Budget proposals released Sunday by both the House of Delegates and Senate rejected former Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposal to transfer $18.8 million from state universities to the commonwealth’s general fund, a plan that would have ultimately raise student fees. Nevertheless, the Senate budget proposal includes a University student fee of about $75 per year, depending on the student’s course load, and the House plan would cut funding for the Center for Politics, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and other University centers across the state.

“They’re looking at anything they can identify and pick at,” VFH President Robert Vaughan said. “There are a number of university-based centers and institutes at every state university that are being targeted and eliminated.”

For VFH — an organization that promotes the humanities through public programs and grants to libraries and other nonprofit organizations — the proposed cuts could be particularly harmful.

“The reduction would ultimately eliminate us in the following year,” said VFH President Rob Vaughan, whose organization mostly relies on state funds to operate but would lose $1.14 million for fiscal year 2012 with the House plan. “That’s about 20 to 25 percent of our budget.”

Deciding how to redistribute the remainder of the state funds may be one of the organization’s greatest challenges.

“Having lost half a million [in the past three years] and losing even more means that we are really getting to bare bones,” Vaughan said.

The Center for Politics also has much to lose with the House plan, which would cut $625,865 of its funding during fiscal year 2012.

The Center uses state funds to develop teaching resources for public schools across the state, provide oral and written histories of Virginia’s elected officials and host programs that disseminate that information to the general public. The proposed cut even could affect the Center’s signature program, the Youth Leadership Initiative, which educates grade school children about American democracy at thousands of public schools throughout the state, Stroup said.

“When we have budget cuts like the one that’s being proposed by the house, when you zero out that money, the direct effect is to eliminate the programs that we offer to the K-12 community,” said Ken Stroupe, chief of staff at the Center for Politics.

But the Center for Politics and VFH should not be overly alarmed yet, Stroupe said, as neither the Senate plan nor the governor’s recommendation includes cuts to those programs.
“We are far too early in the budget process to worry,” he said. “The budget we have today is not the budget we will have a month from now.”

Colette Sheehy, the University’s vice president for management and budget, agreed that the process is far from finished.

“The House and Senate didn’t agree on a lot of things,” she said. “We won’t know until March.”

In fact, the budget proposals could have been worse, Sheehy said.

“The fact that they did not cut higher education any more is a positive thing, given the cuts that we have already experienced,” she said.

The House and Senate committees will finish their respective proposals Thursday, before a conference committee can work out the differences. The conference committee then will report to each chamber, and the governor will have the opportunity to amend the proposal.

The University is considering applying jointly with the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County to become a pilot community for the installation of Google Fiber, a fiber-optic network that could produce Internet speeds greater than 1 gigabit per second, more than 100 times faster than the broadband connections most Americans can currently access, all at a price that Google says is competitive.

“Google has announced publicly that it’s looking for communities to install ultra high-speed Internet,” Charlottesville City Council member David Brown said about the nomination process, which Google will conduct by accepting applications and online votes until March 26. “We’re very interested, but Charlottesville is at the low end of the population range that they’re looking for.”

Nevertheless, the Charlottesville area is capable of being chosen, Brown said.

If it does gain access to the new technology, the city’s workforce will be able to work “more effectively and efficiently,” he said. “Things we normally wouldn’t be able to do [would] now become possible.”

The University would benefit from the many opportunities this technology would bring, as well. For example, faculty members and students living off Grounds would have access to the same Internet speed provided by the University, and the University Health System would be able to communicate and share images more easily between its offices on Grounds and its clinics farther out in Albemarle County and in Northridge, said Jeffrey Plank, associate vice president for research.

Overall, the new network “would create a shift in Mr. Jefferson’s community, creating a virtual Academical Village,” Radiology Prof. Jim Brookeman said.

Some students also hope the Charlottesville area will receive the new technology. Second-year College student Eric Xu, for example, created a Facebook group to encourage students to nominate Charlottesville on Google’s Web site. He created this group after he saw that the University of California at Berkeley as a similar one, he said.

