Back in February, conference series against Florida State, Miami and North Carolina loomed large on a young and largely inexperienced Cavaliers’ schedule. Unranked, Virginia was picked to finish fifth in the ACC Coastal Division in what appeared to be a rebuilding year.
What a difference one month can make.

Though the Cavaliers dropped two of their three games against host North Carolina this weekend, the squad finds itself ranked in the nation’s top ten and with a solid 6-4 conference record heading into what should prove to be an easier stretch of its schedule.

“There’s no question about the character and the pride on this team, and how they handle adversity,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “We’ve just got to find a way to be just a little bit better. We’re right there.”

Although the squad only managed to pick up one win Saturday, Virginia nearly took the series away from the collegiate baseball heavyweight Tar Heels in Sunday’s rubber match, which saw both squads get off to quick starts.

The Cavaliers kicked off a wild first inning as sophomore rightfielder Dan Grovatt notched his first two RBIs of the series with a hard-hit double down the left field line, knocking in sophomore centerfielder Jarrett Parker and sophomore second baseman Phil Gosselin.

Virginia freshman starter Will Roberts got off to a shaky start, allowing as many Tar Heel hits in the first inning alone as North Carolina managed through eight innings Saturday. North Carolina senior rightfielder Garrett Gore, after reaching on a dribbler up the middle, scored on a double by junior third baseman Kyle Seager. The hit by the junior extended his hitting streak to 16 straight games and kept the Tar Heels, down 2-1, within striking distance.

Although Virginia failed to capitalize on a bases-loaded opportunity in the second inning as first baseman Danny Hultzen flied out to left to continue his recent struggles at the plate — the freshman went one for 13 during the weekend with five strikeouts — the Cavaliers continued attacking Tar Heel sophomore starter Matt Harvey in the third. Harvey walked Grovatt to lead off the inning, and after freshman third baseman Steven Proscia reached on a hit, Harvey filled the bases for the second time, delivering his fourth walk of his short outing to junior shortstop Tyler Cannon. Harvey was then replaced by junior lefthander Brian Moran, who came through for North Carolina in the no-outs, bases-loaded situation. The lefty allowed just one Cavalier run to score on a sacrifice fly from freshman designated hitter John Hicks.

The lead was not large enough for Virginia, however, as Roberts continued to labor on the mound. The Tar Heels, fueled by a pair of triples from secondbaseman Levi Michael and catcher Mark Fleury, evened the score at three runs apiece after three innings. Michael’s knock down the left field line to score junior first baseman Dustin Ackley marked his second hit en route to going a perfect four-for-four on the day.

After walking the first Tar Heel batter of the fourth inning, Roberts was replaced by junior reliever Neal Davis; the rookie exited the game having giving up three earned runs on six Tar Heel hits. Although Davis managed a quick three outs to escape the inning with no more damage, the lefty struggled in the fifth and the Tar Heels took full advantage of Davis’ lack of control. North Carolina got three hits to lead off the inning, including a two-run home run from third baseman Kyle Seager, to take a 5-3 edge.

Although Virginia relievers sophomore Tyler Wilson, freshman Sean Lucas, freshman Shane Halley and junior Matt Packer combined to stifle the Tar Heel offense through the sixth, seventh and eight frames, Moran also continued to put together an impressive relief outing for North Carolina. Never having gone more than three innings before, Moran shut down the Cavalier lineup — which mustered only two hits in the next three innings.

“He’s their main guy out of the bullpen — a big lefty,” O’Connor said. “He’s got a lot of experience; he did a great job for them last year. He’s tough – he’s tough to pick up the ball off of. After four innings or so, we started to figure him out a little bit, just not enough in the middle innings when it counted.”

It was not until the ninth that Virginia finally broke through. With one out, Hultzen picked a good time for Virginia to notch his first hit of the series, reaching first on an infield grounder. Grovatt rebounded from a lackluster series against Miami — in which he struck out twice in clutch bottom of the ninth situations — to hit a home run to right, evening the score at 5-5 and giving the Cavaliers hope of winning the series after trailing for four innings in the decisive third game.

“Coach talked to me,” Grovatt said. “He said, ‘You’re getting a little long on your swing, maybe take a day and refocus.’”

Last year’s College World Series runner-up refused to settle for going to extra innings, however, as Ackley led off the inning with a walk and Michael followed with a single. After intentionally walking the bases loaded with one out in the hope of a inducing a double-play ball, Packer instead hit Fleury with a pitch, allowing Ackley to come home for the winning, walk-off run.

“I was hoping that we might be able to get in on Graepel a little bit, and get a groundball, and have a chance to get out of it,” O’Connor said. “That’s tough. When you’re on the road and you’re the visiting team, and you’ve got runners on second and third, one out, that’s not an easy situation to pitch in.”

