Monday’s story about the honor referendum (“Honor Committee validates proposal for spring elections,” 2/9/09) put forward by Hoos Against the Single Sanction (HASS) is deeply troubling. Of all the organizations at the University, students should ask the Honor Committee to be the most faithful in interpreting its governing documents. Instead, HASS asked for a free pass to ignore the honor constitution.

A clear reading of the honor constitution’s amendment language indicates that adequate petition signatures must be collected to create a proposal. That proposal must be received by the committee two weeks before the election.

This provision was unquestionably not fulfilled. I would like to know why HASS, the University Board of Elections, and a handful of committee members think this rule should not apply to this referendum.

The committee does not operate in a vacuum. The political pressure of a few squeaky wheels in HAAS and the threat of “bad press” likely forced the committee’s hand.

It is a shame that HAAS has to bend the rules to get this referendum on the ballot.  No change to the honor constitution, especially one of this magnitude, should be advanced with this cloud of dubious constitutionality.

I am voting no to the referendum because of the lunacy of what it proposes: requiring the committee to fully investigate, try, and punish every trivial infringement and white lie.  Now, I am also voting no, because I think this laughable proposal should never have made it onto the ballot in the first place.

Seth Brostoff
LAW III

The Cavalier Daily’s lead editorial, “Self-involved,” (2/9/2009) highlights several serious misunderstandings that the writers must have about the new Civic Engagement Committee.

First, the Managing Board references Council’s “shrinking resources.” Yes, there are currently budget restrictions on all of our committees. However, some of the most successful committee initiatives have gone without the financial help of Council, including the Lighten-Up Campaign and the Community Garden. The only other resource Council draws heavily upon is student energy and effort, and there is hardly a shortage.

Second, the Managing Board fails to consider any notion of student self-governance by alleging that the committee is unneeded because of the Public Service Advisory Board. If this faculty-run Board wants to engage the student body in a meaningful way, of course they will need an additional mechanism for student involvement. Council offers the opportunity to reach a broad range of students, and the committee can function as an effective clearinghouse for the Board’s ideas and initiatives.

Finally, the Managing Board suggests that the current committees undoubtedly cover the issues that the committee would address. As co-chair of the Environmental Sustainability Committee, I beg to differ.

While it may be worthwhile to have members of each committee to consider ideas of civic engagement, it would be far more meaningful and efficient to have them focus their energy and attention, solicit additional student feedback and input, and develop their own projects and programs. This sounds like an excellent task for a Council committee, doesn’t it?

I would like to commend Jess Huang on her decision to validate the single sanction referendum for this upcoming election period. From my vantage point during Sunday night’s Honor Committee meeting, this decision represents the opinion of the majority of representatives on the committee. I think it is an admirably unbiased decision, especially given the controversial nature of the referendum. Her actions show a consistency with precedent and a willingness to listen to the 3,300 students who placed that referendum on the ballot.

It is a little unclear from the article on the honor referendum (“Honor Committee validates proposal for spring elections, “2/9/2009), however, it seems from the article that the main debate the Honor Committee has is that the language is unclear. If this is the case how could you possibly allow a constituency to vote on it? If this is a referendum that could take away the single sanction, a long lasting tradition at the University, shouldn’t it contain language that people consistently understand to have one meaning? Would we allow our state legislature to enact laws that aren’t consistently comprehensible to all voters? There are significant legal principles which specifically protect voters from voting on things where the language is uncertain. To simply let people “figure it out” is ridiculous, particularly when dealing with something which deals with potential expulsion of individuals from an institution of higher education.

Student Council is in the process of creating a new committee: the Civic Engagement Committee. This committee can be nothing except redundant because civic engagement refers to the involvement of citizens in their community and because Council itself is already a body of civic engagement. The University Unity Project is another avenue for civic engagement, intended to bring community members together. Council should focus its shrinking resources on this project before it begins new ones. It is also surprising that Council would choose to create a new committee at this time, with elections just around the corner. This committee may or may not be supported by the new Council and the current Council should not allocate resources to a new project with so little time left in its term.

