Serving the University Community Since 1890
Vice President Dick Cheney denies having any ties to the energy conglomerate Halliburton Co. Halliburton Co. won the contract to rebuild Iraq after America's attack on the country. The reconstruction contracts total over $1.7 billion. Cheney denied having any ties with the company that employed him prior to his vice presidential campaign. Democrats pointed out that Cheney still has unexercised stock options with the company, but in 2001 Cheney said he would donate profits minus taxes to three charities. Cheney's communication director Catherine Martin asserted in a statement the hundreds of thousands of dollars of deferred salary payments the vice president still receives from the company are not ties to Halliburton.
The Center for Undergraduate Excellence has postponed the deadline for applications for its Rhodes Marshall Mitchell scholarship from Friday to 10 a.m.
Julian Bond, chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and University professor of American history, spoke out against California's Proposition 54 at a rally Saturday in Berkley, CA. The proposition, known by its proponents as the Racial Privacy Initiative, stipulates "The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment." While at Berkley's city hall, Bond also signed a civil rights pledge that began 40 years ago with the March on Washington. California voters are set to vote on Proposition 54 at an October 7 election, although a recent federal ruling against the use of punch cards may force the state to postpone the referendum.
Transfer students applying to the University face virtually the same application as first years, save for one essay question, which asks, "Why do you want to transfer?" The question is one that transfer students may find themselves revisiting once they are accepted and decide to face the social, logistical and academic upheaval associated with switching from one school to another. Yet, in the end, most transfers say the rewards of being a University student outweigh the stresses of the process. Admissions, