Students on last year's Lawn Selection Committee are questioning the workings of the room admission process. Each year, the Lawn Selection Committee oversees a complex and controversial process to select which students will live in the University's original Academical Village.
With each new semester, University students - regardless of school, year or major
The Spanish department's two-year moratorium on the Spanish minor was instituted last September to alleviate the difficulty Spanish majors face when enrolling in classes, but even now that the freeze is halfway over, those students still are finding it frustratingly difficult to enroll in their required classes.
During spring 2008, Physics Prof. Blaine Norum received an e-mail from a student about an in-class cheating incident during the final exam period for his Physics 142E class.
After building its autonomy throughout the past year, the University Unity Project kicked off its capstone event of 2010 last week: Earth Week.
As the University has to expand even in the wake of dramatic cuts to state funds, the role of the school's president has expanded simultaneously.
The Spanish department announced a two-year moratorium on the Spanish minor in September - much to the chagrin of many students - because the demand for Spanish classes overwhelmed the department's resources, according to department officials, particularly in light of current and impending budget cuts and other economic woes.
The Office of the Dean of the College amended its procedural guidelines in August 2009 to state that the College's Promotion and Tenure Committee would no longer reconsider denied tenure cases.
After putting forth semesters of hard work representing students at honor trials or going that extra mile planning that philanthropy event or studying all night, 47 third-year undergraduate students were awarded Lawn rooms as recognition for their services to the University.
As students await the results of this year's University-wide elections for positions in the Honor Committee, Student Council and University Judiciary Committee, Student Council's Diversity Initiatives Committee is currently looking into excessive campaign financing and how it may reverberate into the demographics of student leaders within those organizations. Proliferation of funds Though most candidates spend less than $20 on their campaigns, third-year College student and Honor Committee representative hopeful Adam Michel spent more than $800 on his unsuccessful campaign last year.
Although the University prides itself on the tradition of student self-governance, less than 40 percent of full-time students typically participate in the spring University-wide elections. The statistics In 2006 and 2007, 36 percent of full-time students cast their votes, but that statistic plummeted in 2008 when only 28 percent of students voted.
During the past decade, the number of non-tenure-track faculty positions has increased relative to the number of tenure-track positions at universities nationwide.
The $47 million Student Information System was implemented at the University nearly a year ago to streamline student information and to improve the course registration system, said Carole Horwitz, director of communications for the Student Systems Project.
In one of Student Council's major undertakings this year, the administration of President John Nelson overhauled the consultant program for contracted independent organizations.
The search for president-elect Teresa A. Sullivan - who will succeed John T. Casteen, III and become the eighth president in University history - began with questions not only from students, faculty and staff, but also from senior administrators at private and public universities nationwide. A surprising transition President and CEO Jan Greenwood, whose consulting firm Greenwood/Asher and Associates, Inc. has conducted more than 1,000 searches for leaders in business and academia, said though she was not involved in the search, she fielded multiple calls from potentially interested candidates who asked about the commonwealth's financial health, the effects of its gubernatorial change and, most frequently, why Casteen planned to step down in August. "There were a lot of questions in the market about the reasons for President Casteen's departure," Greenwood said, noting that it was unusual for a leader like Casteen to leave during a massive fundraising campaign, which has raised just more than $2 billion since its conception in 2006. Casteen, however, will remain active in the present capital campaign after Sullivan takes the reins.
Throughout the semester, the Honor Committee has re-worked and re-examined many of its education efforts in the hopes of increasing awareness and knowledge about its system. "Honor has the potential to impact a student's career ... either positively or negatively," Vice Chair for Education Rob Atkinson said.
As President John T. Casteen, III approaches the end of his term and the University's Special Committee on the Nomination of a President continues its search for his replacement, Focus looks back on the institution's seven presidents and their terms of office. Edwin Anderson Alderman (1905-31) Edwin Alderman, the University's first president, held office from 1904 to 1931.
Although the economy may be on the rebound, the job market remains dismal, adding unwanted stress to students graduating in the spring.
Tomorrow, Virginia voters will elect either Democrat Creigh Deeds or Republican Bob McDonnell as their next governor.
Following the examples of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, the University Faculty Senate is considering a resolution that would require all faculty members to retain the rights to enter their academic articles into a publicly accessible University repository.