Council currently has 11 standing committees and it seems unlikely there is any topic left untouched by these committees. According to Council President Matt Schrimper, the new committee will act on the ideas generated by its own committee members and the faculty-run Public Service Advisory Board. The Board is described by Schrimper as a think tank for long-term projects and a description on the University’s Web site describes the Board as “Students, faculty and staff working together to support public service and civic engagement.” There is no reason to create a committee for civic engagement when this Board already exists. Schrimper said because “Student Council has a budget” and resources, this new committee will help Council work to put the Board’s plans into action.

While it is true that Council has resources, these resources are quickly disappearing and should not be devoted to a new committee when all of Council’s previous initiatives have not been fully realized. The best example of this is the Unity Project. Of the Unity Project as a whole, Schrimper said that, “Community engagement is the not the centerpiece.” This year’s Unity Project’s specific goal, ‘Beyond our Grounds, Within our Community,’ highlights community engagement. While it is true that future Unity Projects may not have as much focus on community engagement, it would seem to be a central component to any Unity Project’s success. According to Council’s Web site each year’s Unity project “will call for a collective focus on an issue that concerns every student.” It would be difficult for the student body to collectively focus on something without engaging in the community.

At the end of its term, Council should not be creating new long-term initiatives. Instead, Council should be evaluating the success of current initiatives in the past year so as to make recommendations to the new Council about whether all the current initiatives should be continued. Council is undermining their successors by starting a new project with a shrinking budget.

It will also be difficult for the committee to find an issue that the current standing committees do not cover. Council itself is designed to get students involved in whatever aspect of the University community they are passionate about and another committee does not need to be created to get students more generally involved.

The creation of this committee will only be a drain on Council’s resources and in that sense will be a detriment to the many other initiatives Council has already committed itself to. With a new Council to be elected soon, the creation of this committee is ill-advised. If there is a truly demonstrated need for a committee on civic engagement, it should be created under the new Council once it has established the direction for Council in the coming year.

“SUNLIGHT is said to be the best of disinfectants.” These words were spoken by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis almost one hundred years ago, yet they ring equally true today. The American system of government has long relied on transparency to cure the evils of corruption and to uncover wrongdoings so they can be corrected. This transparency applies to almost all aspects of governance, from the White House to the county courthouse. Students at the University quickly realize, however, that there are still some places where this sunlight does not shine. While the honor system is understandably bound by the limits of confidentiality, it has the power to implement greater transparency. Only then will students truly believe that the Honor Committee has nothing to hide.

The current debate raging about the Committee centers on the balance between transparency and confidentiality. Critics of the system blame the Committee for refusing to comment on any cases and keeping the trials closed to all observers and media. Supporters counter that the Committee is bound by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prevents schools from releasing the educational records of its students. As Honor Chair Jessica Huang said in an interview, “the policies of confidentiality are not in place in the interests of the Committee, but rather in the interests of the rights of the student.”

FERPA itself exists for obvious reasons. Even frequent Committee critic Sam Leven agrees that the Committee’s confidentiality is a plus in certain situations, since it “helps limit that damage that that guilty verdict does to your life.” For innocent students it is also clearly a positive trait of the honor trial process, since it prevents innocent names from being dragged in the mud.

Still, confidentiality has its price. Since most honor trials are closed to the public and even the press, which is quite rare in a democratic society like ours, members of the community are unable to monitor the system and the representatives they elect. All of this comes to a head when there are allegations of misconduct, like those contained in the Jan. 13 Cavalier Daily article, “Honor case highlights procedures.”

In that article, a former student charges that jurors fell asleep during her case, the trial chair was unaware of the basic rules, and that the opposing counsel was inappropriately accusatory and had to be reprimanded by the trial chair. Without any impartial, third-party observers to report on the trial, it is the accused student’s word against the blanket denials of the Committee, which refuses to address specific cases.

There are several ways to remedy this untenable situation. First, the Committee should stop hiding behind the FERPA requirements and instead merely abide by them. FERPA specifically allows the release of information which is not personally identifiable. Although there is an understandable desire to avoid costly litigation by interpreting FERMA as broadly as possible, the Committee’s duty is to its constituents, the students. Therefore, the Committee should comply with FERPA in every way, but ensure that whenever possible, available information is disclosed. The community could benefit greatly from this new information, even with the caveat that it be non-identifying.