“Right now of this entire area the only server is Comcast; it doesn’t give people a lot of options as to who their [Internet service provider] is,” Xu said.

Bringing Google Fiber service to Charlottesville would provide market competition for Comcast, which would in turn reduce the cable provider’s prices, he said. In addition, the service would create job opportunities for residents, he said.

Brookeman added that all students should be encouraged not only to vote for Charlottesville on Google’s Web site but also to brainstorm constructive uses for the new technology.

Altria released a statement Monday naming Casteen as the 10th board member. Photo by Mallory Noe-Payne.

President John T. Casteen, III has been elected to the board of directors of Altria Group, Inc., a Richmond-based corporation and parent company of tobacco and wine businesses such as Philip Morris USA, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates.

Altria companies own brands such as Marlboro, Skoal and Black & Mild. Casteen’s appointment increases the board’s membership from nine to 10 directors.

As a board member, Casteen will be one of the individuals tasked with maintaining the overall well-being of the corporation.

“The Board has responsibility for establishing broad corporate policies, setting strategic direction, and overseeing management, which is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Company,” according to the Altria Web site.

Casteen has been familiar with Altria and Mike Szymanczyk, its chairman and chief executive officer, since February 2007, when Philip Morris USA committed $25 million to the University. About $20 million of that gift was donated toward Medical School research and projects, including a smoking cessation program, according to a University press release.

Overall, Casteen has a large amount of respect for Altria’s management and the direction the company has taken with Szymanczyk, he said in an e-mail.

“This is a company committed to change and innovation,” he said. “It is also a company with deep roots in Virginia. I am honored to join the Altria board and to have the opportunity to become part of the company’s future.”

Casteen also has served on the corporate boards of organizations such as Connecticut Bank and Trust Company, the American Council on Education and New England Education Loan Marketing Corporation. He also chaired the National Board on Oceans and Atmosphere and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

In his new position, Casteen will work with another member of the University community. Former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, has been a member of Altria’s board of directors since 2008.

Residents spent many hours clearing snow from walkways after this winter’s record precipitation. Photo by Albin Oh.

This winter’s persistent snow storms — which have brought record amounts of snow and forced the University to cancel certain operations for a day — have caused wide-ranging damage and long-lasting effects to the area.

Jay Klingel, the University’s director of operations and maintenance, said even though his office still is making estimates and waiting for all of the bills to come in, he expects the snow-related expenses for the University to exceed $1 million.

This figure includes maintenance of roads, walkways and the services of the University hospital, as well as “an excess of 20,000 man hours of our own staff and outside contract costs,” Klingel said.

It was difficult to ensure that all needed staff members could travel to Grounds during the storms, Associate Chief Housing Officer Marshall Hunt said, even though it was easier to clear the snow because of the lack of pedestrian traffic. In fact, the University had to take some special measures to accommodate them.

“They are geographically dispersed throughout surrounding counties, so to anticipate the bad travel, we provided a large number of our staff with accommodations,” Hunt said.

To ensure that these staff members could have hot meals while working, the University also gave them vouchers for Runk and Observatory Hill Dining Halls.

Ultimately, there were no serious injuries to staff members during the snow-removal process, Hunt said, but some workers did suffer from sprained wrists and back pains.

The University prioritized certain aspects when deciding which areas to clear first. For example, staff members focus on clearing facilities that are needed by handicapped students, Hunt said.

“That’s one of the first places we go to make sure students have access to the buildings,” he said.

Power outages may be another problem often associated with snow storms, but power systems manager Jay Coleman said he has not heard of any storm-related losses of power on Grounds.

“It may be hard to believe, but all of our system is underground, so the storms didn’t really affect it that much,” he said. “We had a couple momentary blips of power, when the lights dipped down and came back up, but no reports of anything more serious.”

Charlottesville Fire Department Chief Charles Werner said the city also suffered significant expenses because of the snow. In particular, the fire department’s engines were able to navigate in the city and near the University but ran into problems in rural areas.

“The snow still creates access issues,” he said. “Anytime you have snow on the ground, when we get to a fire, it makes it more difficult to move.”