While Sunday’s late-game loss against the Tar Heels was disappointing for the Cavaliers, Friday’s tight 4-3 defeat was just as crushing.

Bolstered by a lead-off, first pitch home run from Parker and a solid outing by Hultzen — who went seven innings while only giving up two Tar Heel runs on six hits in an impressive 118-pitch performance — the Cavaliers managed to take a 3-2 lead in the top of the eighth on a RBI double by Gosselin to score Parker from first. The Tar Heels, just like Sunday, however, had an immediate answer, as junior centerfielder Michael Cavasinni hit his longest ball of the season — a triple just over a drawn-in John Barr in left field — to score two North Carolina runs and hand the Cavaliers their third straight conference loss.

North Carolina coach Mike Fox “told me [after the game] that, ‘I think that’s the farthest the kid’s hit the ball in his career,’” O’Connor said after Friday’s loss. “We had our outfield really shallowed in, taking a chance that we didn’t want a hit to drop in the outfield, and he got it good. That’s baseball, and you reward a kid for stepping up in the clutch like that.”

Virginia’s one dominant performance of the weekend came Saturday, when senior righty Andrew Carraway toed the mound for the Cavaliers and turned in another strong performance to improve his record to a perfect 4-0 this season.

Both Carraway and Tar Heel senior starter Adam Warren managed to shut down both sides’ starting lineups in the early going, but the Cavaliers finally broke through. In the fifth, Cannon — who led off the inning with a single — scored on a RBI single by sophomore second baseman Corey Hunt, and Parker hit a sacrifice fly to left to knock in catcher John Hicks. Proscia followed with a two-run homer in the sixth, and Parker hit his second long ball of the series to give the Cavaliers an insurmountable four-run lead.

“It’s the first kind of club that we’ve had here that we can put pressure on teams by running and playing that style, but we can also drive the ball out of the ballpark when we need to,” O’Connor said. “We’re not one of these teams that’s gonna hit 70 or 80 home runs, it’s significantly more power than we’ve had in the past.”

Carraway allowed just one run on three hits in seven innings of work, and though Gore hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth against Packer, the closer struck out Fleury and forced a Graepel grounder to end the game.

After the series against the Tar Heels, the Cavaliers now find themselves heading into a comparatively easier stretch of play. Following mid-week matchups against non-conference foes Norfolk State and Radford, Virginia will host Maryland in a three-game series next weekend.

“We’re right there,” Grovatt said. “We just need to finish the game. I feel like we’re with everybody, we’re playing with everybody, it’s just we’re one more hit away or maybe one more big pitch away, and then we’ll be fine.”

For the Virginia baseball team, next year was going to be the year. With merely a few of the team’s best players draft-eligible after this season, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor had the ingredients for a team that could finally get to a Super Regional of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the program’s history.

This year? It was supposed to be, as the phrase goes, a rebuilding year. Get the freshmen infielders some experience. Figure out who can be relied on to start on the mound during weekend matches. Solidify a young bullpen.

From the perspective of a fan, it all sounded well and good. To senior pitcher Andrew Carraway, however, “rebuilding year” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

“If you come into your senior season and it really is a rebuilding year,” Carraway said, “then you’re gonna be disappointed.”

It has been far from a rebuilding year, though. Picked fourth in the Coastal Division to start the season, the Cavs went 19-0 for the best start in the nation. This past weekend, Virginia paid a visit to the preseason national No. 1 North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Though the Cavs lost two games in heartbreaking fashion to lose the series, they emerged with a win Saturday thanks in large part to seven innings of brilliant work from Carraway: one earned run on three hits and one walk.

This was a team that supposedly wasn’t going to be able to compete with North Carolina coming into the season. The Tar Heels are stacked; many of the Cavs’ key cogs are fresh off their senior proms.

The Tar Heels have “Dustin Ackley at first base who’s gonna be a first round pick; pitcher Alex White is gonna be a first round pick,” Carraway said. “You see these guys all over the paper.”

And yet, the Cavaliers came into Chapel Hill against a Tar Heel team fired up by a series loss to Duke the weekend before, and snagged one win and competed their brains out in two losses. The Tar Heels needed a two-run eighth to pull out a 4-3 win Friday, and a hit batter with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to walk away with a 6-5 win Sunday.

“We’re just as good as these teams we’re playing,” said sophomore Dan Grovatt, who hit a two-run blast in the top of the ninth Sunday to tie the game at 5-5 to allow for the bottom of the ninth. “We could very well be on the winning side of both of these [losses], and driving home with a sweep.”

