be ruled out in the future.
“I would advise students to be careful about anything that they put online,” Trujillo said.
Regardless of the policies of individual institutions, however, the potential monitoring of Facebook and MySpace profiles by graduate schools proves to be an issue of concern to University students, some of whom consider this practice an invasion of privacy.
“The use of Facebook and MySpace profiles to determine the outcome of admissions to graduate school is an unfair practice,” first-year College student Robert Denney said. “But because the information is publicly posted online, they can use it.”
Nevertheless, such information should not be used to rule out a potential applicant, Denney added.
Fourth-year College student Tracee James also expressed some discomfort with the practice.
“I think that graduate schools’ use of Facebook profiles, if they can get access to them, could be an invasion of privacy,” James said.
This type of monitoring could be helpful to those whose profiles “reflected qualities and characteristics that were not expanded upon in their application,” she said, but harmful to those whose profiles portrayed an incomplete picture of the applicant or reflected an undesirable trait such as extreme dishonesty.
“Overall, it really brings up the question of how Facebook users use their profiles,” James said.
The issue of honesty in particular was, Stohr said, one of the most important factors for those law schools who had monitored applicants’ online profiles during their evaluations.
“Law schools understand that young people make bad decisions at times, but … that doesn’t make you a bad character,” Stohr said.
Stohr said 52 percent of law school admissions officers who had monitored social networking profiles said what they saw had negatively impacted the applicants’ chances of admission, but noted that other factors remain much more important in the admissions process.
“Seventy percent of law school admissions officers said that the LSAT is the single most important factor in evaluating an applicant’s admission to law school,” Stohr said. “Social networking at this stage is so new and has grown so explosively that it’s sort of like the Wild Wild West for admissions, and it’s not likely to do a lot to get you in, but it could be something that gets you out.”

Prashanth Parameswaran lauds fact-based reasoning in his column dismissing the efforts of the Amethyst Initiative to encourage renewed consideration of the legal drinking age (“Drunk beyond reason,” Sept. 18), but he provides us few facts and poor reasoning. If Parameswaran had more truthfully represented the group’s point of view, Cavalier Daily readers would know that the evidence is not as clear and one-sided as he claims.
For example, while Parameswaran points out that binge drinking rates among college students declined following the increase in the drinking age, research cited on the Amethyst Initiative’s Web site shows that drinking declined among Americans of all ages during the same period. This suggests that the correlation he points to may not be caused by the policy change. Other findings cited by the group indicate that between 1993 and 2001, dangerous drinking behavior by college students who did drink (including frequency of drunkenness and drinking to get drunk) actually increased. The reasonable conclusion here seems to be that the picture is more complex than a linear relationship between drinking age law and behavior might imply.
Noting that alcohol-related traffic fatalities among 16- to 20-year-olds dropped greatly after the drinking age increase, Parameswaran brags that he “could go on and on,” but rests his case because we presumably “get the point.” But wait a minute: Might not the introduction of airbags during this period and the general improvement of vehicle safety have accounted for a lot of the change? We can’t tell, because it’s assumed that all the difference is attributable to the change in the law. Yet one study cited by the Amethyst Initiative showed that Canada and several European countries actually had greater overall reductions in traffic-related traffic fatalities than the United States did in the decade following the age increase.
I hope that Parameswaran, and President Casteen as well, will realize that there are indeed some “facts on the table” and that applying sound logic to them, we might see that a change would do us good.
Matthew Meyer
GSAS

In her recent column (“Tilting the playing field,” Sept. 17), Amelia Meyer seemed to have discovered a most unfortunate reality — rich people have opportunities available to them that poor people don’t. Specifically, students from wealthy families can afford to hire college consultants and hence be more likely to get into a good college.
However, the statistics Meyer cites have little to do with her point. Yes, more kids from wealthy families than from poorer families go to college. But, did all those families hire consultants? Have there been any “natural experiments” providing a sample of low-wealth and high-wealth students with counselors and seeing how their acceptance rates compared? Perhaps this is too involved for a newspaper columnist. But the following question is an elementary one: How do college entrance rates compare, among wealthy students, between those who hired a consultant and those who did not? Meyer asks neither question.
But even more important is the complete lack of clarity in Meyer’s analysis. She first suggests universities should discount the effect of a consultant on an application. Perhaps that is somehow possible. But to do that in a non-arbitrary fashion, one needs answers to the questions I ask above. Not pausing to ponder this quandary, Meyer then suggests that private college consultants (yes, those, whose effect should be discounted) have to be made available only to students who “need” them rather those who can afford them. How are we going to implement this? Pro bono work? More funding for the College Guides program? A law against rich people seeking consultants? All I wanted to see was a suggestion. Again, Meyer is silent.
This is an interesting topic which poses difficult challenges. As a reader, I had hoped to learn something more factual than my conjecture. I am no expert in this area, but, it seems, neither is Meyer. The difference is — I don’t write columns about it.
Vadim Elenev
CLAS IV

