Why 'Pi Groove'?
For those of you who want to feed your social appetite, but also want to feed your soul, Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity has the party for you.
This Saturday night starting at 9:30 p.m., three bands will kick off the fraternity's first annual night of charity - "Pi Groove" - benefiting the U.Va. Children's Medical Center (CMC).
The CMC is a network of medical facilities geared to care for children from birth through adolescence. According to its Web site, "although the CMC comprises the Pediatrics Department of the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, its services extend across the central Virginia community and beyond."
"I thought it would be a good idea to do something in Charlottesville - to give back to the community U.Va. is in," said third-year College student and AEPi Social Chair Evan Rapoport.
Charlottesville band Vandyke Brown and Richmond band Second Floor will open for well-known Fighting Gravity at "Pi Groove."
When asked how he managed to snag such a high profile band as "Fighting Gravity," Rapoport said it was easy.
"We just called them up to explain the cause and what we were trying to accomplish. They're even promoting [the event] themselves," he said.
Although the two opening bands will be performing for free, Fighting Gravity will be paid for their charity effort.
Tickets for the event will be sold on the Lawn between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. today and tomorrow, but can also be bought at the door. The first 300 people to buy tickets will also receive a free T-shirt.
"We haven't gotten to 300 yet," Rapoport said. "But we're quickly approaching it."
Wahoo for women at VMI
She's a Harvard graduate, a former Wahoo and for the past four years, she has been observing life at the Virginia Military Institute.
She's Laura Brodie and she's ready to tell all.
Brodie, who received her Ph.D. from the University's English department in 1995, will be giving a talk this afternoon on her new book Breaking Out: VMI and the Coming of Women. The talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the Village School located at 215 E. High St., near the Downtown Mall.
"It's not going to be a dry scholarly talk," Brodie explained.
Brodie teaches freshman English classes at VMI, while her husband serves as band director. She has been at VMI since a 1996 Supreme Court decision forced the school to give up its all-male tradition.
Brodie has been observing the VMI community as it tries to bring women into what she described as the "unique and strange world" of the military institute.
In the fall of 1996, Brodie became involved with VMI's Executive Committee for the Assimilation of Women. She said she has always been interested in women's issues and the 1996 VMI court case peaked her interest in researching the issue of women at VMI.
Brodie conducted 66 interviews with cadets and various VMI faculty members for the book.
"I don't try to take a position of whether it is going to be good or bad" to have women at the school, Brodie said of her book. Instead, she explained that she was trying to capture the "culture of VMI" over the course of one year of planning and the first year of coeducation.
Brodie's talk is being promoted by the New Dominion Bookshop on the Downtown Mall.
Compiled by Ryann Collins and Julie Hofler
Odds Ideas? Call Ryann at 924-1092.
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