To be considered one of the top players in college tennis, winning the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championship tournament is a step in the right direction. Starting today, four tennis players from the Virginia men’s tennis team hope to take this step.
Four of Virginia’s top players — senior Dominic Inglot, junior Houston Barrick and sophomores Sanam Singh and Michael Shabaz — were chosen by coach Brian Boland to compete in the Tulsa, Okla. tournament. The four athletes were selected based on their experience and the fact that “they are incredible leaders,” Boland said.
The tournament consists of singles matches, in which all tournament participants compete, and doubles matches that, while not including all tournament participants, will feature Virginia’s athletes.
For Shabaz and Barrick to enter the main draw, they must win their individual preliminary matches. Inglot and Singh, however, do not have to qualify, having been automatically put into the draws based on their high ranking. The top seeds are placed first, with the remaining players added around them.
Shabaz is looking forward to this weekend and to the opportunity to prove his talent in the national limelight.
“The All-American is one of the biggest college tournaments in the country,” Shabaz said. “I am excited because it is my first year playing [in the tournament]. I’m playing well right now, so hopefully I can make a run to get to the main draw.”
On the doubles side, Inglot and Shabaz will be playing together. This past weekend, in the Ranked Plus One Invitational in Charlottesville, they won their first tournament together this season in the A-3 flight, even though it was Inglot’s first tournament after recovering from an injury.
“I am also excited about doubles because me and Dom [Inglot] have a good shot of going deep into the tournament,” Shabaz said.
Singh and Barrick will be playing as the other Cavalier pair. In last week’s Invitational, the pair made it to the A-1 flight final before losing 8-5. This summer, they won the doubles title at the ITA National Summer Championships.
Singh and Barrick “have had incredible highlights so far,” Boland said. “They deserve a lot of credit for the success they’re having.”
All four Cavaliers have the unique chance to prove themselves against some of the best tennis players in the nation at the tournament.
“They should gain an incredible amount of confidence at the level they are playing at,” Boland said. “They know they can play against the best players in the country and match up well against anyone.”
The tournament is long — more than a week in length — but Boland does not see this as a problem, noting the increased opportunities the players have for developing their skills during a long tournament.
“They guys are going in with a great amount of confidence,” Boland said. “They have all shown tremendous development as players. It will be a lot of fun for them and they can do some great things out there … It is good for them to go out and get better each day, and the performances and results will take care of themselves. Each will have to focus on improving, and they’ve done a great job at that.”
The entire Cavalier team will not play in Charlottesville until Nov. 6, when it will host the ITA National Indoor Championships at the Boar’s Head Sports Club. Many of the players the athletes face in November will be familiar faces from the All-American tournament. When the team’s leaders return from Oklahoma, they should be able to advise their teammates on what to expect in the coming month.

The Cavaliers are not only taking on the Terrapins on the football field this Saturday. The No. 10 Virginia field hockey team (10-2, 1-0 ACC) is set to take on No. 1 Maryland (9-1, 2-0 ACC) at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the University Hall Turf Field.
The Cavaliers, after rebounding from a tough loss to Boston University and trouncing Richmond 7-1, are now looking to win their second ACC match of the season. It will be no easy task, however, as Maryland enters the match ranked second in the nation in goals per game and third in goals allowed per game.
The Cavaliers can “never take a second break mentally or physically,” senior goalkeeper Amy Desjadon said. “We need to mark everybody. We need to just play balls to the wall. We can’t ever hesitate for a minute [because] when you hold your breath for a second, they are going to put one in the cage.”
Virginia enters the match with more offensive corners per game than Maryland. If this trend continues Saturday, it could help the Cavaliers, allowing them more scoring opportunities while putting Maryland on the defensive. The trick would be turning those opportunities into goals against Maryland.
“We have been practicing corners at the end of practice,” senior midfielder Lucy Meyers said. “We do so many corners.”
The Cavaliers will need all the scoring chances they can get against a tough Maryland team containing an important offensive weapon. Sophomore forward Katie O’Donnell, who was voted last week’s ACC Player of the Week for the second time this year, has been a key component of the Terrapin team this season. O’Donnell has 12 goals and 11 assists on the season. Her scoring assets have also come in handy at the national level: O’Donnell has been a member of the US Senior National Team since 2005. At age 16, she became the youngest player ever to earn an international cap for the U.S.
“I don’t know if you can handle great players like that, so it will have to be a total team effort,” coach Michele Madison said. “A team defense is going to have to shut them down.”
Virginia’s high-press system has been very successful so far this season. Virginia has outscored its opponents 42-14 during its 12 games. Freshman midfielder Paige Selenski has tallied 11 of those goals, including two against Richmond Wednesday night.
The Cavaliers know they must keep the Terrapins on their toes; any lapse in the speed of the game could be disastrous.
“Passing instead of holding on to the ball was a big thing hanging over our heads, but they looked really good [against Richmond],” Desjadon said. “Looking up and passing the ball quickly [is vital] because it’s hard to keep up with a team that passes. Maryland is a good defense but our offense is pretty quick; if we keep passing it, it’s hard to keep up with the ball.”
The most important factor in this game is more obvious, however, in Madison’s eyes.
“We have to score more goals than Maryland,” she said.
That will be easier said than done against a team of the Terrapins’ caliber. A victory against Maryland, however, would likely do wonders for Virginia’s goal of advancing deep into the NCAA Tournament.