The current practice of issuing “no comment” on all specific cases is one example of an unnecessarily restrictive policy. How does responding to allegations of whether or not jurors slept through a trial personally identify the accused student? Clearly it does not, yet Huang refused to respond to those exact allegations, pointing to the blanket policy of not commenting on specific cases.

There is a second potential reform which would create greater transparency while staying within the legal guidelines. Under this reform, students wishing to talk to media like The Cavalier Daily would be asked by the Committee to voluntarily sign a waiver of their FERPA rights. This type of waiver already exists, and the Committee’s bylaws state, “An investigated, accused, or dismissed student may waive his or her right to confidentiality at any time… by signing a written waiver for that purpose…” One of the main bones of contention regarding confidentiality has been the perceived unfairness of the accused student taking their case public, while the Committee is unable to defend itself. If all students are asked to signed this waiver, their acceptance would cause this inequity to disappear, while if the student refused to sign the waiver, it would then be quite reasonable for The Cavalier Daily and other news sources to refuse to publish allegations by those students.

Then there is a third idea, advocated by Leven, whereby The Cavalier Daily would be allowed to attend and report on trials as long as they did not release personally identifying information. There is even some precedent, as former Special Assistant to the Honor Committee Nicole Eramo explained, of “allowing any student to petition to the Vice Chair for Trials to attend” trials, although in the past they were bound to complete confidentiality and therefore could not report on the proceedings. This third solution is clearly the most radical, but also posses the most potential.

Although this final proposal should be adopted only after careful consideration by the Committee’s legal counsel, the first two suggestions are practically no-brainers. The Committee and its constituent students should take a break from divisive debates about the single sanction and try to implement some common-sense reforms that will improve the system. What is true during these bleak winter months is just as true with honor: a little bit more sunlight would be a welcome change.

Isaac Wood’s column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at i.wood@cavalierdaily.com.

IT’S A newspaper’s Holy Grail. And it’s not just about journalists’ desire to be liked. A paper can’t do its job without some understanding of who it’s working for.

As an editorial I read a few days ago said, “The Cavalier Daily serves the University community and can do that most effectively when we know what readers want.”

But wait. Aren’t the people who put The Cavalier Daily together members of the University community? Don’t they know what their community wants?

Well, maybe. But they’re apparently smart enough to question their omniscience, even when the “omni” refers only to Grounds.

”The fact of the matter is,” Andrew Baker, editor-in-chief, said on behalf of the paper’s Managing Board, “that becoming more heavily involved with The Cavalier Daily … leads to an incredibly atypical undergraduate experience at the University. … I’d say that working with the Cav. Daily for a long time is a significant handicap when it comes to getting a sense of what readers want.”

That’s probably true. Getting deeply involved in any activity or organization has the potential to cut a person off, at least a little bit, from the larger community. And, as counterintuitive as it may sound, a newspaper has more potential to cordon a person off than almost any other activity I can think of.

It’s to their credit that Baker and the rest of the Managing Board are trying to find new and better ways to communicate with readers. That means new avenues of communication moving from the Cavalier Daily to readers and from readers back to the paper.

I shouldn’t have said “back to the paper.” That implies that the paper speaks first and readers react. That’s certainly not the way things need to be. As in any healthy relationship, both sides need to speak up whenever there’s a need. And in this relationship, there’s always a need.

Baker said he and his staff hope their experiment with new channels for comment provide “an opportunity to get our bearings and try and figure out what methods of communication our readers respond best to.”

For that to work, of course, readers need to respond.

They’re not responding much now.

As the paper’s ombudsman, I should get a lot of questions and complaints. I don’t.

Baker tells me the paper gets a letter or two a day, usually commenting on an opinion piece of some sort. You are being invited to change that.

The new Managing Board has some interesting ideas, including, as Baker put it, ideas about “how to get an organization that’s worked solely in the realm of print media for 120 years to generate content on a plethora of new mediums.”

That’s a challenge a lot of papers are trying to work through.