Alas, though, the Cavaliers boarded the team bus with disappointment on their faces — and, a critic might observe, the series with UNC continued a pattern that has revealed the Cavaliers’ youth. In conference play, Virginia has lost four games decided by two runs or less. The aforementioned young bullpen has been spotty. In each of the team’s four conference losses — two to North Carolina and two to Miami the previous weekend – Virginia’s opponent scored the go-ahead run in the seventh inning or later.

It is a pattern of falling short that even extends to Virginia’s past. Five times in O’Connor’s tenure, the Cavaliers have been to the Regional, twice as the host and No. 1 seed; and yet, Virginia has failed to advance to the Super Regional each time.

The beauty of this year’s team, though, is that it is as resilient as any squad O’Connor has ever fielded. O’Connor as well as numerous players have said that this is the most tight-knit team they have been a part of at Virginia.

And no one has been rewarded more by this cohesive group than Carraway.

“On the field, off the field, it’s a group of guys that kind of sticks together,” Carraway said. “There are no cliques that pull teams apart sometimes.”

Though Carraway isn’t the only senior, he is the team’s most valuable and most decorated. A Lawn resident, Carraway was used in middle relief during his freshman and sophomore seasons before being moved to the starting rotation on weekends last season. Each year he has suited up as a Cavalier, he has played an integral role.

Now, Carraway is the only senior that makes regular contributions to a team dominated by underclassmen. Carraway even admitted that “it’s definitely a strange feeling.”

“A couple of the freshmen actually found out the other day that I was 22,” Carraway said. “[Freshmen Danny] Hultzen and Will Roberts are 18 I guess, and so they thought that was really funny.”

Each year he has suited up as a Cavalier, Carraway has stowed away his uniform for the off-season a little sooner than he had hoped. While many had written off this team as too inexperienced perhaps to even make the postseason, Carraway didn’t elect to return for a fourth year to follow the same dreary path as years past.

“One of the main reasons that I wanted to play this season was because I’ve got some unfinished business — that we haven’t been to the College World Series, haven’t been to a Super Regional,” Carraway said. “I want to be on the team that does that.”

Will Virginia finally get over that hump and make a Super Regional? Maybe, maybe not. But during Carraway’s final season, just being part of a team that has a shot is rewarding enough.

“It’s awesome,” Carraway said. “To come out and absolutely just dominate teams the way we started out, and then not only that, but to be able to play in the close ones like this, it’s just a great feeling.”

The Virginia women’s lacrosse team lost to No. 5 Duke 13-12 in a Saturday afternoon nail-biter.

Senior attack Jenny Hauser’s career-high six goals did not stifle the Blue Devils (9-2, 2-1 ACC),
“I think it was just a miscommunication with our defense,” Duke junior midfielder Kaitlin Duff said. “We were struggling calling numbers, and then she came straight down the middle.”

The No. 10 Cavaliers (7-4, 1-3 ACC) began the game with a series of quick strikes, scoring 33 seconds into the game and then jumping out to a 3-0 lead eight minutes into the match. The Blue Devils, however, offset Virginia’s successful start by going on a 7-1 run during the next 17 minutes, tallying six consecutive goals. Hauser was the only Cavalier to manage a goal during the stretch.

The Cavaliers finished the half strong with three goals in the final two and a half minutes, going into halftime down 7-8. Hauser played an impressive first half, scoring four of her six goals. Duke’s junior attack Lindsay Gilbride and senior attack Carolyn Davis also had a strong first half, both ending the period with three goals apiece.

Duke began the second half with a goal a minute and a half in. Just as it seemed the game was getting out of hand for the Cavaliers, Virginia responded with two goals by junior midfielder Brittany Kalkstein and senior midfielder Blair Weymouth to knot the score at nine. The teams traded goals until eight and a half minutes were left in the game and both teams locked down on defense. The barren streak continued until sophomore midfielder Sarah Bullard scored the game-winning goal with 11.3 seconds left in the game to seal the victory for the Blue Devils.

“We lost against a great opponent in Duke,” Virginia coach Julie Myers. “It’s heartbreaking to come up a goal short again with plenty of opportunities to seal the deal and come up with a win.”

Hauser’s offensive performance was a positive for Virginia. Along with her six goals, she collected two draw controls and one ground ball while causing one turnover.

“We were looking for [one-on-one matchups] today, which is one of my favorite things to do, so I went for it,” Hauser said.

Apart from Hauser, five other Cavaliers contributed to Virginia’s scoring. Weymouth scored two goals, while senior midfielder Ashley McCulloch, junior attack Whitaker Hagerma, freshman midfielder Julie Gardner and Kalkstein each notched a goal for the Cavaliers. Davis and Gilbride led the Blue Devils, scoring four goals apiece.