The recent fire at a Robinson Avenue home occupied by three University graduate students was yet another example of a time when snow complicated the fire department’s operations, he added.
“Snow loading caused a collapse of the structure earlier than what we usually see in situations like this,” Werner said.

Because of these types of complications, the fire department was forced to double the amount of staff on duty during storms, which cost the department between $20,000 and $30,000 in overtime pay, he said.

Despite all the financial setbacks created by the snow, the University may see some of the money come back, Klingel said.

“It looks feasible that we may be getting some [Federal Emergency Management Agency] reimbursement; We are working with them on eligible days,” he said.

Four small, rare galaxies are on the verge of merging into one larger galaxy, according to University Asst. Astronomy Prof. Kelsey Johnson and researchers from Youngstown State University and the University of Western Ontario.

The timing of this galaxy formation is odd when compared to the rest of the universe, as most of the known elliptical galaxies have undergone the process already. The galaxies of Compact Group 31, those which were discovered by Johnson and her research team, are substantially behind their counterparts, Johnson said.

Researchers hope to use the peculiar group to study the process of combining several galaxies into one.

“This particular case study is really interesting because it gives us an idea how [these elliptical galaxies of the universe] might have formed,” said Sarah Gallagher, assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario.

Astronomers have reasoned that this particular group has yet to merge because its environment is less dense than the environment in which galaxies are typically found, Johnson said.

“For a long time, things just sort of happened slowly and quietly and they took their time,” she said, “and it’s only now that they are getting into this final merger dance with each other.”

When the galaxies collide and begin to merge, the process of rapid star formation will begin, Johnson said. When the merging process is complete and star formation ceases, a new galaxy about the size of the Milky Way, but more spherical, will form, Johnson said.

Astronomers were pleasantly surprised by what the Hickson Compact Group 31 had to offer.

“I would say that we intentionally chose this as an object of study, but we didn’t anticipate all of the results that we found,” Gallagher said.

No. 1 Virginia won its first game since earning the top spot after taking a three-game series against then-No. 11 East Carolina 2-1. Photo by Toby Lowenstein.

Forty-eight hours ago, it was a ground-breaking accomplishment. But after his team defeated George Washington 5-2 in the season home-opener, coach Brian O’Connor said the subject is now taboo. Like screaming ‘bomb’ on an airplane.

“I told them that yesterday was the last time I was ever gonna address rankings again, the rest of the year,” O’Connor said. “You can’t go any higher than No. 1.”

Through five innings against George Washington yesterday, sophomore pitcher Will Roberts carried the top team in the nation, holding the Colonials (0-4) to just two walks and two hits. Roberts’ effort may not have matched his stunning debut performance against William & Mary from a year ago, in which he struck out eight batters in five innings — the most for a Virginia freshman since 2006 — but it provided the Cavalier offense with more than enough room to inflict heavy damage against the George Washington pitching staff.

Virginia (3-1) struck first in the third inning when junior right fielder Dan Grovatt smacked a double down the right field line to score sophomore designated hitter Danny Hultzen.

Sophomore first baseman John Hicks carried the momentum into the following inning with a leadoff double and eventually scored on junior catcher Kenny Swabb’s ground-out after advancing to third on a wild pitch. Sophomore second baseman Keith Werman and junior left fielder Phil Gosselin compiled back-to-back singles, and both advanced on errors, with Werman eventually scoring. After Gosselin moved to third on a wild pitch, Hultzen made his presence felt again with an RBI double to left-center. The preseason All-American would add another run when sophomore third baseman Steven Proscia hit a sacrifice fly to give Virginia a 5-0 lead.

Although the Cavaliers were cruising through five, the Colonials made things interesting in the sixth. Roberts allowed two base-runners for the first time in a single inning and was pulled from the game when junior outfielder Brendon Kelliher knocked a single through the left side of the infield to give George Washington its first run.

“I thought Will Roberts pitched a really good ball game,” O’Connor said. “I would’ve loved to have seen him finish that sixth inning, but he hit his pitch count and we had to take him out of the ball game.”