There are a lot of technical challenges in that – software and hardware to choose and to master, a new set of creative skills, new ways of thinking about how to tell stories with new tools. But my theory is that there are some truths that run through all this. One of those truths, in my opinion anyway, is that what journalists are doing is essentially telling stories. And those stories can be told in a number of ways: with, long, in-depth, articles; with photographs; with video; through what some of my colleagues call alt story forms. Those can be graphics on newsprint, exploding graphics online, a series of bullet points, almost anything that can be developed into coherent collections of information in an engaging package.

When I ran newsrooms, I tried to produce a newspaper for two audiences: the one that would read the paper as soon as it came off the press and the one that might read it 50 or 100 years later to see what life was like in a particular place in a particular time. News is history in a very real sense. A good newspaper will reflect the community it serves in revealing ways. But a good newspaper will do more than that. It will also lead the community, engage it in discussions and arguments and remind the community of things the community might just as soon ignore. And, of course, a newspaper is supposed to be a watchdog, a check on power.

All that is difficult under the best of circumstances.

It’s much more difficult when the community isn’t involved.

So I’m asking you to do your part. Tell the Managing Board what you like and what you don’t; what you’d like to see and what you’ve seen quite enough of. And don’t forget – though I’ve talked about “newspapers” throughout this – that newspapers aren’t limited to newsprint.

Dream big. And then tell the editors about it.

Tim Thornton is The Cavalier Daily’s ombudsman. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.

Poker is commonly regarded as a game of chance. Armed with a few good luck charms and pockets full of betting money, millions of people each year find themselves staring across a poker table, just playing the odds. But every time they choose to call, fold or raise a hand, they rely on strategies more than they do on luck, whether they realize it or not.

Brian Alspach, a math professor at Newcastle University in Australia, said he primarily uses mathematics when playing the game. Alspach, who visited the University last semester to lecture about mathematical applications in poker, said all poker players use mathematics in some form.

“I see poker and math relating in three typical ways,” Alspach said. “First, is the mathematics used while you play, the mathematics that change how you think about the game and the mathematics questions that arise from poker.”

He used the concept of “pot odds” to explain how players should bet in certain situations, without considering their opponents’ personalities. Pot odds are the ratio of the current pot size to the cost of calling a certain hand. For example, if the pot holds $100 and a player must call $10 to stay in the hand, then the player has 100-to-10, or 10-to-1 pot odds. When the odds are high, players should call or raise. When the odds are low, players should fold, Alspach said.

“You have been dealt an ace and a jack, and your pot has $90 in it,” he said. “It will cost $10 to call. There are three options: fold, call or raise. What should you do in this type of situation?”

Typically, a player in this situation should call. In addition to this math-based betting technique, he said it is still important to “randomize” to throw other players off.

“You can introduce some randomization techniques into a game,” he said. “If you do the same thing every time in a similar situation, players will pick that up, so you want to randomize your play a little bit.”

Alspach cautioned players from betting too liberally, even if there are some incentives to do so.

“It’s not [of] interest [to] the individual,” Alspach said, adding that the chances of collecting on the bonuses usually are very small.
Evaluating body language can prove helpful — but only when used as a secondary technique to math and probability.

“As it turns out, the part of the body giving away most of the information is the feet,” he said. “People will get happy feet and bounce a little bit.”

Like Alspach, Eric Froelich, a 2005 University graduate and winner of events in the 2005 and 2006 World Series of Poker tournaments, said he also relies on math as well as psychology.

“I think that the game is largely based on math, but you need both intuition and the math,” he said. “The intuition comes in because you play your opponent’s hand. It’s not like chess, where you see everything they have. You need to get in a range of percentages and values.”
Unlike Alspach, who has 50 years of experience playing poker, Froelich is a relative newcomer to the game.

“I started, I guess, right about when I was about to start college by teaching myself,” Froelich said. “I started playing more seriously late into my second year of college right before I turned 20.”

After taking some time off from school, he decided to dedicate himself further and play the game more seriously.

“I was continuing to fall behind, and during that time I lived at home for a little bit,” he said. “Right when I turned 21, I won a tournament where I got to play in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.”

Froelich became the youngest player in series history to win an event bracelet.