The loss for Virginia is yet another twist in its up and down season. It seemed as if the Cavaliers might have regained their early season form after scoring 18 goals and defeating then-no. 18 James Madison Tuesday. The Cavaliers, though, could not capitalize on the momentum Saturday. The loss against Duke is Virginia’s fourth loss in their last seven games, all of which have been against ranked opponents.

“I think losing these games will eventually come to show later in the season,” Weymouth said. “We have some of the best attackers in the country and we have some of the best defenders. It is a matter of playing together for a whole 60 minutes and not having lulls in the middle of the game.”

The No. 1 Virginia men’s tennis team traveled to Florida this weekend and defeated No. 36 Miami and No. 15 Florida State, each by the score of 4-3.

Against Miami (8-7, 4-2 ACC), the Cavaliers (22-0, 7-0 ACC) grabbed the doubles point and the first two singles matches, jumping out to a 3-0 lead. The Hurricanes, however, stole the next three, including a 6-4, 6-3 upset in the No. 1 spot by No. 29 Daniel Vallverdu against No. 15 senior Dominic Inglot. Virginia sophomore Sanam Singh’s 6-2, 6-4 victory against David Rosenfeld in the No. 2 slot broke the tie, sealing Virginia’s 4-3 victory.

Although the Cavaliers won by the same margin against Florida State (15-6, 5-1 ACC), the match was decided after only four singles matches. After claiming an initial 3-1 lead, freshman Drew Courtney clinched the Virginia victory in three sets, 6-4, 6-7, 6-4. Inglot continued his troubles in singles, however, as the senior lost in three sets to No. 20 junior Jean-Yves Aubone, 6-7, 7-6, 2-6. The Seminoles grabbed the final point of the match in No. 2 singles, as No. 57 sophomore Clint Bowles defeated No. 23 Singh, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Sophomore Michael Shabaz, meanwhile, won both his singles matches, holding opponents to five games in four total sets.

—compiled by Andrew Seidman

Fourth-year Commerce student Jerry Pan entered the 10th annual Navigant-McIntire Case Competition with something to prove. Pan’s team had earned second place in last year’s competition and this year, he was determined to win.

Of the five members on his team — which included third-year Commerce students Kevin Chang and Ram Nayak, fourth-year Commerce student Anastasia Prado and fourth-year Engineering student Jenna Zhang — Pan was the only student who previously participated in the competition.

This year’s competition took place March 19 to 20. The Case Competition allows Commerce students to gain valuable experience by solving real problems from Navigant, an international consulting firm. This year’s case was loosely based on an advanced radiosurgery laser system designed to treat various forms of cancer painlessly and without surgery. The challenge posed to the students by Navigant consultant Kevin Stephens was to develop a plan through which this technology’s investors could generate a positive return on their venture. Students had to assess the overall financial attractiveness of installing the system in hospitals.

Because Pan participated in the competition last year, he said he knew what to expect and how to go about solving the challenge.
“I had a general mindset … to search for information, [then] just let the answer come out of the numbers,” Pan said. “I think it
helped us.”

His previous experience, coupled with the team’s hard work, earned them a first-place victory against 11 other teams.

After receiving the case at about 6 p.m., each team was assigned to a random study room to begin brainstorming ideas. Students were then allowed a 10-minute question-and-answer session with the panel of Navigant consultants to try and gain more information. Pan said, however, the Navigant consultants were “pretty limited in their responses.” The students were then left on their own to draft a solution.

After deliberating and drafting a solution, teams presented the next day.

“We didn’t sleep,” Pan said. “I don’t think many teams did.”

Pan said there were several explanations why the company was unable to make a profit off its high-tech device. From a financial point of view, the company that owned the technology was getting paid by the hospital to use the machines yearly instead of monthly. Thus the firm was unable to collect money fast enough to pay off its interest payments.

“That was how the company was bleeding money,” Pan said.

Technologically, hospitals could only use the machine up to 10 times per day because it had to recharge for the next day. When used for 30 minutes or less, hospitals would generate about $1000. If the procedure lasted between 30 minutes to one hour, the hospital made about $4000, and a procedure that lasted more than one hour earned about $8000.

Each team presented to one of two panels of three judges. After all 12 teams had presented, each panel voted for one finalist to present in front of everyone, including the other student teams. Pan’s team and third-year Commerce student Varoon Jain and his team were selected as the two finalists to participate in the face-off. After winning a coin toss, Jain and his team opted to present first.

Jain and his team proposed four ideas. They suggested investors employ celebrity endorsements, partnerships with other hospitals, high profile pro-bono procedures and re-negotiation contracts. After a brief question-and-answer session with the team, Pan’s team was up.