University students may not find a marching band particularly novel, but for a couple of French filmmakers, the subject holds significantly more intrigue. French filmmakers Pierre-Nicolas Durand and Helena Cotiniere are in the process of making a documentary featuring the University’s marching band, with the goal of giving their European audience a glimpse into the lives of American college students during the current presidential election, Durand said.
Durand said the project was inspired by fellow French filmmaker Claude Miller’s earlier observation of the Virginia State University’s marching band playing at a football game during his visit to America a few years earlier. Miller was so interested in marching bands, Durand said, that he requested Durand and Cotiniere, who have experience in making music-related documentaries, make a film about American marching bands.

Two schools, one message
Although the filmmakers were impressed with VSU’s marching band, Durand said, they wanted to include more than one band in their film to get a more complete story. While visiting the University of Virginia, Durand said, he was impressed by the University’s size, history and reputation as one of the best schools in the United States, and thus decided to feature it as the other university in the film. Durand said it was “very interesting to find two universities where there was a huge love and commitment to the marching band.”
The decision to feature two marching bands was to get a deeper and richer understanding of marching bands, rather than to make a comparison between the universities. Fourth-year College student Theo Smith, one of the Cavalier Marching Band’s four drum majors, noted, however, that the University’s marching band may be very different from those at other universities, including VSU. While the marching bands at other universities may be very old and established, Smith said that because the University’s marching band is only in its fifth season, it is “still forming and creating traditions.” According to Duran, however, the film tries to present a unique and diverse American perspective, without judging or directly contrasting the different schools.
Durand added that because of recent disagreements between France and America, he hoped to make a film that showed this American perspective in a positive light.
“I want people to smile and laugh and love [the United States] when they are watching this documentary, and not be thinking about the Bush administration,” he said.
He added that marching bands present a fun glimpse into American culture and life.
“In France we don’t have marching bands at all,” he said. “We decided to make a documentary about them [because] a marching band is a way to try [to] know the American view.”
Durand noted the university system in France is very different from the American system. Unlike American schools, French colleges do not have sports teams or athletic scholarships, he said.

The “rah-rah” rhythm of American politics
According to Media Studies Prof. Paul Wagner, “a lot of [documentary filmmaking] is just curiosity about the world.” Documentaries such as Durand and Cotiniere’s, he added, serve to transport people into another world.
While the documentary follows two marching bands and their members, Durand said the real story focuses on American youth.
“[France and the rest of Europe] are interested by young people [in America],” Durand said, noting that the people in France have a lot of exposure to American culture. “It’s definitely a musical movie and a social movie, but we are very interested in how the students see the world and their home country.”
Durand also noted that the current presidential campaigns are a source of some of this interest and serve as a backdrop for the film.
“The political aspect is like a rhythm,” Durand said. The political situation “is a way for us to show the time … the conventions, speeches and Election Day [are] like a rhythm.”
Smith said the documentary will parallel the “pomp and circumstance of the marching band as it relates to the presidential election.”
While Americans may not necessarily make a connection between marching bands and the presidential election, both events have aspects that are unique to America that the French may see and connect to each other, Wagner said.
“On this side of the Atlantic, it’s like, ‘What’s your point?’” Wagner said. “It may be a little obscure for Americans, but if you’re French or European and generally think these are typical American phenomena, you may connect it with a ‘rah-rah’ pop culture.”
Durand said that not only is the election an important milestone for Americans, but the people of France closely follow U.S. elections, especially the presidential race. The French are particularly interested in this year’s presidential contest, Durand said, because they are hungry for change in the American political system. In his opinion, the election of the next American president is more important for the world than the election of the next French president, he noted.
Durand said the filmmakers asked the marching band members questions about what they thought of candidates’ debates and filmed a group of students who met to watch Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in August.
“We film them in their life because it’s a way to hear about some American values, like family and the economy,” Durand said.
For example, Duran said, he has heard many complaints from students about rising gas prices. The filmmakers will likely travel with a student who goes to fill up his or her car at the gas station and ask him or her about the gas situation, he said.
Durand said he was interested in comparing the commitment students have to the upcoming election with their “huge commitment” to music by participating in the marching band.
“In France, people vote for sure,” Durand said, noting that while most American students he encountered are engaged, a few said they don’t care about politics.
Although the documentary is not primarily about the presidential race and does not show a bias toward either Obama or Sen. John McCain, “everything is political in a way,” Durand said.
Wagner also acknowledged that documentaries are not expected to be balanced in the same way that the news media is because they are associated with personal expression and unique points of view.
“A marching band is about young people, and young people are the future of their country,” he said. “It’s their political race, too.”