“I got a lot of media attention because I was the youngest to win,” he said. “After that, I didn’t play for nearly a year. But when the World Series [of Poker] came around, I got sponsored. When I went out again, I became the youngest person to win twice.”

He relies on the same techniques now as he did then.

Although he attributed some success in poker to luck, Froelich said, “Poker is not a game where the best player is not going to win.”
Alspach added that knowing when to fold is necessary as well, because the best poker player knows when not to go up against lackluster odds.

“The most important thing to be able to do is read people and to narrow down the opponents’ cards,” Alspach said. “The ability to fold is important, because even your good hand might not win in that situation.”

Though there is no tried and true technique to play every hand that is dealt, Froelich and Alspach emphasized the importance of having a strategy when one sits down to play.

“It’s really not that easy,” Froelich said.

Rugby: a complete athletic experience, calculated aggression, a battle of wills, a unique community and culture of competition and camaraderie, mud-caked players and arguably the best sport ever. It’s a sport that takes all skill sets and body types and challenges you to let go of fear and just do it — hit someone, get hit, run your fastest — all for the singular goal of getting a ball across a line.

Road: a long, narrow stretch with a smoothed or paved surface, made for traveling by motor vehicle, carriage, etc., between two or more points; a way or course.

Put them together and what do you get?

A. A traditional U.Va. drinking song to which no one knows the lyrics
B. $175 property in the board game UVAopoly
C. A U.Va. institution
D. A street in the City of Charlottesville
E. All of the above

If you answered E, you are correct. Like most things at dear ole U.Va., Rugby Road is venerable and much adored. In many ways, it has come to represent the University. Perhaps most of all because it shows how Wahoos seize the day and the night. Let’s take a tour down Rugby and see why.

The twin pillars of Madison Hall and Carr’s Hill are a constant reminder of the University administration that lords over all the students and protects the neighboring Rotunda. While it wasn’t the original inspiration, I can’t help but think of the Grinch’s house on the hill when I walk past Carr’s Hill. The similarities are striking.

When students think of Rugby Road, what most often comes to mind is the social nightlife dominated by the fraternities on Rugby. Slightly ironic, however, is that the most picturesque row of frats is located on Madison Lane. Despite that, Rugby Road is still envisioned by many as a river of beer with crushed solo cups and beer cans on the side of the road.

Madison Bowl is where Rugby Road gets its name, as it is the location of choice for the namesake sport. Among other things, Rugby used to be the site of the annual Easters party, which was so much fun it was ended about 20 years ago for fear of the public’s safety. Equally epic, students have been known from time to time to take a cue from Leonidas and run into the middle of the field and yell, “THIS IS MAD-BOWL.”

Considering the events of a usual Friday or Saturday night, it seems fitting that the drama department is located on Culbreth Road, a mere extension of Rugby. Located about a half a mile from Central Grounds, the University Architecture School and the University’s art and drama departments also reflect the more academic side of Rugby Road’s culture.

Not to be lost amongst the fraternities, sports fields, and administrative and academic buildings, is Madison House. There, students may volunteer for the charity of their choice when they aren’t visiting President Casteen, drinking, playing rugby or going to class. It also is symbolic that the little building is named after the forgotten founding father, James Madison, who often gets lost behind American giants like Jefferson and Washington.

Surprisingly, you also can find several religious buildings on Rugby, including the Westminster Presbyterian Church, Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church and the Hillel House. It might seem strange to find religion in a place with a such a scandalous reputation as Rugby Road’s, but then again, these buildings are conveniently located to do good business in the forgiveness of all those other Rugby Road activities.  

Last but certainly not least, is Beta Bridge, the University’s official graffiti board. There, students may express all the interests and activities Rugby Road has come to represent: the conflict, passion and competition of rugby and the journey of the collegiate experience symbolized by the road.

Hopefully, later today it won’t read, “worst column ever.”

John’s columns run biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at j.gregory@cavalierdaily.com.

The other day I felt like doing something completely crazy. I guess I was sort of in an emo mood because I wanted to do something that would leave me stunned, confused and in desperate need of some soul searching. So I decided to attend a Virginia men’s basketball game.