He opened the presentation with a break-down of the company’s current fiscal gains and losses. His team suggested analyzing data between patient type and procedure type to see if there was a correlation between a certain type of cancer and a procedure duration. If a correlation was found, investors could market the machine to doctors who specialize in the longer procedures so that the machine would receive optimal use each day and would generate its maximum revenue.

The team also proposed marketing the machine toward insurance companies that would pay a higher percentage of treatment costs so that more money would be available to pay the doctors, hospitals and machine’s investors.

Finally, the team suggested that the investors restructure their interest payments and ask the hospitals to pay in monthly interest installments instead of yearly ones, so the company would not accumulate interest on debt.

“It sounds the least technical, but it’s one of the most important things,” Pan said.

Although Pan and his team were fairly confident about their presentation, they were still nervous as they waited for the final results. So, when Pan, Chang, Nayak, Prado and Zhang were announced as the winners of the competition and its $1,000 prize, they were somewhat surprised, Pan said.

“I don’t think anyone really ever expects to win,” Pan said. “I was really happy with our team. Our team worked really well together.”
While the prize money is an incentive for students, Elizabeth Thurston, assistant commerce professor and chair of the Consulting Club at McIntire said the competition’s ultimate goal is “to help students … [learn] to work smarter.”

Thurston said the competition is valuable practice for aspiring business consultants, as it frequently helps students determine if consulting is a viable future career path. In the real world, however, information is not always as prepared for you and up front as it was for the teams, she said.

You know what they say: “April showers bring May flowers.” This old adage, which is a slightly adapted version of the even older Pacific Islander expression, “April showers bring much death and destruction,” seems to adequately sum up the current state of the University community. After putting up with all of March’s crap, including the persistent cold weather, Daylight Savings Time, the basketball coaching controversy, the commencement speaker controversy, the switch to SIS and Twitter, we are finally ready to move on and put up with all of April’s crap, including taxes, spring cleaning, Kelly Clarkson’s birthday, the onslaught of allergies and mysterious egg-dealing bunny rabbits.

Yes, there are a myriad of things to get excited about in April, which according to the omniscient Professor Internet, has been deemed by federal lawmakers as National Pecan Month, Irritable Bowel Syndrome Month, Women’s Eye Health and Safety Month and, of course, National Straw Hat Month.  Here are just a few highlights of the next 30 days:

April Fool’s Day: What better way to kick off International Pooper-Scooper Week (not kidding) than to partake in a day full of annoying hoaxes and rampant lying? Frankly, I am fed up with the blatant dishonesty that this holiday promotes, which is why I have decided to start a new April Fool’s ritual this year. Every time someone tries to play a silly little trick on me, I am going to punch them square in the face. Maybe that will remind this country of its most cherished values: untamed violence and bullying.

Easter: Falling on the first Sunday after the first moon of the vernal equinox has waxed 36 degrees southeast and made approximately 4.5 counterclockwise waning movements in response to the gravitational pull of Jupiter — or in layman’s terms — on the day when the Easter Bunny comes out of hiding, Easter is a special time of year for Eastern Christians and Western Christians alike. The night before, in accordance with ancient tradition, a crazed man dressed in a bunny suit delights children everywhere by breaking into their homes and placing baskets filled with eggs, candy and toys in random places, taking in exchange several important items from their parents’ liquor cabinet. To my knowledge, no one has really nailed down the true connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the egg-addicted magnanimous bunny rabbit, but I suspect alcohol might have something to do with it.

Taxes: Suck it up, people. Recession or no recession, the government still needs your hard-earned dollars to pay for important projects like finding a cure for headaches, building a shipping shortcut through Florida and increasing inefficiency at airports. As a spoiled college student, however, I will once again play my role in this whole Tax Day business by ignoring it completely.

The National Football League Draft: Arguably the most exciting television event since the creation of the Golf Channel, the NFL Draft is a non-stop, full-throttle, roller-coaster ride of pure entertainment. Ex-football players, wearing absurdly clashing suits, make false predictions about the futures of college football players, each of whom, they must always make clear, has “a lotta talent” and is indeed “a big-time playmaker.” To counteract the vague “analysis” of guys like Keyshawn Johnson and Chris Carter, the Confucius of draft knowledge, Mel Kiper Jr., is always on hand to pour forth his frighteningly acute knowledge of every aspect of every college football player in history, right down to their bedtime schedules and annoying bathroom habits, all the while looking like a tremendous prick.

Mr. Pollen Comes to Town: Mr. Pollen is that genial old mass of plant excrement who mostly keeps to himself and pays you no mind throughout the year. In April, however, he goes on his annual rampage, wreaking havoc on your sinuses and forcing you, practically at gunpoint, to stock up on tissue boxes and Claritin tablets.