The Cavaliers came out ready to defend their home turf last night against the Wolfpack. After two straight weeks on the road, Virginia defeated N.C. State in a 6-0 bludgeoning, securing its first 3-0 conference start since 2005.
Freshman forward Lauren Alwine scored a goal in the 38th minute and then assisted junior midfielder Jess Rostedt in the 40th minute to give Virginia (9-1-1, 3-0 ACC) a 2-0 lead against the Wolfpack (8-4, 0-2 ACC) going into halftime.
“We’ve been in positions before where we’ve been up two-nothing and we haven’t put teams away,” coach Steve Swanson said. “So that was a challenge that we put forward to [the players]: Let’s see if we can put them away; let’s see if we can score some more goals here.”
The Virginia players answered that challenge in the second half with four more goals from four different players.
Alwine also garnered two more assists to give her an ACC-leading 10 on the season.
“I like assists better than goals,” Alwine said. “It’s a good feeling creating them and setting my teammates up. But it was good to get a little bit of both tonight, though.”
Sophomore forward Meghan Lenczyk hit the back of the net for her ninth goal —  five of which have been assisted by Alwine — to become the lone leading scorer of the ACC.
“Those two have seemed to go on their own kind of page early, which has been great for us,” Swanson said. “I thought they both did a good job coming off the bench when the game settled in a bit and gave us a spark.”
Rostedt, a 2006 All-ACC honoree, made her first start of the 2008 season after missing much of last season because of injury.
“When you are on the field you are actually contributing,” Rostedt said. “On the bench you are contributing too, but it just feels good to actually play with the girls on the field again.”
After taking seven shots in 50 minutes against Florida State last Thursday, Rostedt scored her first goal since the 2007 season opener.
“It felt really good, especially at Klöckner, since I started playing two games ago we’ve been on the road a while,” Rostedt said. “It’s good to be back at Klöckner.”
Undefeated so far this year at home, the Cavaliers will travel away from Klöckner Sunday to face coach Hershey Strosberg’s Clemson squad. Strosberg is in his first year at Clemson (4-4-1, 0-1-1 ACC) after leaving his seven-season assistant coach spot at Virginia last year.
“From my perspective, our players have to understand it’s Clemson we’re playing,” Swanson said. “Obviously we know a couple people on the sidelines there. They know us quite well; they know our personnel. At the end of the day, it’s going to be 11 players against 11 players.”
With a win Sunday, Virginia would remain at least tied at the top of the ACC standings with North Carolina.
“Our depth showed tonight, which was nice,” Swanson said. “As you do in every ACC game, you have to be ready to play. We’ll enjoy this for now, but we’ve got a big game Sunday.”