His replacement, freshman Whit Mayberry, provided little immediate relief. With runners on second and third, Mayberry surrendered a double that just grazed the right-field line to stay in fair play. Mayberry induced a groundout to second to end the bruising, however, and settled in for a 1-2-3 inning in the top of the seventh, fanning two batters.

After Proscia was tagged out at home plate in the bottom half of the inning, O’Connor brought in junior Corey Hunt from the bullpen. But Hunt, who allowed four earned runs in 2/3 of an inning against East Carolina last Sunday, found no sanctuary at home. After Hunt surrendered two singles to the first two batters he faced, O’Connor turned to senior lefty Neal Davis, who was charged with the task of protecting a precarious three-run lead with the potential tying run at bat.

The southpaw was smooth as could be, striking out the first candidate with a biting breaking ball on the outside edge of the plate. He then fielded a comebacker to the mound, looked off the runner on third and threw to first to record the second out of the inning.

“I think Neal Davis is really determined this year to have a great year in his final senior season, and he’s pitched great all three times he’s been out there,” O’Connor said. “He’s gonna be a valuable left-handed pitcher for us out of our bullpen — we don’t have many left-handers down there — he’s the veteran and he’s gonna need to continue to do the job for us.”

The outing gave Davis a much needed boost in confidence after he dealt with shoulder injuries toward the end of last season. Though he said the stiffness has affected his velocity, he added that he is more of a finesse pitcher, letting the breaking balls do the work.

“It felt pretty good,” Davis said. “Steven Proscia made a really good play for me this past weekend, so I just have the confidence to try and throw strikes and let my fielders make the play.”
Junior closer Kevin Arico entered the game to record the final out of the inning, striking out senior Chris Luick with a dirty slider.

Arico finished the job in the ninth, allowing just one hit en route to his second save and a Virginia victory. His performance was no surprise — Arico solidified the Cavalier bullpen in 2009 with a 2.70 ERA and 11 saves.

For O’Connor, the major implication of this win is the potential development of Roberts into a reliable starter.

“I said at the beginning of the year I felt like Will Roberts was gonna be a really big key to this pitching staff this year,” O’Connor said. “Last year, he got some really good innings for us — he was in our weekend rotation at one point early in the season. He’s a strike-thrower, he knows how to pitch, and when you have an offense like we do and play good defense, that’s gonna win you ball games on the mound. He’s gonna need to step up this year and pitch more innings than he did last year.”

And though the mystique of ‘No. 1’ will be silenced in the locker room, O’Connor acknowledged the effects it will have on his team’s opponents moving forward.

“It’s exciting for anybody to come here to play the No. 1 team in the country and a chance to knock ‘em off,” O’Connor said. “It creates a little bit bigger a bull’s eye on our back, but I think people know we’ve got a good program and they know what they’re in for when they play us.”

Sophomore Lindsey Hardenbergh and freshman Erin Vierra each struggled during the first set of their singles matches before crusing to victory in the seconds. Photo by Daniel Abebayehu

For its last match before conference play begins this weekend, the No. 25 Virginia women’s tennis team dropped No. 51 William & Mary, 6-1.

The Cavaliers (5-2) started oFf the match on the right foot, taking the doubles point after an 8-1 win by sophomore Emily Fraser and senior Jennifer Stevens at the No. 1 spot, and a 8-2 victory by the pair of sophomore Lindsey Hardenbergh and freshman Erin Vierra, currently ranked No. 53 in the nation.

The Cavaliers then put two quick points on the board in singles play with freshmen Maria Fuccillo and Hana Tomljanovic winning 6-2, 6-2 and 6-3, 6-2, respectively, at the No. 6 and No. 5 spots.
For Hardenbergh and Vierra at No. 1 and No. 3, it was clearly a tale of two sets. Both went deep into the first set of their singles matches, ultimately taking their opening sets 7-5 and 7-6(3), respectively.