Movie Month: As is the case every April, some of the greatest films of our time will finally be released to the eager public. This month’s surefire Oscar nominees include “Dragonball: Evolution,” “Crank High Voltage,” “17 Again” and “Hannah Montana: The Movie.”

Koninginnedag: Also known as Queen’s Day, this April 30 celebration of the Queen of the Netherlands is meant to bring all Dutch people together to emphasize national unity and an unwavering commitment to get as trashed as possible. Apparently, everyone just dresses in orange and parties like it’s 1999 — meaning that this definitely is something in which U.Va. can participate.

Yes, my friends, April truly is something to get pumped about. And if you still aren’t convinced, let me remind you that we are a mere 25 days away from National Scoop the Poop Week, an additional celebratory week of picking up your dog’s droppings tacked onto the calendar in 2007 by the reputable pet company “Dogologie,” which simply felt that one week wasn’t enough. Until then, though, enjoy all the other events April has to offer, and you better not cross me Wednesday.

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

We are currently mired in what is being termed the Great Recession, the worst economic downturn since the Depression of the 1930s. Many Americans households are cutting back and are at a loss about what they can do until the stimulus package kicks in. I think that we as college students should follow suit. Here are some easy ways to help us cut back and save money.

Entertainment is an area where easy cuts can be made. Cable television might be a very good target, even for students who are reluctant to give up watching their favorite shows. They might just want to eliminate the extras like HBO and Showtime. And lucky for them, Housing has made that tough decision for us by not allowing premium channels in on-Grounds housing.

Also, upperclassmen tend to spend a lot of money at bars. I think they should take a page out of the first-year play book and go to fraternity parties where the beer is free. That, or just go to Alcoholics Anonymous, which might prove far more cost effective.

Food also is one of students’ top expenses at the University. It is said an army travels on its stomach, and college is no exception. In my opinion, the most straightforward way to lower your grocery bill or tab on the Corner is to exploit the copious amounts of free food on Grounds. Nary a day goes by when I don’t see a flyer for “Free Food.” One night you could eat dinner with the European Society, the next night with the Indian Student Organization. Not only could you fill your belly, but you might also learn something. Should this plan fail, you could just end up losing a few pounds.

Another area of concern is housing, which costs Wahoos hundreds of dollars a month, but does afford students a variety of alternative options. Now, I’m not talking about on- versus off-Grounds housing, JPA versus 14th Street apartments, but rather, paid versus free housing options. I have found that many people here hold their social networking skills in the highest regard, counting hundreds of friends at the University. To you, I suggest living the lifestyle of a vagabond. moving from couch to couch, crashing at your friends’ pads. Not only could you be living for free, but you would also be able to test the bounds of your friendships. To everyone else, I suggest making a home of classroom buildings like Cabell Hall and the Chemistry Building, neither of which are ever locked and both of which are oddly homey when you’re not listening to a lecture. For years, students have turned Club Clemons into a hotel during exams, but why not make it your permanent address? Still, my personal favorite would be to pitch a tent on the Lawn or in the Amphitheater and just claim to be protesting something. As for utilities, I think that group showers and open fires are underutilized.

In addition high living expenses, one of the leading problems of today’s economic climate is the expensive cost of health care. I think this area is less of a problem for college students, mostly because of our elixir of youth. But if taking care of your body with a healthy diet, exercise and plenty of sleep isn’t your style, I suggest insurance fraud. If insurance companies like AIG can rob the American people with poor investment decisions, then why can’t we steal right back from them? University students are clever and creative and I doubt you’d get caught. Even if you did, it’s a white collar crime. Do you to even go to jail for that? I bet it’s like a resort anyway, only with free room and board, not to mention cable. If that doesn’t work out you could always make your body your greatest asset and maximize your utility at the same time — if you know what I mean.

While the Commerce School, a pillar of the University, was recently named the top public undergraduate business school in the nation, the financial collapse has left some Commerce students with some grim-looking job prospects. They used to be the high rollers around Grounds — always good for a drink or a pizza. But they are still a fountain of advice, which is quite invaluable at times such as these. Some of my friends in the Commerce School have suggested that I reinvest my Plus Dollars into the Plus Euro or Plus Yen markets. I also think that we shouldn’t let our Citibank stock just sit there doing nothing. Why not use it as toilet paper or paper towels?

On a fundraising front, I believe that founding a fraudulent contracted independent organization is your best move. Just think about it: You could apply for Student Council funding. You could collect dues. You could have Qdoba nights or sell pizza on Beta Bridge. And speaking of activities — and I don’t know about the rest of you — I have a closet full of T-shirts that I’ve gotten for free. During times like these, you can’t look at them just as garments. Rather, they’re collector items with great resale value.