When thinking of dominant college soccer programs, North Carolina might come to mind. The No. 12 Tar Heels are enjoying yet another successful season and are sitting pretty at 8-1-1 (1-1 ACC). The Virginia men’s soccer team will travel into the lion’s den, Chapel Hill, to face the Tar Heels tonight.
The matchup will be the second straight ACC road game for Virginia 5-3 (2-0 ACC), which is undefeated in ACC play.
“I’ve challenged [the players] to think of the ACC as a new season,” coach George Gelnovatch said. “UNC is another hurdle [in that season]. They’re a good team, talented and the game will be at their place, which is always a difficult place to play.”
This year has seen the return of North Carolina to national prominence after the Tar Heels suffered a disappointing 2007 campaign. The Heels have already surpassed their win total from 2007 in just 11 games. Probably the biggest factor in North Carolina’s success thus far is its team mentality on offense. Eleven Tar Heels have scored goals. Furthermore, not only do North Carolina’s players share the ball — they also make up a high-octane offense. The Heels recently dropped in eight goals in a shut-out victory against East Tennessee State Sept. 27, a total that is still the highest single-game goal tally in the NCAA this season.
Although North Carolina shares the scoring wealth, two players stand above the pack: junior forward Eddie Ababio and senior forward Brian Shriver. Each has scored seven goals this season, and Ababio leads North Carolina in total points with 18. The experienced forwards will present a challenge for Virginia, because either player is capable of taking control of a game. Freshman forward/midfielder Alex Dixon is also a dangerous presence who has scored four goals in his first 10 collegiate games. In the mold of Virginia freshman forward Chris Agorsor, Dixon is an electric and quick player who will undoubtedly be difficult for Virginia to contain.
The Cavaliers spent this week preparing for the Tar Heels and their threatening offense, freshman forward Tony Tchani said.
North Carolina is not the only team playing well as of late, however. Virginia is on a three-game winning streak and has earned big victories against N.C. State and Virginia Tech during the past two weeks. Tchani has been a key figure in Virginia’s recent success; he leads Virginia with seven goals, 16 points, and has scored four goals and added two assists in Virginia’s last three games.
Junior goalkeeper Michael Giallombardo has also had the hot hand of late. After taking over for sophomore goalkeeper Dan Louisignau, the junior keeper has allowed only one goal in his first three games. Giallombardo’s play in goal, combined with the Cavaliers’ winning streak, has given Virginia some much needed confidence heading into tonight’s game.
“Although we lost two games to begin the season, we have felt good about ourselves all year,” Gelnovatch said. “We’re finishing our chances now and we’re really starting to come together.”
Tonight’s game is likely to be a grit-it-out conference game. Both teams are playing very well and will look to take an early-game lead in order to put away the other. Whichever team comes out on top can be sure of one thing: It will have an impressive victory to add to its post-season tournament resume.

The ban on signs, banners and flags at University sporting events was repealed yesterday in a statement issued by athletic director Craig Littlepage.
“The policy prohibiting signs, banners and flags in all U.Va. athletics venues has become a distraction and has taken the focus away from supporting our student-athletes,” Littlepage stated in the release. Rich Murray, associate athletics director for public relations, said Littlepage would have no further comment.
Before the repeal was issued yesterday afternoon, Student Council, ‘Hoo Crew, and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee encouraged students to participate in a Power of the Students Night at Scott Stadium at tomorrow’s football game against the University of Maryland. The protest was designed to express those student organizations’ disagreement with what the athletic department deemed a move necessary to promote a “positive gameday environment,” while still showing their support for University football players. The planned protest encouraged spectators to wear blue rather than orange, thus preventing them from contributing to the Sea of Orange, an idea encouraged by the athletic department since 2003.
Littlepage, according to the statement, encourages all University football fans to wear orange to tomorrow’s game in support of the Cavaliers.
Council President Matt Schrimper, meanwhile, said he was “ecstatic about the repeal” and noted that it occurred quite “unexpectedly,” given the fact that the repeal occurred just 15 hours after the protest was announced.
Similarly, ‘Hoo Crew President Kevin Dowlen said he was “completely blindsided by the news” of the repeal and felt that the “values of the University prevailed.” He said the repeal was one of the most unexpected events of his time at the University and noted that he was glad “students rallied behind a cause.”
Schrimper noted that the proposed protest for the game against Maryland has been called off and has been deemed no longer necessary because of yesterday’s decision. He also said Council is now looking forward to working with ‘Hoo Crew and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee to carry out the sportsmanship initiative initially proposed Wednesday as a possible exchange tool for the lifting of the sign ban.

