Editor’s note: This article is a humor column.
It’s a situation every University student has been in — I was visiting relatives over summer break, and with Grandpa asleep in his La-Z-Boy and an awkward pall of silence hanging in the air, my uncle asked me what I’m doing in school. I tell him I’m a second-year student and haven’t decided on a major yet, so he asks me what I do outside of class. I say that I'm the Outreach Chair for Hoos on Grounds, my favorite Contracted Independent Organization. He asks me what they do, and that’s when it hits me — I still don’t know what Hoos on Grounds does.
For context, let’s flash back to my first year at the University. Back then, I was just a spritely little fellow, eager to learn magical new terms like “Honor,” “Academical Village” and “Newcomb.” Like any other first-year, I felt obligated to go to the Activities Fair, for fear that I would end up ugly and jobless after graduation if I did not. Initially, I was drawn in by organizations with enigmatic names like “Think Again U.Va.” and “The Alternative Investment Fund.” I could tell that these were the cream of the crop, as their names alone were beyond my lowly adolescent understanding.
However, it was Hoos on Grounds that won my heart and mind. As I passed their table on the jam-packed South Lawn, my attention was captured by the glint of the broiling afternoon sun on their laminated poster board. From a distance, I could make out their tagline — “Fostering kindness and encouraging intellectual curiosity on Grounds.” That was a mission that I could understand and get behind!
I walked over to their table, and my eyes quickly glazed over as their vice president of operations and management gave an expository spiel that neither of us actually cognized. We shook hands, I signed up for their ListServ and then I submitted my Microsoft Forms application a few days later. Finally, after callbacks and four rounds of rigorous interviews, I got an acceptance email and an invitation to their GroupMe.
At our general body meeting that Sunday in Warner 209, I received the most wonderful news of my life — it had been a particularly competitive application cycle, and every new member had earned their spot in the organization. A single tear of joy rolled down my leg, and I sat with a newfound sense of belonging as the managing chief of internal affairs read his assigned slide verbatim, establishing group norms such as “be communicative” and “be kind to animals.”
It was then that I learned I had been assigned to the Committee of External Relations and Event Refinement. My first task, according to our chairman, was “to assemble a professional development roundtable event for the benefit of our members and the University’s students as a whole.” After an hour of cold emails, hair-pulling and sweat, I had assembled a set of luminaries for the roundtable — one Commerce professor, one former White House transit policy advisor and Elizabeth Holmes.
When the day of the roundtable arrived, things went flawlessly. Some of the students who came for free Mellow Mushroom stayed through the halfway mark, and one of them even took a free stress ball of ours. The event was so successful, in fact, that it allowed me to make a run for outreach chair that December. My only opponent was a washed up third-year who wanted another line on his resume before graduate school applications, and I handily destroyed him with a speech Claude prepared for me. I won in a landslide, and now “outreach chair” reads on my LinkedIn page next to our polished, orange-blue-and-white logo.
After a slew of Canva infographics and even a free Bodo’s breakfast that spring, I came into this summer more confident than ever in my future as a student leader here on Grounds. Until the conversation with my uncle, that is. I know that Hoos on Grounds was founded in the early 2000s, that it’s funded partly by Jefferson Trust grants and alumni in consulting and that we do mixers with Kappa sometimes. But what is it all for?
Upon reflection, I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter if I don’t know what my CIO does. College is about working hard and playing harder, all while preparing to enter sweet, sweet employment, and it’s clear that alumni from my organization are doing just fine out there in the real world. Does it truly matter what we do so long as I can put “Hoos on Grounds” on my Handshake resume and send it to McKinsey? I don’t think so.
Owen Andrews is a columnist on the humor desk. He is a fourth-year Batten student, majoring in Public Policy and Leadership and psychology. Owen is from Arlington, Va, and he enjoys satirizing politics and University life. Outside of The Cavalier Daily, Owen is the editor-in-chief of the Virginia Review of Politics.
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