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

Given the University’s overburdened bus system and goal of making Grounds increasingly environmentally friendly, a bike sharing program could be beneficial for the community. A group of University students is considering the feasibility of establishing such a program that would allow students and faculty to check out bikes.

The group has many progressive ideas, like relying on the honor code and an ID-tracking system to ensure bikes are cared for and returned. Issues such as the scale of the program, funding and sustainability, however, will need to be considered more thoroughly before deciding whether the project should be pursued.

For any transportation initiative at the University, scale is an issue worthy of careful evaluation. The bike-sharing program would be large enough to meet the community’s needs, easy to access and well-publicized. The student group rightly is taking time to gather information about other bike-sharing programs as well as about the interests and needs of community members. Another factor that needs to be considered in more detail before developing specific plans is the cost — both short- and long-term — of this project. Though a bike-sharing system could eventually save the University money that otherwise would be spent on gas or bus maintenance, a significant amount of funding will be needed to purchase the bikes and to maintain them. It also is necessary to recognize the potential for safety hazards that might arise with the implementation of a bike-sharing program. Students working on the initiative are considering a mandatory safety class for users, but this may not be adequate. Accidents involving bikers are fairly common around Grounds, and a large increase in biker traffic would only increase the potential for such accidents, even with safety training. Bikers can also be dangerous to pedestrians, so if this initiative is developed, its planners may want to consider working with University and city officials to establish more bike paths on Grounds to ensure everyone’s safety, even though this would require extra funding.

Dealing with the aforementioned issues will take time. The group of students interested in a bike-sharing system, therefore, must also deal with a more immediate concern: the continued existence of a group of students willing to dedicate their time to pursuing this initiative. This program will not be implemented overnight; a significant amount of time and energy would be required to prepare for the system’s launch. The current group of interested students, therefore, should take action to ensure that their planning efforts will not fizzle as many student ideas do during the summers between academic years.

Despite the difficulties and complexities of creating a bike-sharing system, such an initiative — if thoroughly planned — could be a viable way both to address transportation shortages and environmental issues on Grounds. Everyone involved with the project must keep in mind, though, that safety — not only sustainability and convenience — must be kept in mind. While this program could make the University greener, it might not make Grounds safer for bikers or pedestrians without careful planning.

It may be difficult to remember in this era of blogs and talk radio and cable “news” networks filled with commentators, but there is a difference between fact and opinion. In newspapers, there is a difference between news articles and editorials. And there are differences among editorials, columns and letters to the editor.

A letter to the editor is a comment by someone not on the newspaper staff. A column can be written by someone on staff or off, but it represents the opinion of the writer. An editorial represents the opinion of the newspaper.

Newspaper staffs don’t vote on what each editorial will say. Generally, a small group, often called the editorial board, makes the decisions and writes the editorials. In theory — and mostly in fact — news and editorial staffs are completely separate. Reporters don’t suggest or write editorials. Editorial writers don’t suggest news stories or otherwise influence news decisions.

Higher up the chain of command, things get murkier. Someone inevitably sits on top of the pyramid, responsible for both editorial and news departments — and often the production, distribution, and advertising departments, too.

For The Cavalier Daily, like any newspaper with a relatively small staff, keeping news and opinion separate is particularly challenging. The paper manages to keep the producers and editors of news and opinion segregated, but Andrew Baker, the paper’s editor-in-chief, is responsible for everything that goes in The Cavalier Daily.

“Really,” he wrote in a recent e-mail, “the only place where any of the content converges is with me — the last step in the editing process.”

When there’s a particularly big or thorny issue with something that’s about to be or has been in the paper — comics spring to mind for some reason — the whole Managing Board, a collection of the paper’s top leaders, is often called on to discuss and decide what to do. Baker explains that as an attempt to get counsel and guidance from the most senior, most experienced hands in the shop.

At The Cavalier Daily, the Managing Board reviews all editorials, so the convergence of news and opinion Baker described involves more than him in some sense. But that’s the case anywhere. Someone — a publisher, an editor, an editorial board — has to decide what a publication will speak for and against. And at some point on the organizational chart, the news and opinion lines intersect.

Before this semester, the executive editor researched and wrote all the paper’s editorials. Now, teams of three or four people work together on three editorials each week. Executive Editor Annette Robertson writes the other two.

Robertson’s goal is to have the teams — collectively called the editorial board — write all the editorials. She and Baker would weigh in with each team. When that system is in place, editorials will represent the opinion of the Editorial Board, not the Managing Board.

As Robertson says, the Editorial Board will not only remove the managing editor — who is directly responsible for the news sections — from the editorial process, it will generate more and better ideas and editorials than one person working on her own. So it’s an improvement on at least two fronts.