University President John T. Casteen, III dedicated Ruffin Hall, the first building on Grounds to house studio arts programs exclusively, to the late Peter and Adeline Ruffin yesterday afternoon. The ceremony marked the completion of the $25.9 million project that began in November 2006.
Ruffin Hall was largely funded by a $5 million donation from the Peter B. and Adeline W. Ruffin Foundation.Peter B. Ruffin was a graduate of the University, a sponsor trustee of the Darden School from 1964 to 1973 and a charter member of the Lawn Society.
Casteen opened the ceremony, and remarks were also given by Elizabeth Hutton Turner, University vice provost for the arts; Lawrence Goedde, department chair of the McIntire Department of Art; and Meredith Jung-En Woo, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. The speakers praised the new building and its offerings, many of which were not readily available before Ruffin Hall’s construction.
“The faculty asked for a building that would be a community of workshops,” Goedde said. “Ruffin Hall is exactly that community.”
The building was designed by Schwartz/Silver Architects of Boston, which “worked very closely with faculty members in the art department” to create a functional building that suits the unique needs of the University’s studio arts programs, Casteen said.
The newly dedicated Ruffin Hall has three floors and features a gallery on the third floor that will display works by contemporary artists. The building also offers studios for new media and cinematography, two areas that did not previously have studios elsewhere on Grounds.
The art department has about 100 students who declare studio art as their major, a University press release stated, and about 400 students take classes in studio art every semester. The expanded facilities in Ruffin Hall should help meet a demand from students that “continues to outstrip what we can offer,” Woo said.
“I’m really excited about this particular building,” she added, explaining that the new building is a reflection of the University’s dedication to “the full depth of academic inquiry.”
Woo also noted the significance of the building’s completion.
“Today, the artistic richness of the University has taken an important step,” she said.