One half was all I needed. After witnessing the Cavaliers score just six buckets en route to a 20-point half-time deficit, I was ready to go home and pray to the basketball gods for forgiveness. But as I was standing at the concession stand, emptying my wallet to pay for a sandwich that probably wouldn’t fill up a newborn insect, I came to a profound realization: our basketball team is not the worst thing this school has to offer. Allow me to present to you a list, the Top 10 Things Worse than Our Men’s Basketball Team.

10. Concession Stands at John Paul Jones Arena

It turns out our basketball team isn’t even the worst thing in JPJ. The last time I visited one of these money-grubbing food stands, I paid six bucks for two thin slabs of semi-frozen ham on a bun. And when I asked them for water, they asked me for $3.50, at which point I asked them to go stuff themselves.

9. The Trolley

I only say this because I have a personal vendetta against it. Every time I am in desperate need to ride it, the driver invariably informs me that the trolley is full and can’t fit any more passengers. Other times I arrive at the bus stop only in time to see it pulling away. At this point the driver usually rolls down his window and taunts me with something like, “See you in 15 minutes, you sack of lard!”

8. Parking

At certain God-forsaken hours of the morning, my alarm clock (see “10 Things I Want to Sever with a Rusty Oversized X-Acto Knife”) has a nasty habit of premeditated panic attacks, which I deftly counter with a series of s-words, followed by a firm spanking of ye olde snooze button. Unfortunately, this complicated ritual inevitably leads to my waking up 10 minutes before class. This is a problem because I live way out in a largely uninhabited solitary confinement center (Gooch/Dillard) several hundred furlongs from Central Grounds. Because of my trolley issues, I must either walk (HA!) or drive to class. As a result of my God-given laziness and car-possessing abilities, I choose to drive. Unfortunately, Mr. Jefferson, in designing U.Va.’s campus, went to great efforts to prevent students from finding any reasonable places to park. Thus, I am consistently forced to park in inconspicuous places, such as the Old Cabell basement or on the Lawn.

7. The Cavalier Daily

I refer here, of course, to the paper that will see an imminent and soon-to-be-infamous writer’s strike, which I am hereby initiating. There has been a well-documented dearth of income to Cavalier Daily biweekly columnists over the years. I mean, here we are, busting our butts two days a month, and how many Benjamins do we have to show for it? ZERO. Not even a Jackson, for that matter. Or a Washington, or even a lousy, good-for-nothing, emancipation-proclamating Lincoln. Editor-in-Chief Andrew Baker and his fellow highfalutin goobers better watch out, ‘cause they’re about to get slapped with a federal lawsuit so earth-shattering and media-hogging that it will make the economic crisis look like a tutu-wearing bunny rabbit on crack. Don’t ask me what that means. Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.

6. Gooch/Dillard

I’m sorry, beloved resident advisors and fellow stadium-dwellers, I know we have an unmarked graveyard and all, but the fact is we’re lonely, we’re isolated and we look like a mental institution mixed with a correctional facility. And I’m tired of having a different zip code from the rest of the University.

5. Al Groh’s Turtleneck Sweatshirts

The public image of our football team isn’t pretty, largely because of its coach’s fashion sense.

4. Old Cabell Hall

With its lack of modern supplies (they’ve been using the same chalk since 1968) and its primitive features, I feel like I’m walking down the hallway of an inner-city middle school rather than a prestigious college. And when you compare it to other nearby buildings, it’s clear that the differences are downright discriminatory. Trust me, fellow English majors, check out Rouss Hall sometime. Not only is it equipped with computers and dry-erase boards, but it also has fancy chairs, a sky-roof, flat-screens and outdoor gardens. Not fair.

3. Student Health Center

Since I was blessed with a perfect, sickness-immune body, I’ve never been in there, but I hear it’s full of sick people, has slow service and is prone to sticking people with needles.

2. The University Bookstore

I paid $200 for a math textbook that I will probably only use once every nuclear holocaust. ’Nuff said. Note: Please don’t chide me for such a wasteful purchase. I suffer from an all-too-common mental disorder called stupidity. And yes, this also explains why I live in the correctional facility.

1. Thomas Jefferson

Just kidding! Everyone knows TJ is the greatest person since Washington.

Nick’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at n.eilerson@cavalierdaily.com.