When it came time for the second set, the attitudes of Hardenbergh and Vierra’s opponents changed considerably. The shouts of “Go Tribe!” were replaced by players shouting at themselves for unforced errors, as Vierra took the second set 6-1 and Hardenbergh capped off her victory 6-0.

“William & Mary has a lot of spirit and a lot of fight, so we knew coming into it that they were going to be like that, so it just took a lot of focus on all of our parts to block that out and do what we to do,” Vierra said. “It was going to be an emotional match either way, so it was just capitalizing on the momentum after winning that first [set] and carrying it into the second.”

Meanwhile, senior Jennifer Stevens battled through a tight first set, but ultimately lost her match 7-6, 6-1 at the No. 4 spot for the Cavaliers’ only singles loss of the afternoon.

Although the outcome of the match was already decided, all eyes were on the second court at the end to watch Fraser face off against Marian Mesgarzadeh at the No. 2 spot. After taking the first set 6-3 and leading the second set 5-1, Fraser allowed Mesgarzadeh to reel off five games in a row. Fraser pushed the second set to a tiebreaker, which she lost 11-to-9.

Entering the match tiebreak, however, Fraser rocketed past Mesgarzadeh, cruising to a 10-2 win.

“You’re always going to play better if you play smarter,” Guilbeau said, “and that’s what she allowed to happen.”

Friday the Cavaliers travel up to Chestnut Hill to start ACC play against Boston College and then travel back to Charlottesville Sunday for a double-header with Maryland and Old Dominion. The team’s previous two victories in addition to their preparation during practice has them relaxed and confident.

“I think the coaches really prepare us well,” Hardenbergh said. “I do want to give a lot of credit to them because they’ve scouted out so we know exactly who we are playing, we know exactly where to hit the ball.”

In upcoming practices, Guilbeau said the team will continue to emphasize consistency and intensity during practices, which he said will help improve the team’s play as the Cavaliers begin ACC competition this week.

“I’m not going to knock anybody but sometimes we aren’t practicing real well,” Guilbeau said. “You’re not as accountable for misses in practice as you are in a match …

We’ve gotta learn to be disciplined in practice, and it really allows us to play looser and freer in the matches … I think it can lead us to some really good tough wins.”

Last week, I wrote a column about NASCAR. Among other points, I argued that NASCAR is indeed a sport and made a case justifying this assertion.

To race at such high speeds — inches away from the wall and other drivers attempting to swerve past you for three grueling hours — must be both mentally and physically exhausting. I pointed out that if curling was a sport, NASCAR most definitely is, as well. I fully realize, however, that NASCAR drivers are not overly athletic and I’m not going to make any Kobe Bryant-Jimmie Johnson comparisons anytime soon.

This brings up the natural question: “What is a sport?”

There are dozens — perhaps hundreds — of different sports played around the world, and although at first this seems like an easy question to answer, once you delve into it, you realize that the criteria for what constitutes a sport is not easy to flesh out.

The Winter Olympics provides a good backdrop for this discussion. Traditionally, the Olympics are referred to as the “Olympic Games”, but does this mean that they aren’t sports? Certainly not. It would be foolish to believe that they aren’t sports. Most of the competitions take an amazing amount of skill and athleticism. I won’t be trying any kind of crazy maneuvers in aerial skiing anytime soon, that’s for sure.

I keep making fun of curling, but I do believe it’s a sport. It takes a certain type of skill set and physical ability to be successful at curling.

Maybe one of the determining characteristics for distinguishing a sport is that it needs to include quantifiable results. Are there definite winners and losers?

In basketball, there is a winning team and a losing team. The winning team scores more points than the losing team, and no one has to tell us that. In racing, there is a winning driver and there are many losing drivers. The winner finishes the race’s designated number of laps before the other drivers do.

I have a problem with sports that are judged, such as figure skating. The status of a clear winner is uncertain until judges tell us who won by giving the skaters their scores. There’s a fair amount of subjectivity that goes into judging figure skating and determining winners and losers. But there’s no way I can figure skate, and no way anyone can deny the balance and coordination figure skaters possess, no matter how different it is from a more contact-oriented sport, such as football. Because figure skating is an Olympic sport and it requires superb grace and agility, does that automatically make it a sport? Does the fact that subjectivity factors into determining winners make it less of a sport? I have never figure-skated or curled, but curling looks like it requires less athleticism than figure skating. So does that mean it is less of a sport than figure skating? But at the same time, there are definite winners and losers in curling, unlike in figure skating.

