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Editor’s Note: The Cavalier Daily’s Editorial Board internally solicits applications each semester for new senior associate opinion editors and a new opinion columnist. Because of this, the Board’s membership changed halfway through the 135th term. To paint a more complete picture of our term this article includes perspectives from current and former members of the Editorial Board.
Take a look around you. Due to the school-wide Batten Curve, your grade in a class within the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy will not just be determined by your hard work, but also by the performances of your classmates. The Batten Curve states that each Batten class should have a mean GPA around 3.5. This pedagogical tool, intended to support consistency across the school’s classes, has stirred student concerns about unfair grade distributions, deflated GPAs and unnecessarily limited postgraduate opportunities for Batten students. Beyond those very tangible concerns, the Batten Curve cultivates a toxic culture of competitiveness that undermines professors’ autonomy and jeopardizes classroom dynamics.
Over the past few years, the American education system has been heavily exploited to promote local, political interests which have superseded and often imperiled educational goals. School boards, as a cornerstone of the American educational system, and state education departments, as a guarantor of equitable education, are designed to support educational performance and set a vision for their regions. However, they are increasingly a place not to try and bolster graduation rates or support student lunch access, but rather, to push political agendas onto students without real regard for education. Specifically, these agendas have problematically created vast disparities in educational material both between states and between counties — students are learning in environments radically different from those of their neighbors, even just a county over.
It has been over a year since the melting of Charlottesville’s statue of Robert E. Lee which was the impetus for the 2017 Unite the Right rally. Ultimately, the statue was melted down and is being repurposed into more inclusive art. Beyond the role it played in the city’s recent history, the statue’s removal and future re-creation are just the latest action in a trend of communities reckoning with their history, often by renaming buildings or removing statues of problematic figures. This trend is particularly prevalent on college campuses, the University included. More recent in our minds is the renaming of Alderman library to Shannon Library, deplatforming a man who dedicated his career to studying and advocating eugenics. Despite these positive steps, much work remains to be done. Yet, the advocacy and action toward such change seems to have stagnated — and the result is a series of uncomfortable, dissonant half measures.
To endorse, or not to endorse, that was the question.
Tony Bennett defined Cavalier men’s basketball for the past decade, and his recent retirement has struck chords deep in the University community. In explaining why he chose to leave, one of the things Bennett cited was recent changes in player compensation structures. In part, Bennett was referring to new permissions for players to benefit monetarily through name, image and likeness deals. The change allows market forces to infiltrate college sports, something Bennett did not feel he was best suited to adapt to.
There are reports that upperclassmen residences are having a mold problem. This is not the first time that this problem has arisen, and it will likely not be the last. Nevertheless, it is unacceptable and poses a genuine health risk to affected students. What is particularly shocking about this recurrence, though, is not the mold itself. Rather, what is shocking is that mold is just the tip of the iceberg. Despite the presence of subpar living conditions for some students on Grounds, the University has recently made a series of decisions that implicitly deprioritize the maintenance of spaces which contribute to student well-being, in favor of flashy new spaces that paper over existing cracks. In order to truly promote the overall health of its students, the University must place a priority on the maintenance of spaces that already exist.
For high school seniors, it is time to apply to colleges. However, for those of us on college campuses, it is time to reflect on the first year of admissions post-affirmative action. Unlike the majority of institutions similar in caliber and size, the University was largely successful in admitting a diverse class of students without the traditional affirmative action tools. This laudable success can be attributed to the manner in which the University has creatively spearheaded programs that target under-resourced communities in the Commonwealth and actively solicit applications from them. In this way, the University has created a new playbook for admissions, one which deserves to be thoroughly applauded for its transformative creativity and legal sustainability.
Student self-governance is undoubtedly making a comeback. While this editorial board previously raised concerns over the efficacy of student self-governance at the University, student leaders have recently addressed many long standing issues that plagued student self-governance organizations. The University Judiciary Committee has dramatically cut its case processing time. The Student Council passed a more fiscally responsible budget for the 2024-25 academic year. And the Honor Committee is fleshing out the multi-sanction system that we, as self-governing students, voted in. These recent steps underscore admirable work on the part of many leaders within our community. And they also highlight a broadly commendable recognition of the transformative power that can be wielded by traditional institutions of student self-governance.
The University is planning to expand yet again — the Board of Visitors Buildings and Grounds Committee has already chosen a site in the Emmet-Ivy area for new student housing. If all goes according to plan, this construction aims to accommodate all second-years in on-Grounds housing by the year 2030. To be clear, this is an exceptionally admirable goal — requiring second-years to live on-Grounds can foster a sense of community, alleviate the affordable housing crisis for Charlottesville residents and mitigate the stress of finding off-Grounds housing for students. But while the second-year housing expansion may be well intentioned, the manner in which it is being undertaken belies its fundamental goals. In fact, it is part of a barrage of large-scale construction projects which push the boundaries between the University and the neighboring Charlottesville community, projects which are so constant that they beg the question — will this expansion ever end?