On a personal note
The makers of the documentary began filming the Cavalier Marching Band during band camp and stayed through the first week of practice and the first home game against the University of Southern California, said drum major Bryan Myers. After filming these events, the crew went to VSU to film its marching band, Myers said.
Smith noted that the filmmakers will continue to film the marching band throughout the semester and will return in January after the election has concluded to “try and gauge students’ reactions.”
Myers said the film crew focuses mainly on the culture of the marching band and the lives of students who participate in marching bands.
“During band camp, not only do we rehearse, but we do nighttime activities like Olympics or scavenger hunts,” he said, adding that the film crews have been present at these activities as well as the formal marching band activities such as games and rehearsals. He also noted that the film crews have tried to capture how the marching band creates friendships that exist off the field.
Smith added that the film is “trying to get a sense, holistically, of what marching bands are about,” including their leadership, hierarchy and organization.
Myers noted that the filmmakers had interacted on some level with all 250 of the students in the marching band during their visit.
Basing the documentary on the people involved in the marching band instead of just describing the marching band allows the filmmakers to capture the human interest aspect, Wagner said.
The audience “can relate to the person and through them come to know and feel and experience the themes” of the documentary, he said.
Myers further noted that while the filmmakers did ask political questions, they were “not aiming to have it be like an interview, but to capture what we do in the normal course of our daily lives.”
Durand said once the documentary is complete, he hopes to present it at an upcoming French film festival. Due to space limitations and editing decisions, the final product will include only a small portion of the footage the crew shot, Wagner said.
“It may be one-tenth or one-twentieth or one-hundredth of what they actually shot that actually ends up in the film,” Wagner noted.
He also said documentaries are a “complex mix of artistic and business” elements because the makers must also market their final product to the audience who will view it and the sponsors who will support them.
Durand said he has a specific message he wants the audience to take away from the film.
“We really want to show a positive side of America,” Durand said, adding, “it’s very important because it’s true.”

Ellen
First-year College student

What extracurricular activities do you participate in?
I play cello and guitar. Also sports like lacrosse, tennis, racquetball and running; art and Christian groups.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Go to shows, listen to music, eat food, art projects, take photos, swim and do things outside.
What are the physical and personality attributes you are looking for in a date?
Taller than me (5-foot-6), not too skinny and not too fat, confident but not cocky, funny, driven, happy, interesting and interested in me!
What are your religious affiliations?
I love me some Jesus! Non-denominational Christian.
What are your favorite TV shows?
“The Office,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Scrubs,” “Project Runway,” “Weeds”
What are your favorite movies and actors?
“Rushmore,” “Into the Wild,” “Amelie,” “Bella,” “Donnie Darko,” “Life is Beautiful,” “The Kite Runner,” “Mystic Pizza,” “The Graduate,” “Groundhog Day,” “Stand by Me,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Dan in Real Life,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “Never Been Kissed,” “The Painted Veil” … anything [directed by] Wes Anderson or with Natalie Portman.
What music do you like (genres and bands)?
Acoustic, folk and indie rock … Sufjan Stevens, Bob Dylan, Iron and Wine, Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, The Beatles, The Dodos, The Shins, Bright Eyes, Damien Rice, Jose Gonzales, Joni Mitchell
Are you outgoing or shy?
It depends. I can be quiet, but also very outgoing.
What do you want to do when you graduate?
Teach high school in Italy! Travel all around, write and make music.
If you were a member of the circus, who would you be and why?
I would be the cotton candy vendor, so I could eat all the cotton candy I want!

John
First-year College student

What extracurricular activities do you participate in?
Cavalier Marching Band, working out at the Aquatic & Fitness Center, and I’m signed up to attend ballroom dancing.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Hang out with friends, go out (on the weekends … work hard, play hard), playing cards or boards games (Cranium), work out at the AFC, watch good movies.
What are the physical and personality attributes you are looking for in a date?
Physically: a pretty face and an athletic body. Personality: someone who is outgoing, not embarrassed by her inner nerd, intelligent, has a sense of humor, and someone I could bring home to Mom.
What are your religious affiliations?
I was raised as a Roman Catholic, but I’m really not into religion anymore.
What are your favorite TV shows?
“Avatar: the Last Airbender,” “Firefly,” “Chuck,” “Good Eats” 
What are your favorite movies and actors?
“Sin City,” “Crank,” “Dude, Where’s My Car?” I’ll watch anything with Jason Statham in it. And of course you gotta go old-school Harrison Ford.
What music do you like (genres and bands)?
Alternative rock and feel good ‘90s. I’m talking about the songs that were on the radio when you were seven, and you get these warm fuzzy feelings when they come on. Third Eye Blind, Smash Mouth, Cake, Girl Talk.
Are you outgoing or shy?
Outgoing.
What do you want to do when you graduate?
I’d love to be working for an alternative energy source that is good for the environment but at the same time makes economic sense. 
If you were a member of the circus, who would you be and why?
I would be the fourth clown to get out of the car, ‘cause I’m the one you didn’t see coming.

Date: Sunday Sept. 14
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: The Virginian
John: We met pretty close to six o’clock, right outside of The Virginian. I was there a little early. I’m a first-year [student] and I just wanted to make sure I could find it, [otherwise] that would have been really embarrassing. 

Ellen: I walked down to the Corner, and he was standing outside, so I kind of figured that was him. I walked up to him and said, “Hey, are you John?” And he was like, “Yup.”

John: I thought she looked really cute. That was my initial reaction when she first walked up.

Ellen: He looked like a nice guy, but I was kind of worried he might be creepy. I told my sister right before I went that I was going on [the date] and she got really freaked out. And then she freaked me out. She was like, “Ellen, you shouldn’t do this. You should bring a friend.” I was like, “Um, I can’t!” I guess I was just worried that he might be really weird and hard to talk to.

John: In the beginning she wasn’t that outgoing. I would say I was the more outgoing of the two, but we were both in that awkward, beginning phase.

Ellen: We found out that we’re both first-year [students] and we talked about where we live, where we’re from, what we’re interested in studying.

John: We were making small talk. We were just saying, “Where are you from?”, “Where do you live?”, “What classes are you taking?” We really weren’t making any connections.

Ellen: It actually wasn’t that awkward.

John: It was a little awkward between us — it was very awkward. This was the most blind date possible, so it wasn’t even like we had any friends in common to set us up. I was really hungry, so I was like, “You wanna go eat?” She was like, “Yeah,” so we went inside.

Ellen: I ordered macaroni and cheese and he got a buffalo chicken sandwich.

John: It was pretty good. We were both talking about how nice it was to get out of O-Hill for a while and just be out on a date and exploring the Corner. It was something neither of us had really done too much. We talked about why we decided to sign up for the date.

Ellen: My friend Claire and I were bored one night so we thought it’d be fun to fill out the questionnaire — and possibly meet a nice guy and get free food.

John: She was laughing about it because she said her and her friend wrote almost the same e-mail. I guess they are similar in personality. But she got an e-mail back and her friend didn’t. That was kind of funny. [For me] it was the first Wednesday of classes and I had two discussion groups. We hadn’t met for either of the lectures, so they were both cancelled. It was raining and I was walking. I saw the flyer and I was like, “You know what? I can do this.” I ripped it off and then gave an e-mail.

Ellen: We kept the conversation going, talking about our lives and interests.

John: It wasn’t an exact match. Some of the music and movies we had in common, but honestly I forgot most of the stuff I filled in for the survey.

