As September comes to a close, the managing board recounts some notable numbers.
At the University, we see our own disturbing trends of voter turnout: in last year’s student elections, only 30.8 percent of the student body voted. That number was five points lower in 2014.
Essentially, schools are trapped in this system (though Reed, Diver argues, has thrived through its withdrawal from the U.S. News process). And at our University, which, in all likelihood, won’t withdraw itself from rankings any time soon, we have to navigate the desire to raise rankings and simultaneously not let them guide important decisions.
Yesterday’s news revealed many details we already knew or expected, but that remain troubling: that past University policies on sexual assault were not sufficient, and that students at the University experience sexual assault in unconscionable numbers.
If law enforcement has a more prominent role in universities’ cases, survivors may be hesitant to pursue charges, either due to their own trauma or because they don’t wish to launch a criminal investigation or harsher sanction than a school would provide. Of course, someone who has committed a rape deserves a criminal prosecution — but if a survivor won’t come forward for fear of criminal prosecution, with this bill, her rapist will get no prosecution at all, since the school can’t pursue its own adjudicative process.
Politicians, especially those who have access to perks like state-owned planes, often walk a difficult line between private and public use of their state-given resources.
While there are valid criticisms of Obama’s plan, his search tool is a welcome development for struggling families and students. Student loan debt in the United States has reached $1.2 trillion, but the new data the administration has released shows whether college graduates are successfully repaying their loans, giving students insight into whether a given school’s loan program will be financially feasible for them.
As a public school, the University of Virginia stands out amongst the elite, private institutions it competes against as more financially accessible to residents of its state. But though the University offers comparatively reasonable in-state tuition prices — subsidized by larger out-of-state tuition — this model still can’t make up for the unequal implications of education costs.
The General Assembly’s propensity to draw unfair district maps is already troubling, but it is especially troubling that legislators would essentially ignore a court order to address this inequality.
Retail store Natty Beau, a recent addition to the string of shops in the Corner area where many students eat and socialize, currently has a window display meant to entice its young clientele, featuring crumpled red solo cups scattered along the floor under its mannequins.
In fact, Greek life, since it has institutional checks and balances in place — as well as an entire University office devoted to regulating it — can be more easily held accountable for reported acts of hazing compared with CIOs or other student groups.
The board’s decision to divest — and to refrain from investing in private prison companies in the future — serves as a reminder of the varied impacts universities can have. While this past year we became consumed with issues over which our University has more direct control, the impacts of a given school can extend far beyond its physical campus or student body.
While there is merit to the debate over religious exemptions to this mandate, Wheaton officials were not yet being forced to act against their religious beliefs. Moreover, they did not even attempt to grandfather students into their new policy, halting coverage immediately for students who probably expected to remain covered through their school as long as they remained enrolled.
We are devastated by a tragedy that is both proximate and exceptionally lurid. But this tragedy does not stand alone: a 2014 FBI study of 160 active-shooter events since 2000 showed an increase in shootings over time.
McDonnell’s entire case, even though he is the first Virginia governor to be tried and convicted of corruption, has demonstrated the special privileges his title offers.
Though some of us may have felt blindsided by this change in our system, its benefits far outweigh any small annoyances we may have with filling out another form.
As the academic year comes to an end, the Managing Board recounts some notable numbers.
Issues facing LGBTQ students can be complex, but one issue that almost uniquely plagues transgender and gender non-conforming students is the issue of invisibility. When spaces demarcate between just two genders — male and female — and force all students into one of these two categories, transgender and gender non-conforming students are rendered invisible to existing structures.
If it is not conscious decisions, but rather subconscious biases as a result of existing structures, that push administrators toward unethical tendencies, addressing ethical issues in higher education is that much more complicated. But this case-study provides some clear solutions: one could be that administrators be required to review their decisions in one consistent platform; another could be that outsiders come into college campuses over certain periods of time to discuss current ethical dilemmas.
We cannot overstate the harm these generalizations have created. People who are survivors may not see themselves as such, or if they do, they may not report their stories. And those who work tirelessly on behalf of survivors and take all the right steps — such as informing survivors of all their options and allowing them the room to make a choice to give them back their agency, something Erdely condemned in her article — must fear that doing the right thing will be manipulated and distorted by an ill-informed public.
