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(05/25/23 1:50am)
I became an Opinion columnist at The Cavalier Daily in the summer of 2020. The pandemic was at its peak, and the section was seeking to bring on new writers prior to its fall recruitment. Though on the more introverted side, I, of course, held many beliefs, political or otherwise. Becoming a columnist felt oddly natural. I had never had an outlet like this paper — a post on Instagram did not have quite the same reach. Here, I felt I could actually influence something, maybe even someone. This is an idea I believe the Opinion section runs on. My editor for that first year and a half, Hailey Yowell, always helped me get my thoughts out there, and she is one of the main reasons this paper has been such a big part of my time at the University. People like her remind me that we, as students, have our biggest supporters in each other.
(11/01/22 1:53am)
Although temporarily blocked in court, the application for federal student loan debt relief is now available. Individual borrowers who earned under $125,000 or families — including their college-attending dependents — who earned under $250,000 in 2020 or 2021 are eligible for relief. For eligible borrowers, the federal government will relieve up to $10,000 for those who are not recipients of a Pell Grant and $20,000 for those who are. This relief — which President Joe Biden campaigned on — will help millions of Americans. But student loan forgiveness cannot stop at the federal level. Private borrowers should also be aided as Biden and future administrations expand debt relief, which I firmly believe they should. Students who have no choice but to take out private loans should not be neglected as they pursue their education.
(10/26/22 3:37am)
If you are an upperclassman living on Grounds, you can purchase an on-Grounds parking permit. However, some on-Grounds lots have the bizarre condition that you must move your car on days Virginia football plays in Charlottesville — otherwise, you will be towed or ticketed. D3, S6 and S9 parkers must move their car on these days. The D3 lot is an offsite parking location by the School of Law that students can use if they live in on-Grounds housing with onsite parking, such as Lambeth and Faulkner apartments. S6 is an overflow lot option for students at Bond House, Bice House and Hereford Residential College, as well as the only option for students living in language houses. S9 is the onsite lot for Hereford. Over 800 permit holders at another offsite location, Emmet/Ivy Garage, were forced to move their cars farther away from Central Grounds to John Paul Jones Arena last month, as a result of increased demand for on-Grounds parking. D3, S6 and EIG permit holders pay $324 for their annual permits — as opposed to the $600 most onsite parking permits cost, including the S9 lot. Even if students pay a reduced price, however, we should never be required to move our cars from their permitted lot.
(09/15/22 4:13am)
The Board of Visitors is the University’s governing body consisting of 19 members, 17 of whom are appointed by the Governor of Virginia and confirmed by the General Assembly. The remaining two non-voting members are a full-time University student and a University faculty member, who are both appointees of the Board itself. The student member currently lacks substantive power as a non-voting member — lobbying is their primary means of influence. Meanwhile, the student body itself cannot vote for who supposedly represents them in Board meetings. This is absurd. The student member of the Board should be elected by the students of this University, not appointed by a Board entirely unable to speak to the experiences of today’s average University student. Once empowered with actual students’ approval, I also believe this student should gain the ability to vote on the Board’s decisions.
(08/21/22 12:14am)
Each fall, the University and the University Programs Council hosts their annual Welcome Week, which offers chances for new and returning students to celebrate the start of a new school year. And each April, the UPC throws Springfest, a mid-semester opportunity for students to blow off steam. In recent history, these two festivities have included concerts from artists who UPC brings to Grounds. For 2021’s Welcome Week, UPC brought rapper Jack Harlow. Rapper Trippie Redd came to Grounds for 2022’s Springfest. And for this year’s Welcome Week, UPC announced that singer and rapper Sean Kingston will perform at John Paul Jones Arena.
(08/23/22 2:58am)
Tabling for Education Abroad at this year’s Days on the Lawn activity fair, I interacted with students exploring the University and its offerings. Many of these students came to Grounds with their parents — an understandable companion on a trip where many students decide upon their academic future. To my chagrin, though, parents dominated my conversations. Students speaking entirely for themselves — asking questions about Education Abroad, community-building and any other concerns an incoming student could have — made up the minority of conversations. Such interactions were less frequent than those in which the student hovered silently behind their parents. While some students may have just been shy, I was startled when a parent would be the only one to speak and declare the student’s interests. One mom abruptly ended our conversation after learning I was discussing a program that sends students abroad during their first college semester. She decided her child — who stood behind her and silently walked off after her refusal — would not participate in such a thing.