Ellen: He said he’s from a town called Sleepy Hollow in New York, so that was interesting. I’m from Norfolk, Va. He’s in the marching band and he plays saxophone, so that was kind of cool. That’s pretty much his life here.

John: After dinner we went to Arch’s Frozen Yogurt.

Ellen: He had never been to Arch’s before. He was nervous to order. I don’t know — he was confused [but] we got ice cream and we walked around.

John: The highest point of the date would be walking back toward Grounds and just trying to figure out why we were matched together and talking about movies and TV shows that we watched. We got a little bit more comfortable with each other and that was a lot better. We hung out outside her dorm and then she said she had to go do homework.

Ellen: Overall, I think he enjoyed the date. He didn’t seem like he wanted to end it, so that was good.

John: She was kind of reserved, I wouldn’t say shy, just a little reserved. She definitely opened up towards the end of the date. It was a lot of fun.

Ellen: I mean, we had a good time, but I don’t think I would try to hang out with him. I mean I guess if he called me I might hang out with him.

John: There’s definitely the possibility for more than friends. But I would have to say definitely at least friends, but I would have to see. I would like to see how a second date or just hanging out goes.

John friended Ellen on Facebook and she accepted. They have not talked since the date and have no plans to meet again.

At Saturday night’s seventh-annual Mead Endowment awards dinner, 10 University faculty members received funding for “dream” proposals to develop classes they would like to teach. The endowment also received a $777,777.77 grant from the Seven Society to continue funding such proposals in the future.
Ernest “Boots” Mead, a retired professor Emeritus of Music, attended the event surrounded by former students who established the endowment to continue his legacy of student-faculty interaction.
“It came about that Mead is beloved by decades of former students,” Endowment Chair Tom Darbyshire said. “A group of us had been talking for some time about doing something in his honor; endowing a chair, contributing to the wing of a building or putting up a plaque didn’t seem to be the right fit for what he meant to us.”
Darbyshire said there is a growing worry that meaningful relations between students and faculty are fading because of larger class sizes and pressure on faculty to publish, conduct research and win grants.
Darbyshire added that the goal of the endowment is to “help pass the torch from legendary faculty members like Mr. Mead to inspire the younger faculty.”
In the past, Darbyshire said, the Mead Endowment was only able to fund some of the “dream proposals” but this year, with increased funding, the endowment offered funding to all 10 of Saturday’s Mead honored faculty. Also, in honor of this year’s seventh Mead awards dinner, the Seven Society sent a letter announcing a gift of $777,777.77 to the endowment.
This year’s honored faculty were Asst. Chemistry Prof. Linda Columbus, Assoc. Psychology Prof. and Cognitive Science Program Director Alev Erisir, Assoc. Philosophy Prof. Mitchell Green, Assoc. Environmental Sciences Prof. Deborah Lawrence, Asst. Business Administration Prof. Mary Margaret Frank, Asst. French language and literatures Prof. Deborah McGrady, Margarita Nafpaktitis assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Assoc. Biology Prof. Ignacio Provencio, Assoc. Sound Design Prof. Michael Rasbury and Chad Wellmon, assistant professor of Germanic languages and literatures.
Rasbury, one of the Endowment’s honored faculty, said he was “completely honored” to be given the award. Rasbury said his dream idea was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s quote that “Architecture is ‘frozen music’” and said he hopes to explore the way sound relates to various artistic disciplines.
“My dream idea is to lead a multidisciplinary team of students through the process of developing a purely aesthetic and subjective method for converting an object into sound or music,” Rasbury wrote in his proposal. “What would a building sound like if the architect had been a composer using vibrations as the medium of expression instead of lines and shapes?”
Rasbury said he hopes students in his dream class will come to understand the similarities in the creation of all forms of artistic media.
One of last year’s honorees, Assoc. Religious Studies Prof. Heather Warren said the fulfillment of her dream class allowed her and her students to “get to know each other in ways we could never have dreamed.”
Through the endowment, Warren taught a class last spring about the history of pilgrimage, and she and her students completed a pilgrimage through the Appalachian Mountains to Katahdin, its northern peak, Warren said.
Mead said when he was a professor at the University, several rising fourth-year students approached him and asked him if he would be willing to get together in a small group to discuss issues and matters important to the students. Mead said he agreed, not thinking the students would follow through, but they did and he has been teaching the class ever since the early 1970s.
“Even when I formally retired as a professor in ‘96, students came to me that fall and said ‘When is the seminar?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m retired now,’” Mead said. “The students had no patience with that at all — they went to the dean, set up the seminar and I’ve been giving it continuously.”
Mead said he still offers the course during the spring semester and values the interaction with the students.
“What is terribly interesting about it is the independence students will show if you give them the opportunity,” Mead said.