The pressure many University students feel to sign a lease now for housing next year is a significant issue, Student Council President Matt Schrimper said, and as a result, Council is looking into collaborating with Charlottesville City Council and local landlords to bring about reform.
Council also hopes to work in conjunction with the University to address concerns about early lease signing, Schrimper said. He noted that the University continues to move its signing date for on-Grounds housing earlier each year, acknowledging that it is in a “tough position” because of competition from off-Grounds housing. Pressure from multiple sources to finalize housing arrangements for the next academic year as early as October affects all students, but primarily hurts first-year students, Schrimper said.
“First-years are not prepared to sign a lease a month after arriving at the University,” Schrimper said. “Even if they are prepared, the likelihood is that they haven’t found a group of friends [they really want to] live with.”
Third-year Commerce student Betsy Frentz, for example, said “it’s pretty ridiculous” to have to sign leases so early, especially for first-year students. She noted that she has heard stories about students who had signed housing leases early in the year and ended up not wanting to live together by spring.
Third-year College student Mike Bradshaw, meanwhile, also said the early housing process stressed him out as a first-year student because he was just settling into college. He noted that first-year students usually do not know all of their housing options because they “don’t have a feel for what’s out there,” adding that it is nice for them to have a couple extra months so they can see more of the off-Grounds housing.
With stories like those in mind, Schrimper said Council has created a three-year campaign designed to combat the pressure students feel to sign leases early into the school year. The first two years of the program will focus on educating students regarding their housing options, he said. In the third year, the campaign will ask students not to sign leases in October. The program, called “Don’t Sign It,” is in its first year.
“We don’t have dramatic expectations [for the campaign], but it’s the responsible thing for us to do,” Schrimper said.
Student Council’s representative to City Council, Colin Hood, meanwhile, said Council will propose a resolution to City Council Monday night regarding housing. He said the idea came from the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin—Madison, where students lobbied their city councils to pass an ordinance that would require a 90-day waiting period after a lease began before landlords could begin advertising for new tenants for the next year or ask the current tenants to re-sign their leases.
Hood noted that if Council passed the ordinance, students could see tangible results next year.
Wade Apartments General Manager Wade Tremblay, though, said in recent years, the increased use of early lease agreements cannot just be attributed to real estate managers, noting that students also play a role in the issue. He attributed the pressure to sign early to peer pressure, adding that about two-thirds of University students live off Grounds and want to live in the same properties occupied by their peers.
“Fifteen years ago, most of us didn’t begin marketing our apartments for the following year until after Christmas, largely because students didn’t start asking until after Christmas,” he said. “Then we started to see students nibbling. They wanted to lock things up.”
Early signing is typical of college towns because leases are taken fairly quickly, University Heights Leasing Consultant Trevor Hall said.
First-year graduate Commerce student Karishma Desouza, who also attended the University for her undergraduate degree, said she was glad to have signed a lease early so that she could concentrate on job interviews and school work.
“It’s the free enterprise system working exactly as it’s supposed to,” she said. “The important thing for us it that we respond to the marketplace, and students are the marketplace, and they want to secure housing earlier.”
Schrimper, however, said the pressure to sign early also comes from the rental companies in the area. He also noted that this is an issue that Student Council has tried to address for several years.
“We’ve asked the landlords to move back [the signing] date, but it’s never productive,” he said.
University Off-Grounds Housing Manager Vicki Hawes said the pressure is two-fold.
“It’s the chicken or the egg thing,” Hawes explained. “There’s a lot of peer pressure … and the advertising is saying, ‘Sign your lease now.’ It’s a feeding frenzy.”
Second-year College student Rachel Neurohr said although she has not signed a lease yet, she has already started looking for off-Grounds housing. She said she feels pressure from many sources to find housing soon, citing the housing supplement published in The Cavalier Daily and the housing fair held in Newcomb Plaza Wednesday as examples of housing being pushed to the forefront of students’ thoughts.
This early signing ritual is a “self-reinforcing cycle,” according to Commerce Prof. John Wheeler: Students want to sign leases earlier to beat the rush, and landlords are willing to let students sign earlier. Thus, he said, the issue continues to compound itself every year.
He also said, however, that there can be advantages to signing a lease early in the school year.
“With inflation, rent is [going to] go nowhere but up,” he said, adding that if students can lock in the current prices before inflation is factored in, the cost will be cheaper.
Wheeler also noted that student-led efforts to bring about change within the student population can be difficult to implement. He said the concept of a tenants’ union, designed to support students renting property, has succeeded at other higher education institutions but has never been implemented successfully at the University.
“The trouble is that students through the year have tried to bind together and have a students’ union to counterbalance the landlords’ economic power, but it’s never gotten very far at U.Va.,” he said. “Students just don’t ever seem to cooperate very well, organize and stick to it.”
Furthermore, Wheeler said, Council’s Monday proposal may face legal difficulties. He noted that the commonwealth’s Dillon rule prohibits localities in Virginia from doing anything that the General Assembly has not specifically told them they can do. He added that even though City Council might support such an ordinance, if it does not have that authority specifically granted to it by the General Assembly, the students would have to take their case before the General Assembly to persuade lawmakers to grant City Council the power to pass the ordinance.
“It’s a great idea, but it’s maybe a long road and one that’s very hard for students to follow through with,” Wheeler said, noting that changing a state law often takes several years.
He also noted, however, that the University is often able to see laws passed in the General Assembly that are beneficial to its constituents.
Hood said the city’s attorney is currently looking into the legality of the proposed ordinance,
Regardless of the outcome of Monday’s proposal, Wheeler said University students have other options. He cited a practice often used in commercial real estate in which renters agree to pay a certain amount to the landlord in exchange for the landlord not leasing the property for a certain period of time. Renters are free to consider other options during this time and at the end of the timeframe are not obligated to sign a lease but still have the option available.
Wheeler said while he has never seen this practice used in the student housing market, it is a legal option.
The concerns, moreover, could resolve themselves to some degree. While many students said they feel pressure to sign leases early in the fall to secure their preferred housing, a number of realtors agreed that it was possible to find housing in the spring, as well. Hawes noted that 4,000 bedrooms have been added to the housing market over the last four to five years within a 1.5-mile radius of the Rotunda.
“The market is going to settle out a little bit because we’ve added so many bedrooms recently,” she noted.
Tremblay, meanwhile, said this surplus of apartments is a benefit to students, noting that “to a degree, it’s a buyer’s market.”
He added that the housing that tends to be leased first are units that house four or more students. These units tend to attract undergraduates, who usually sign earlier than graduate students. Many graduate students do not know whether they will attend the University until the spring or summer months, at which point they will look for available housing, Tremblay said.
“One thing that’s important to understand … is to make sure that all the students understand this is not a conspiracy,” he said. “Really, this is a response to their demands. If they want to sign early, that’s their decision. If they want to wait, there’s plenty of housing.”