(07/25/22 11:38pm)
The University’s welcome page for the incoming class of 2026 encourages incoming first years to “imagine waking up in a place that has been ranked the most beautiful college campus in America.” Reading this, I have to laugh. The photo at the top of the page displays the Lawn, conveniently with the pavilions that have been under construction this past year out of frame. Of course, the Lawn is the University’s biggest flaunt, what with its greenery and crowning Rotunda. But that “beautiful college campus” that the University hopes to allure students with is a lie. Grounds are perhaps pretty when there’s no construction, but what current student knows a University free of construction? New sites and projects are constantly arising. No matter where you are on Grounds, you are bound to see caution tape, gravel parking lots, scaffolding, closed roads, orange cones, dump trucks, forklifts, neon vests and hardhats.
(06/12/22 1:17pm)
Each year of high school, I recall copies of Dave Cullen’s Columbine filtering through the hallways after an English teacher or two regularly assigned it. Covering the infamous 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, Cullen’s book is an important confrontation with many myths — such as the belief that the shooting stemmed from emo or goth culture — around the shooting. Having never read it for class myself, though, it was something of a harrowing presence seeing the book emerge and retreat each year. One semester, a friend told me that our high school’s cafeteria had the same open-floor layout as Columbine’s cafeteria, where some of the most striking surveillance footage was taken of the perpetrators. I wish I hadn’t — I wish there was no cause to — but I imagined what I would do if I was at lunch when a shooting began at my school. More and more students have had to live that reality since 1999.
(04/06/22 12:42am)
University President Jim Ryan and Executive Vice President Ian Baucom recently authored a guest column arguing free speech is “alive and well” on Grounds. Their article is perhaps one of the few uncritical responses to one of The Cavalier Daily’s recent lead editorials, which challenged Mike Pence’s upcoming talk at Old Cabell Hall. The vast majority of those on social media who publicly responded to the editorial believed that it signifies a dissolution of free speech at the University. While I appreciate Ryan and Baucom’s defense of the Editorial Board’s right to print the article, I believe their guest column engages in a common tactic of over-glorifying free speech.
(03/17/22 4:27pm)
An avid Jane Austen fan since I could self-profess it, I was excited to see an Austen course offered in the English Department this spring. I immediately enrolled when class registration began, eager to tackle these beloved novels — “Mansfield Park,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Persuasion” and my personal favorite book, “Emma.” My professor said no “Pride and Prejudice” or “Northanger Abbey.” I was okay with this, as I possessed enough of those former traits and was quite well-versed in the latter — “Northanger Abbey” being a tale of a young woman declaring herself victim to creatures that don’t actually exist.
(03/03/22 11:33pm)
Last week, I drove to Farmville, Va. from Charlottesville to visit a friend — not the kind of trip I frequently take. I had planned this trip for about a month. This meant ensuring that I had the half a tank of gas leftover from my drive to Charlottesville in January. It also meant making sure I bought fewer groceries than normal to prepare for this trip, during which I would inevitably have to refill my tank. That stop at the gas station came sooner than expected. Leaving Charlottesville, gas prices were frankly scary. They exceeded $3.40 at most stations. Though I would not need gas until the trip back to Charlottesville, I did not want to risk the price going up. Luckily, I ventured upon a Sunoco station with a $3.33 price tag. I refueled there, paying $28.12 for about three-fourths of my tank. For college students on a small budget, $28.12 can be over two weeks’ worth of grocery basics — milk, lettuce, bananas, blueberries, cheap snacks and some frozen dinners.
(02/26/22 3:47pm)
Two years ago, COVID-19 disrupted our college experience. Though incomparable to the death and grief that has come of this pandemic, University students lost in-person courses and extracurriculars for over a year. Even today, most of our schedules navigate between virtual and face-to-face spaces, depending on the organization, the class or the event’s preference. University administration vaguely refers to in-person engagement as a “hallmark of our University,” yet I’ve witnessed students frequently succeeding in online settings. We may associate Zoom courses with the loss of a normal college experience, but I believe we should embrace the convenience and integrate virtual meetings into University life.
(03/07/22 7:36pm)
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a period of great loss, confusion and depression. It has driven conflict between political parties, friends and families and — as we’ve frequently witnessed between University administrators and students — community members and their leaders. These rifts are certainly justified in many instances, but the impact of this pandemic on the world has made the news an endless cycle of sadness. Headlines may arise that rightfully applaud the work of health officials, but even these positive takes just briefly brighten the laboring efforts of overwhelmed hospitals.