A letter issued by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding affirmative action has recently been met with protest by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The OCR’s letter, released Aug. 28, 2008, states that higher education institutions may not consider race in college admissions unless it is “essential” to their “mission and stated goals.” If affirmative action is used, universities must justify the use to the OCR, which will apply “strict scrutiny” to admissions policies related to race.
According to the letter, OCR’s policy is that racial classification in admissions, specifically the use of quotas, is “impermissible”, citing the Supreme Court’s most recent decision on affirmative action, Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). Instead, universities may have general goals for a critical mass of students, said Anurima Bhargava, NAACP Legal Defense Fund assistant counsel.
In response to the letter, Bhargava said OCR was misinterpreting the Supreme Court’s decision by thinking the court is insinuating that the use of race in admissions should be a last resort.
“The Supreme Court is saying that institutions should give consideration to other alternatives, but that doesn’t take race off the table,” Bhargava said, noting that the court found diversity is a “compelling interest” of national importance that universities should prioritize.
Greg Roberts, University senior associate dean of admissions, echoed this statement, saying that the University practices affirmative action because it believes strongly in having a diverse student body. Roberts added, however, that this does not mean giving students points based on factors such as race, which the Supreme Court decision ruled out, but rather a committee format where applications are discussed among committee members, taking into consideration factors such as whether applicants are first-generation college students or international students whose second language is English.
“It’s not a formula or equation,” Roberts said. “It’s a holistic review considering all aspects of applications.”
Bhargava said the Legal Defense Fund’s main concern about the OCR letter is that “it hints at prohibition” by mandating justification of any race classification policies, making an already sensitive and difficult process even more complicated.
“What OCR is trying to do is create a chilling, intimidating effect on efforts to promote diversity,” Bhargava said.
OCR spokesperson Jim Bradshaw would not comment except to say that the letter should “speak for itself” and that it simply “represents our current thinking on the topic.” Bhargava emphasized the importance of diversity in colleges and universities, whether it is through affirmative action or other race neutral alternatives. which attempt to bring diversity into the student body without considering race.
“We want colleges and universities to have every tool that is legally permissible at their disposal to try and promote diversity in schools,” she said. “At a time when the high school graduation rate of students of color in many of our larger cities is 50% or less … it is imperative that we do whatever we can to make sure that we don’t close doors to students who want to and are more than qualified to be able to succeed in higher education today.”
University Admissions Dean John Blackburn stated in an e-mail that the OCR’s letter serves as a reminder that admissions officers may not be able to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions forever.
“Justice O’Connor said in her summary that we may not need to use race and ethnicity after about 25 years,” Blackburn said. “There is great debate about the timing, but for now, her opinion determines much of our policy.”
Blackburn also noted that a policy based on racial diversity alone “cannot stand.”
“Our policy [at the University] is based on many forms of diversity,” Blackburn stated, “including socioeconomic.”