The University Board of Visitors’s Building and Grounds Committee voted to approve the proposed restoration of Pavilion X and two Lawn rooms in its vicinity yesterday. University Architect David Neuman said the proposed changes, scheduled to begin in spring 2009, are the result of thorough research and will help restore the building to its original condition that existed until the 1890s.
Some alterations to the pavilion were made in past years because of water damage or the addition of modern accommodations, Senior Historic Preservation Planner Brian Hogg said.  A study was undertaken to ascertain the original design of Pavilion X and the two student rooms, Neuman added. The results of the study outlined several items to consider for the planned restoration.
Among the preliminary recommendations for the restoration of Pavilion X are the restoration of the attic parapet, which involves the construction of a timber frame, according to the report released by the architect’s office. The parapet originally stood on top of the pavilion, but the roof was modified after leakage was discovered more than 100 years ago, Hogg said.
The report also states that it might be beneficial to remove the south elliptical windows because they were installed in a “somewhat crude manner” and because they “alter the original fenestration pattern in an unhappy way.” The report also notes, however, that removing the windows in this manner would eliminate natural light from entering the stair hall unless portions of the addition are removed to let light in.
The appearance of the columns outside will also be changed by the restoration efforts. Neuman and Hogg said all of the pavilion’s woodwork and columns will be restored to their original color.
“There will be a subtle difference in color,” Neuman said, noting that the paint will be a slightly off-white color, as opposed to the much brighter “white-white paint” now in use. He said the brighter white color could not be made in the 1820s and is thus anachronistic in nature.
University Board of Visitors member Susan Dorsey initially questioned the difference in color between the current Lawn buildings and the proposed renovation of Pavilion X. Neuman acknowledged that a difference will exist and also emphasized that all of the proposed changes will be fully reversible.
Hogg, meanwhile, noted that though there will be a noticeable contrast between Pavilion X and the other Lawn structures, the changes will hopefully begin a furthered conversation about Jeffersonian architecture and the Lawn in general.
“It was all unified originally, and it should be unified over time,” Hogg said. “Having it be patchwork would be wrong, but what we are trying to show is the original appearance, and … it’s a prototype for a discussion.”

What is the overall mission of the [Frank] Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy?
The mission is to prepare people for public service. It’s a professional school, although it will have a bachelor’s degree major, which will be more in the liberal arts tradition. But the graduate programs are professionally oriented toward … public service, although that’s broadly defined to include not just government activity, but non-profit activity and even private activity. The donor’s goal, I think, was to inspire younger people to become innovative leaders in their communities, and he’s very concerned about the desire to see young people very much committed to the public good in whatever career tracks that may advance them. The leadership piece has to do with that emphasis on innovation and new ideas. He wants to see people who engage their communities and advance them.
 
What are your goals for the Batten School in the coming years?
We’re in the second year of the one academic program that we have going, which was actually developed prior to the gift. Right now, I guess, until the founding dean is hired, which will be shortly, our emphasis has been in mounting this new program and learning from the experience, doing it as well as we can, and preparing it to be one of the foundation stones of the new school.

In what ways will the new dean help to achieve these goals?
It’s [both] an enormous challenge and opportunity for the new dean. He will need to, number one, begin hiring a faculty. There will be joint appointments to be hired with other departments in the University. There will be additional staff members that will have to be brought in. And there will need to be new programs developed. We will, in addition to the current program, we will have a free-standing two-year [Masters in Public Policy] plan.
We have a rather small, selective, undergraduate major to develop. We have courses that are planned for offering to undergraduates that won’t lead to a degree in the Batten School but we want to make available a series of courses students can take where they are open-enrollment courses. And we’ve also talked about an emphasis in … foreign affairs and perhaps down the road a mid-career program. The dean will also need to begin developing research agendas, perhaps picking out three or four particular areas that we want to identify the Batten School with in a research capacity. There’s also public relations work to do and external relations. So, it’s a big job, and the dean will come in to as close to a blank slate as possible. So, that person will have a lot of latitude in shaping the school.

