The University’s enthusiasm for expanding differential-tuition programs — and its stated reasoning for upperclassman fees — comes from the same ethos that drives the development of the school’s new internal financial model. The model aims to treat each school or unit as a separate cost center that must generate revenues to cover its expenses.
Though its actions sparked an online uproar, including hundreds of frantic tweets and a mention in The Washington Post, all R00tTh3B0x has done is redirect a web domain. Virginia.edu, the central hub of the University’s online presence, is an important page to keep secure. But R00tTh3B0x has not jeopardized the site’s security in any meaningful way.
Multiple University students, faculty and staff participated in the Massachusetts race. Mark Hampton, the Curry School’s senior associate dean for administration, finished the marathon about an hour before the bombs went off. The handful of University students in Boston for the race, as well as other faculty and staff members, also escaped harm.
UNC’s mixed-gender option will, at first, affect 32 students, a tiny fraction of the school’s total enrollment. A bill that aims squarely to prevent these students from living in gender-neutral accommodations reads as an instance of the kind of bullying the school’s housing policy sought to prevent.
Searching for praise in a thread of online comments is a fool’s errand, and positivity is not a metric we use in determining which comments to delete. But we hold that obscenities, defamation and ad hominem attacks have no place in respectful public dialogue.
Humanities Week, a celebration of the humanities that kicked off Sunday evening and runs through Friday, provides a compelling example of how an organization can empower students to make effective use of common space.
Mr. Falwell’s university has a notoriously strict campus code in many respects. The school prohibits students from kissing or from listening to music that is not “in harmony with God’s word.” But when it comes to firearms the school grants its students a bit too much liberty.
Monday’s frenzy escalated to comic proportions for two primary reasons. First, and most critically, an interconnected student body linked by social media and other forms of instant communication caused false reports to run rampant. Second, a climate of fear surrounding alcohol use, sparked by ABC’s crackdown and last week’s request from Dean of Students Allen Groves for fraternities to end new-member initiation for the sake of student safety, led students to believe that police officers could or would enter their rooms without permission — and against what the Constitution allows — at a school that, on a sunny afternoon, lies in Monticello’s shadow.
The spring tumult of fraternity pledge-ship came to a halt 6 p.m. Sunday — the deadline the University set, with little warning, for Inter-Fraternity Council organizations to end pledging activities and initiate new members. The University requested Thursday that fraternities make new members full brothers by 6 p.m. Saturday. The school later granted a one-day extension. But many fraternity men, if past initiation trends hold, would have liked an extension of 24 days, not 24 hours.
For many students, handing in an essay is the precursor to an agonizing spell of uncertainty. Professors, it often seems, take years to grade papers. One might as well be walking down the Lawn toward Cabell Hall, graduation tassels swinging, by the time a professor from first year hails you down clutching an essay flecked with red ink.
Cuccinelli has been a thorn in the University’s side as attorney general; as governor, he could do a lot more damage. His action against the sodomy ruling suggests, first, a grave misunderstanding of the proper scope of government in relation to individual freedom — why should the state tell consenting adults what they may or may not do in the bedroom? — and second, a sinister impulse toward homophobia, as sodomy statutes have historically been strategically enforced to persecute gay men.
Given Bloomfield’s popularity and his apparent interest in digital-learning platforms, it is fitting that the University, in seeking to highlight its forays into MOOC-world, would center its coverage on him. But in demonstrating Bloomfield’s prowess as a teacher, the University’s article raises some concerns about how labor-intensive teaching an online course might be.
Among the hundreds of bills Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law last week, one in particular may have direct negative effects on Virginia’s public college students.
The managing board’s occasional survey of notable numerals
Because of tuition increases, financial aid will become more crucial for many students. It is disappointing that Sullivan’s financial plan does not include a more robust defense of AccessUVa. A strong financial-aid program is crucial for the University’s success. Such a program preserves the school’s public obligation to educate all worthy students, and it attracts bright thinkers from a range of communities who might not otherwise be able to afford attending college.
GradDays seeks to accomplish several important aims. The initiative provides support for minority graduate students; it gives graduate students opportunities to socialize with peers in other departments; and, in a hostile academic climate, it offers workshops and panels that provide professional-development tips.
Ever since the Sloan Digital Sky Survey began amassing astronomical data in 2000 and gathered more data in its first weeks than had been collected in the history of astronomy, the term “big data” began its ascendancy. In many academic circles the possibilities big data offers seem brighter than the stars the Sloan telescope observes. If one were to tally how many times people reference “big data” in current higher-education discourse — in publications, at board meetings, by the coffee machine in the faculty lounge — that collection would itself constitute a data set of dizzying size.
The University’s use of live cats to train graduate physicians on how to insert breathing tubes into critically ill newborns has drawn ire from animal-rights groups around the country. But the Medical Center last week quietly abandoned the practice.
Why single out political science? Coburn’s amendment left funding for other social sciences, such as sociology or anthropology, untouched. The tremendous irony of the matter is that Coburn tacked his measure on a bill that attempted to mitigate the damage of sequestration cuts, which resulted from egregious political deadlock and negligence of the public good. Considering the Capitol’s recent dysfunction, maybe we should be studying political science more, not less.
The news might seem minor: it’s unlikely that more than a handful of students from each school will take advantage of this opportunity. But judging from the information the University has released so far—the two schools are still finalizing the program’s details—the language-class exchange is an excellent example of how universities should approach three important areas: rare language education, partnerships with other schools, and technology as a means of enhancing learning.