There are definite winners and losers in billiards and darts, but they certainly take less athletic skill than figure skating. But I’d argue that billiards requires a great deal of hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Is billiards a sport?

Perhaps endurance should be assessed when determining the criteria for what a sport is and what it is not. Feel free to disagree with me, but I don’t know if I can think of a sport that demands more endurance than cycling. The sport has been ravaged recently by steroid use, highlighting the difficulty of rejuvenating the body during long races that take several days, such as the Tour de France. I argued that NASCAR takes a special type of endurance — certainly not on par with cycling or long-distance running — but endurance all the same. NASCAR takes a lot more endurance than running the 100-meter dash, but we definitely think of sprinting as a purer sport. Nothing screams “athlete” like the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt. Sprinting requires little-to-no endurance, especially when compared to other sports. But who would dare argue that Bolt isn’t an athlete?

I used to make fun of golf, but it takes an amazing amount of endurance — just ask Tiger Woods.

Seriously, though, I didn’t really respect golf as a sport until I tried it. Not only does it take endurance to play 18 holes of golf and ride in a golf cart — much less walk the course — it’s also an extremely challenging game that takes a lot of time and practice to master. It’s definitely the hardest sport I’ve ever picked up.

Sometimes when I think about this question, I like to imagine myself participating in these different types of events. I could play in an NFL game — really. I would possibly have my bones crushed, but I could be a receiver out there and run routes. Heck, I could catch a pass, even if I would be destroyed immediately afterward and possibly would not get up after getting blasted by some middle linebacker. I could run up and down an NBA court, as well, but I would look really silly trying to guard Dwight Howard and would immediately become “posterized.”

But I don’t honestly know if I could complete a NASCAR race without first completing a much shorter race to get used to the g-forces to which drivers are exposed. And I definitely could not complete the Tour de France — even one stage would probably be a stretch. Of course, there are plenty of people who would probably argue that football and basketball are purer sports than cycling and definitely NASCAR, but what kind of factor does endurance play into it, if any?

My roommate said maybe a sport has to have spectators; it has to be something people gather around to watch. It’s possible to find spectators for lots of different kinds of competitions, though. For instance, ESPN broadcasts the Scripps National Spelling Bee every year and also shows what seems like a trillion hours of the World Series of Poker. I’m pretty confident that even though these events are shown on a sport-centered television channel, they aren’t sports. Or are colleges going to start spelling teams with Lane Kiffin-like coaches who recruit promising grade-school spellers?
Perhaps there is just too much gray area to even bring up this question. In the end, the definition of a sport may come down to a feeling you have deep inside you. If something within the realm of physical competition surpasses normal human functioning and makes you say “Wow,” it may be a sport, whether it’s a thunderous LeBron James dunk or a sick combo on the pool table.
But I’ll put forth the question anyway: What’s a sport?

Any student who has ventured into Clemons Library during final exams genuinely can appreciate what it means to be “packed in like sardines.” Partially in response to Clemons’ persistent overcrowding during these high-traffic periods, Student Council’s Student Life Committee collaborated with the University last semester to extend Clark Library’s hours of operation from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. during final exams. Council intended the project to act as a trial run, the success of which would determine whether the library would remain open during finals in the future. All told, about 100 students took advantage of this opportunity per night, though it is difficult to tell if the move significantly alleviated the overcrowding at Clemons.

Throughout most of the academic year, the number of students studying at Clemons does not especially hinder comfortable and effective studying. During midterms or finals, however, the crowds can prove unbearable. Students can hardly walk through the aisles without tripping over a power cord. Finding personal space in which to work can become extremely difficult. Council took an appropriate first step toward solving the issue of overcrowding by extending Clark Library’s hours, but it should consider taking a more comprehensive approach to addressing the problem.