How are you working to promote the school and recruit students?
The current program is limited exclusively to U.Va. students. For example, we [had] representatives at the [Professional and Graduate School Fair]. We have a session Oct. 22, [at 7 p.m.] … where we invited any first-, second- or third-year [students], and we will have some of our students there and make a brief presentation and outline the process of application. We’re working with the admissions office. We’re working with the Office of African-American Affairs. We’re doing everything we can. Every year we do a little more. And, of course, we have a little more word of mouth now. It’s building very nicely.  

How are you recruiting faculty to the Batten School?
The current faculty [is] drawn primarily from the current University departments. Then we have a couple of faculty members who are working at this point just for the Batten School on a course-by-course basis.  

What are some classes that will be available to students at Batten?
[In the fifth-year program], there’s a policy history course that I think is quite popular right now. There’s a course that [Law School lecturer] Fred Hitz is teaching that really is a look a leadership through a historical lens. [Religious Studies Prof.] Jim Childress and [Law School Prof.] Richard Bonnie are going to teach a course second semester on ethical issues in policy and leadership.

When do you plan to open the school and what still needs to be completed in order for it to be ready on that date?
Well we had hoped that five years might be enough. That still may work, but things are going a little bit slower than our original view of it. I would guess that once the dean is here — and I’m guessing we will have a dean in place next summer — I would guess the school would be close to its full capacity [five years after the dean is hired].  

Where do you see the Batten School in five years? In 10? In 25?
Well I guess two aspirations we have for it within the complement of comparable schools of public policy … we hope to see it among the very top schools of its class. Secondly, I think the hope is that [the leadership facet of the school’s curriculum] will become a distinguishing feature. We will be seen not only as a school that turns out technically trained people but also people who will actually be real leaders in the public domain and in the communities where they work and live.

For most of this week, we have been discussing the important role the student member of the Board of Visitors plays and how that position can be made more effective. There is, however, another group of people on Grounds who are also profoundly affected by the Board’s decisions, yet have no formal representation on the Board. The University’s faculty should have a permanent non-voting representative to the Board, as students do.
The faculty are currently represented on the Board by a consulting member who sits on three committees: the Educational Policy Committee, the External Affairs Committee and the Special Committee on Diversity. Faculty Senate President Edmund Kitch said he will serve as this representative during the current Board meeting. This position was created in June 2007 to allow a greater faculty voice on the committees that are relevant to the faculty.
Faculty certainly already had some avenues by which their opinions were communicated to the Board. Their opinions hold more sway with the University president, who helps to formulate the Board’s agenda and make recommendations about policies it should pursue. One would also imagine if the Faculty Senate or even an individual faculty member were to take the time to contact Board members in advance of meetings and express concerns, those issues would be taken up at the next meeting. Kitch said he imagined a faculty member could even gain an opportunity to speak with the Board simply by requesting it of the rector.
Still, allowing a consulting member at some committee meetings is an improvement over the past system. The consulting member, however, is not a formal member of the Board. Unlike the student member, the consulting member is a member only of the committees on which he sits. Some members of the faculty are not satisfied with this arrangement. “That’s partly a reaction to the fact there’s a student member,” Kitch said. They feel the interests of the faculty are as crucial to the mission of the University as the interests of the students, and faculty thus deserve the same formal status for their representative.
Students are designated a permanent seat on the Board, which is filled each year by a different student. The advantage to having a full-time member of the Board is that student serves as a sort of moderator. Rather than having students approach the Board directly or having the Board contact student leaders for their opinions, the student member can synthesize student concerns and present them to the Board. A faculty member could do the same for faculty concerns.
In fact, one would imagine a faculty member could be even more effective than a student member. Students have an incentive to see the position of Board member as a resume-padding opportunity. They gain strong connections with influential people in their term, giving them good reason not to make any Board members upset. A faculty member would not have such an incentive, making him perhaps an even stronger advocate for faculty concerns — concerns that often align with those of students. A faculty member would also not be limited to only one year on the Board, making his understanding of the Board and the University community that much more insightful.
More importantly, such a position would send a strong symbolic message that the University recognizes its primary role is in cultivating scholars, whether they are students or faculty. If the University is to attract first-rate faculty, it must take care of the faculty it has.