Poll results released last Wednesday by the National Education Association’s Got Tuition campaign suggest higher education affordability is an important issue to many voters.
The poll, conducted from July 21 to Aug. 3,, involved 825 likely voters, including current college students, recent college graduates, individuals with student loans, parents of college students and Hispanics, NEA spokesperson Shilpa Reddy said. Almost 80 percent of respondents indicated they believe it is more difficult to afford college education now than 10 years ago, and 39 percent said they were making sacrifices to attend college or to pay for their children’s education. Seventy percent of parents involved in the poll, meanwhile, indicated they believe higher education affordability is an important issue.
“We even had some respondents that told us that they had to give up health care in order to afford college bills,” Reddy said. “Those were really telling statistics.”
Reddy said the poll results show that, in light of current economic troubles, college affordability will be an important issue in the November election.
“The rising costs of college are really putting higher education out of reach for middle-class families,” she said, but “the need for college education now is even more important.”
University Financial Aid Director Yvonne Hubbard agreed that affordability is a significant issue.
“It’s about the economy and it’s about our children,” she said. “You put those two things together and it becomes a very important issue.”
A number of University students view college affordability as an important factor in the upcoming election as well, including some who do not feel concerned about their own ability to pay the rising tuition costs.
“It doesn’t personally impact me,” third-year College student Annabelle Mangan said, “but it will affect my vote because I think it’s an important issue.”
On the other hand, college affordability directly impacts first-year College student Chris Savedge, who said the issue will be important for him “because [he’s] going to have to take out big loans for college.”
The potential for high student debt can often prevent promising students from attending college, Reddy said. And, for college graduates, lingering student debt may force them to delay buying a house or to choose a less-appealing career because it pays more.
“We know the benefits of higher education,” she said, “and it shouldn’t be [a] path to permanent or long-term debt.”
NEA’s poll was part of Got Tuition’s efforts to raise awareness about the issue of college affordability and student debt. The poll used a “blended methodology,” which involved both phone and Internet interviews.

I’ve been dating boys since I was in the sixth grade. I feel like I’ve come to know the ins and outs of dating pretty well over the past few years. Most things always stay the same … the butterflies in your stomach, the way your heart flips over at the first graze of hands. Granted, I no longer have to get my friend to give his friend a note to give to him saying “Do you like me? Check yes, no or maybe.” A couple other things have changed too. The biggest change for me has been the surge in popularity of a little Web site known as Facebook.
First, Facebook is obviously a crucial part of the beginning stages of a relationship. As soon as boy meets girl, girl rushes home to her computer to type boy’s name into her Facebook search, a practice also known as “Facebook-stalking.” Once his page is found — hopefully he hasn’t set his page to private — an intricate analysis of the boy’s Facebook page can begin. Some people can extract meaning from ancient Aztec languages, others from curves in handwriting. I can analyze every bit of a Facebook page.
If I’m mildly interested in the guy, I’ll just do a cursory look-over … interests, his profile pictures, the usual. Some dealbreakers for me:
1. Any more than five Facebook applications but an automatic dealbreaker if any one of them is LOLcats.
2. If the past 10 people to post on his Wall are all girls and each post says something to the effect of “great meeting you the other day, can’t wait to hang out again.” Player alert.
3. If on his Personal Information section, under Favorite Books he has “I don’t like to read.” As an English major and a book freak, this is unacceptable.
If he passes this first stage, we may begin to date more seriously bringing us to …
The dating stage of a relationship! Even here, Facebook plays an important role. Will he change his relationship status to “In A Relationship”? Even further, will he send me a relationship request, cementing me as a girlfriend? There’s nothing better than seeing your name as a link, directly to the right of his picture, for the whole world — and more importantly, all of the females — to see. God forbid he change his status to the dreaded “It’s Complicated.”
Now, even once you are together, Facebook can continue to affect your relationship. I was looking over my boyfriend’s shoulder one day as he surfed around on Facebook and I happened to see a message thread between him and an old high school friend. He was describing his new girlfriend — namely, me. The one word he used to describe me? Kooky.
“Yeah I have a new girlfriend. She’s kooky.” As in the word you use to describe your crazy, cat-loving aunt who knits and smells like carrots. So not cool. Some people may attribute this problem to the boyfriend who, out of all the words in the world, chose solely “kooky” to describe me. But no, I knew who the real culprit was: Facebook, yet again.
Last but not least, Facebook can meddle in a relationship even after it is over. If the two people in the relationship were optimistic enough to change their statuses to “In a Relationship” in the first place, they now must change the status, letting every one of their closest friends, extended family members and old acquaintances from middle school who they only spoke to twice but are still Facebook friends with, find out that they couldn’t make their relationship last. Even worse, once the two of you are officially over, you know that the one wall post that will show up first thing on his News Feed is the one from that cute new guy you met, asking you out for lunch next week. The ex calls you up to complain, and the problems just keep coming,
So Facebook, throughout the entire stages of dating, can be proven to be both a help (when trying to decide which boy to date) and a hindrance (every other time). I’m not proposing you do away with Facebook for good or try not to let it influence your decisions. All I can say is … at least it’s not MySpace.
Jordan’s column runs biweekly Mondays. She can be reached at j.hart@cavalierdaily.com.