For example, offering a second 24-hour library option during finals could help to reduce Clemons’ numbers. Students often plan to remain at a library during finals for long periods of time — often upwards of five or even 10 hours. Inevitably, students are reluctant to relocate their studying to another library that will close before they finish their work. Though the cost of operating a library for these extra few hours each night must be considered, the academic benefit conferred to students would seem to be well worth the relatively small investment.

Other organizations also can work with Council to promote more environments conducive to studying. Specifically, Council could work with Resident Life to help foster better study environments in dormitories, particularly those housing first-year students. The more comfortable students feel working in their residence halls, the less likely they are to pack University libraries during exam periods.

Student Life Committee Co-Chair Aagya Mathur already has indicated that the Committee plans to increase its publicity efforts this semester. In doing so, the Committee should target those students most likely to take advantage of alternate study locations and place flyers in the more popular study locations.

With just under 14,000 undergraduates, the University realistically cannot accommodate each student’s study needs. Nevertheless, Council ought to focus on outside-the-box proposals to encourage the creation of productive work environments during finals.

MTV’S new reality show “16 and Pregnant” just launched its second season, which promises to be even more dramatic than the first one. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to see the show, “16 and Pregnant” chronicles the story of a pregnant 16-year-old each week, beginning with the end of her pregnancy and continuing for about two months after the baby is born. While an initial worry of the show was that it might idealize teen pregnancy, this hasn’t been the case. Rather, MTV has done an exceptional job of documenting the both the emotional and financial challenges facing teen parents and their families.

Far from idealizing the challenges facing teen mothers, “16 and Pregnant” shows a realistic view of teen pregnancy. Being a new mother, much less a teen mother, is extremely difficult. The girls are shown getting up in the middle of the night to take care of their children and often lament both how exhausting and tiring the maternal life truly is. There are also relationship troubles, both with boyfriends and with parents. On most episodes, the girls express a desire for their boyfriends to grow up and take on some responsibility. The expectant mothers unrealistically tend to think that once the baby is born, everything will change and suddenly their boyfriends will become responsible. An oft-heard sentiment is that some girls think a baby will lead to marriage or at least a serious long-term relationship. This certainly isn’t the case for the majority of the girls. Most of the girls are no longer with their boyfriends, and some boyfriends are no longer even in the picture. While a baby certainly is a wonderful thing, at this age it only adds serious stress and strain on a relationship‚ a fact shown on the show through torrents of tears and arguments.

Though “16 and Pregnant” is a reality show, there are certain topics that are always discussed. For example, in most shows, the viewer will find out whether the couple used birth control when they became pregnant. This is a very important part of the show because teens often feel like they are invincible and that they won’t become pregnant. The examples of these teen couples, however, reiterates the need not just to always use birth control, but to use it properly. The episode featuring Jenelle shows a conversation between Jenelle, her friend, and her then-boyfriend Andrew about how she became pregnant. She says that she stopped taking her birth control for a few days because she and Andrew had gotten into a fight. When they got back together, they had unprotected sex even though Jenelle had gone off her birth control. Jenelle said that the two of them had previously had sex “other times before and didn’t get pregnant.” So she thought there was no way she “would suddenly get pregnant,” But she did.

Although MTV has done an excellent job with the show, there is a fine line that needs to be drawn, especially given the recent success of the show. As most of us know some people will do just about anything to get their own reality show (balloon boy, anyone) and MTV must be careful not to have the show be so popular or financially lucrative that young girls are getting pregnant just so they can be on television.

Even though it is unlikely that this show alone will have a major impact on teen pregnancy in the United States, it is still a very important show in that it depicts real people and their real difficulties trying to raise a child at such a young age. Maybe some young couples out there will see it and take extra precautions so that they do not end up like the young couples on the show. Regardless, “16 and Pregnant” is an informative show that realistically depicts the struggles often faced by teenage parents.

Megan Stiles’ column runs on Thursdays. She can be reached at m.stiles@cavalierdaily.com