There are some other interesting crossover responsibilities at The Cavalier Daily.

The operations manager oversees the web site, archiving, information technology, production, photography and graphics.

Those first four make sense to me as a package, but photography and graphics don’t seem to fit. Ideally, they would fall under an editor who could focus on coordinating them with the words that go in the paper, rather than a manager who would seem to have a full plate making sure the paper gets out in its paper and electronic forms.

Robertson is concerned because the graphic artists who produce comics and editorial cartoons also craft graphics to accompany news stories. Unable to fill two graphic staffs, she intends to make it clearer to readers that these folks do double duty.

Making it more transparent is a good idea, but editors should be capable of making sure bias doesn’t creep into a pie chart or illustration.
I fret about some things that don’t bother The Cavalier Daily’s leadership. They worry about things that don’t bother me much at all. And I think that’s okay.

The important thing is that the people in charge are aware of the perils of conflating news and opinion. They’re thinking about and discussing ways to avoid those perils.

Regardless of how good or bad the system may be, it’s the integrity of the people running it that matters most.

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

Let’s talk about money. Every year, the fourth-year class undertakes a class giving campaign to raise money for the University. While this is a vitally important mission, the target of that mission has been somewhat misplaced, as the student trustees are aiming simultaneously to raise large amounts from a small number of students and a small amount from a larger group of students. Instead, the focus of class giving should be entirely on achieving greater class participation, which provides many more benefits than raising a larger amount of money from fewer students. Accomplishing the goal of greater participation will require some changes in how trustees operate, but will be well worth the effort.

The benefits of higher participation are two-fold. First, it will increase the University’s school ranking and reputation and, second, it will get students into the habit of donating money to the University and start what can become a tradition of giving.

According to an e-mail from Class Giving Chair Kathy Feeney, “The percentage of graduating seniors who give back to their respective university is a factor used to compute rankings by organizations like US News & World Report.” By increasing the participation percentage, students can improve the ranking of their alma mater. Students should strive for higher rankings for the University, not only because of school pride but also because a higher ranking will reflect well on University graduates in their professional lives.

Conversely, the college rankings do not take into account the size of each student’s gift. While raising a few million dollars through class giving is clearly a benefit to the University, it is only a drop in the bucket to a University that received nearly $190 million in gifts in 2007. Spending less time soliciting quick cash in order to invest in a much larger number of smaller donors, who could end up donating again and again, can definitely pay off. Just ask President Obama.

If a student does not donate in his or her fourth year, when emotions and nostalgia run high, that student is unlikely to suddenly donate many years later. Donating to the University “becomes a habit,” said Mary Elizabeth Luzar, assistant director of reunions and class activities, in a Cavalier Daily article (“Trustees seek to amp up fourth-year giving rate,” 1/13/2009). A study from the University of San Francisco found that there was indeed a “correlation between senior-class giving programs and first-year alumni giving participation rates.” In other words, encouraging donations produces returns that last beyond just that initial class gift.

In order to make a focus on broader participation successful, the trustee program must be improved. The group of 59 trustees should be more completely trained in development, a subject in which the University is well-versed, so that each crop of fourth-year students need not reinvent the wheel. That is to not to say that there is no room for student innovation, but only that tried and true methods of fund-raising should be used with greater regularity. Events, for example, are a much-overlooked development opportunity. Currently, according to Feeney, “The only time we are really face-to-face with the class to solicit gifts or pledges is during Cap and Gown Week.” Relying on traditional techniques is necessary, but not sufficient to achieve higher participation rates. In addition, trustees must come up with innovative ideas for soliciting gifts if participation class giving is to extend beyond the group it currently consists of.

This extension of the scope of class giving will require personal contact. Those groups represented within trustees likely already contribute to the class gift, but new students must be reached out to by someone they know and trust, which is not always a member of trustees. To make giving more personal, trustees should visit the leaders of CIOs across Grounds and ask these leaders to solicit class gifts from that CIO’s graduating members. These class gifts can be earmarked for the use of that CIO, giving CIO leaders a great incentive to ask their members for a donation. Fourth-year students will be much more likely to give, since they know the person who is asking them and they know exactly where their money is going. The use of this new strategy would yield more money for many cash-strapped CIOs and no doubt increase class giving participation as well.

With this idea, and the countless others that the trustees could certainly add, the University could vastly improve its class giving figures. This year’s goal is just 66 percent participation, which is almost embarrassingly modest when compared to rates in excess of 90 percent at most elite Northeastern schools. Even worse, current participation is only at 34 percent, according to Feeney. With this anemic rate, trustees should waste no time in instituting a new participation-based focus for class giving.

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