(02/22/22 9:30pm)
On his first day in office, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a series of executive orders and directives, the first two of which targeted public schools in Virginia. His first executive order bans the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. The order deems critical race theory an example of an “inherently divisive concept.” Youngkin’s second order allows parents to defy mask mandates in their respective school districts. Although the entire order relates to mask mandates and COVID-19, its official title — Reaffirming the Right of Parents in the Upbringing, Education and Care of their Children — paints a false image of its contents by quoting from the Constitution of Virginia. It disguises ignorance of the effectiveness of masks in schools, instead pretending to be about parents’ rights. From day one, Youngkin has employed deception.
(01/26/22 11:41pm)
Going into the new school year, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam implemented a mask mandate for all K-12 schools in the state. Some school boards immediately defied the Governor’s order. Hanover County, King William County and Fauquier County, to name a few, opposed the mandate and opted for mask-optional rules in their schools. Masks help prevent the spread of COVID-19, hence why Northam mandated them. Parents complaining about mask mandates at school board meetings supposedly defend their kids. However, such purported defense comes with the blatant disregard for all other children, especially those with their own health vulnerabilities or family members with underlying medical conditions.
(11/16/21 4:11am)
In October, ProPublica published an article detailing the repulsive handling of sexual assault cases at Liberty University. The Virginia college — founded by Jerry Falwell, known for his backwards Christian conservativism — has silenced the voices of students who were raped or faced sexual assault. One student, Elizabeth Axley, was told not to report her assaults over fears that she — the victim — would be punished for drinking alcohol or “fraternizing” with the opposite gender. The school’s Title IX coordinator ignored Axley’s report, which included textual evidence. The coordinator instead pushed blame upon Axley by suggesting she could’ve avoided the assault and was thus responsible for it. The article goes on to describe and mention similar experiences across Liberty’s student body, with most of the assaults being reported by women.
(10/31/21 4:30pm)
As another round of class enrollment hovers near, it can be easy to treat it as another task on a checklist. Classes are hard — even if we love them — and the prospect of a new batch of courses may not be all that enticing right now. However, we all owe it to ourselves to not let enrollment turn into a mundane task of minimal joy. Yes, it’s another set of tasks — scrolling through the Student Information System for classes and completing advising sessions. But it’s also a chance to give yourself something new next semester. There’s never been a better time to take the class you’ve always wanted to take or to scavenge through SIS for those hidden gems that you wouldn’t see otherwise.
(10/25/21 11:52pm)
During my senior year of high school, I read Toni Morrison’s debut novel “The Bluest Eye.” It presents sexual assault, incest and violence in manners that required me to step away from the book before returning. It’s a hard read — but it’s also one deserving of attention for its powerful spotlight on Black women’s tribulations. As such, I was saddened when my English teacher at the time told me she believed she’d be fired for teaching “The Bluest Eye,” which sat in our school’s storage room of teaching materials. I’m lucky to have read Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in high school, a novel addressing similar themes as Morrison’s. Hurston’s book, though, isn’t without its challengers either. Books like these — worthy of study and rich with creativity and commentary — should not sit untouched in storage rooms, kept out of learning spaces.
(10/20/21 11:28pm)
Moving further and further into this semester, we’ve all heard them in our classes — the sniffles, sneezes and coughs. I’ve had friends, classmates and professors all send the texts, emails and post-cough reassurances that they just tested negative the previous day for COVID-19 — it’s just a cold or allergies. Given the lightening of many COVID-19 precautions around Grounds, it’s no surprise that colds and other common illnesses are emerging among the student body. Even if they aren’t bringing COVID-19 into the classroom at high rates, students and faculty are coming to class sick. The University wants in-person instruction to continue, despite allowing students to disregard masks outdoors during packed football games. Events like these will be superspreaders — if not of COVID-19 — of normal seasonal illnesses like the cold and flu.
(08/09/21 5:27pm)
In May, my friends and I got together for one of our final dinners of the school year before we drove or flew back home. As always, someone was bound to drop some baggage or complaint from the day’s events — only this time, we seemed to all share a similar complaint. One of us mentioned not receiving any feedback from a professor on a major final assignment. A few nods and confessions later, it turned out nearly all of us had similar experiences. This was weighing on my mind for a few days, and I mentioned it in an internship meeting a week later during the quick check-ins that begin our meetings. The internship consists of ten students, and when I noted I was a bit frustrated with receiving little to no feedback on my final papers and exams, nods of agreement appeared across my Zoom screen.