As a U.Va. student, I have always felt fortunate to go to a large school that still has the close-knit feel of a much smaller one. When walking across Grounds, there is never a day when I don't pass by people I know. They're not even mere acquaintances, but rather, people who actually stop when they see me and genuinely want to know how I am doing. Even when I meet someone new, it is rare that we are not already connected in some way - we've had class together, they're friends with my friend so and so, they live near me in Roanoke, etc. This creates a sense of community that I love but can perhaps be all too easy to become wrapped up in. Living as a student in Charlottesville, after all, I sometimes get the sense that we are living in our own sphere, separate and unconnected with the outside world. It is almost as if the University is surrounded by a giant, insulating bubble. I remember how during my first year, I was always so absorbed with what was going on at school that I was often way out of touch with the outside world. My mom would call me and bring up things that were headline news, and I would have no idea what she was talking about.
At the start of my second year, I got a lot better. I began keeping up with the news more and even started to remember there was actually a world outside of Charlottesville. Still, this world remained distant, and for a long time, the information that was broadcast into my apartment or that I read in the paper had that same distant feel to it. I saw people and places, but they were just words and pictures to me. I didn't waste much time worrying about them because to me, the sad stories were just that - stories. I couldn't see myself as connected in any way. A few months into the semester, though, that all changed.
When Morgan Harrington disappeared in October, I received a severe jolt of reality. She was more than just another picture that was broadcast into my living room. This was a girl that I knew really existed. She lived in my hometown; she went to my church. Our common background - a thread that frequently ties me to new acquaintances on Grounds - undeniably left me linked to this girl. Her tragedy shattered the invisible bubble that I used to feel around me at U.Va., not because it happened on Grounds, but because I knew we had something in common. I could not pretend that hers was just another far-off story.
Since Morgan's disappearance, I have started to look at the news with a different eye, and this viewpoint is one that I encourage my fellow students to adopt. The names we see in print and the pictures on television are of real people and events. Just as we can so easily discover that we share things in common with new people we meet here, we will always share some link between us and the faces we see in the news. Take the recent events in Haiti, for example. Both the depiction of the earthquake in news stories and the sheer distance between that country and Grounds is enough to make that tragedy seem unreal to us. If we look a little bit harder, though, we can find the many readily apparent links between us and the Haitian people. There were many members of the U.Va. community in Haiti at the time, and we lost one of our most promising members in Stephanie Jean-Charles, a Batten student, College alumna and Haitian native.
With these ties in mind, students should remember that we are linked to the people we see in the news - not just in Haiti - but all around the globe. That invisible bubble we feel around Charlottesville is not a barrier against connections with the outside world. If we fail to look beyond its walls, then we risk becoming apathetic to all the news that doesn't affect us here and now. But if we continue to search for connections beyond the bubble, then maybe we can begin to create a community with the wider world like the close-knit one at our school.
Katie's column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at k.mcnally@cavalierdaily.com.
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