Our city elections are about to change. On Sept. 3, the Charlottesville City Council approved the adoption of ranked choice voting for next year’s June Council primaries — a decision that should be applauded for its transformative potential. But while ranked choice voting is certainly a path to more inclusive and participatory elections, it is not without pitfalls. Specifically, the system can be counterintuitive and create unnecessary knowledge barriers. Thus, in order to counteract such pitfalls, the Council must carefully consider the shortcomings of other localities and institute a comprehensive, educational framework which promotes voter understanding of and participation in this new system.
Last Wednesday, the University Guide Service released a statement explaining that they had been suspended by the University for the fall semester. The suspension has since been picked up by national outlets, many of whom have framed this suspension as a reaction against the sensitive topics covered in U-Guides tours. These are serious accusations which, if true, are completely at odds with the mission of the University and the critical thinking it seeks to inspire.
We should all be able to agree that the end of the spring semester was far from ideal, perhaps even dystopian — administrators decided to violently clear a peaceful encampment and were directly responsible for the chaos which ensued. The University itself has acknowledged that the riot police, pepper spray and arrests were not the outcome they desired. And yet, given the recent notice which University administrators sent to students surrounding demonstrations and access to public space, we are left to wonder whether administrators actually regret the outcome. In fact, their policy changes suggest just the opposite. They have codified a series of regulations which not only operate as ex post facto justifications for their actions, but also set the University up to repeat the exact mistakes which they made on May 4, mistakes which endangered both student safety and the right to protest.
In response to confirmed reports of “abhorrent and detestable” hazing activities, the University has expelled the Alpha chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha for four years, and the national organization has revoked the chapter’s charter. Pi Kappa Alpha’s national organization has released a video detailing the “embarrassment” that individual members of the University chapter have caused the fraternity as a whole. Moreover, the national organization has asserted that they will be pursuing civil litigation against multiple individual leaders and members involved in new member initiation activities for violating their signed member agreement and for the financial and reputational damages incurred by Pi Kappa Alpha.
In the past few weeks, first-year students may have noticed a unique table set up by Observatory Hill Dining Hall. It wasn’t Chi Alpha or the Hullabahoos but the University Police Department. At this table, UPD was giving a simple notice to students — we are going to start pulling over your electric scooters. These notices are not the first action taken against electric scooters, and they may not be the last. Rather, these notices represent one among many actions taken by Charlottesville and the University to recenter pedestrian safety in their urban planning. Although it is perhaps the bare minimum, it is nonetheless laudable that the University and Charlottesville are beginning to prioritize the safety of pedestrians, especially in an impressively multi-pronged approach.
Earlier this month marked the 45th anniversary of The Cavalier Daily’s independence. On April 6, 1979 after a protracted conflict with the University over censorship, we became a fully independent news organization completely separate from University oversight and thus, better able to fully hold the University accountable to its professed mission and its students. While an institutional imperative to promote accountability has always been a driving force of student journalism, it was not until independence was achieved that this imperative could be fully realized. Official independence, however, does not mean that we are in any way distanced from the University community. As students who live and work in this space and as journalists who have a unique responsibility to report on it, we are still implicitly connected to the University community. In this way, The Cavalier Daily is able to inhabit a unique and important space which allows us to reflect and amplify a range of local concerns and voices, especially those of students.
Editor's note: This is a humor article published April 1 by The Cavalier Daily's Editorial Board in observance of April Fool's Day.
In the 1960s and 70s, the women’s rights movement and the gay rights movement began to create safe spaces. These spaces were then incorporated into the daily life of universities as both clearly delineated physical spaces and identity-based student organizations. Over the past few years, however, these spaces have become increasingly politicized as conservatives critique what they incorrectly perceive to be the institutional pampering of Gen-Z snowflakes. It is undeniably clear that conservatives have misunderstood the nature and mission of safe spaces — they are not bubble wrap for “sheltered” students. Rather, they carve out places in which different identity-based groups experience the support which has always been afforded to white heterosexual men in all other spaces.
After the murder of Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry last year, Governor Glenn Youngkin made a visit to Grounds, honoring the lives lost in a powerful demonstration of empathy. As students who lived through this violence, we wondered what would be done to prevent such tragedies in the future. Now, however, Youngkin seems to have forgotten the suffering of this community and the empathy he expressed for it — he recently refused to sign two bills promoting gun safety. And in doing so, he has brutally reminded us that nice words are no substitute for tangible action. This Editorial Board, simply put, is disappointed about Youngkin’s dangerous decision to block critical steps towards ending the epidemic of senseless gun violence in Virginia.
This year, the Lawn Selection Committee received 177 applications from rising fourth-years hoping to live on the Lawn — granting Lawn rooms to 47 individuals. While 177 applications is an increase from last year, this relatively low number of interested students fits into a larger trend — application numbers have failed to surpass 230 since before the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, there seems to be decreased interest in living in Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village, the center of our university’s history and community. While the University intends for living on the Lawn to be a sort of reward for excellent service and a privilege obtained by impactful students, the structures surrounding this housing option have increasingly conspired to decrease the privilege of becoming a Lawnie.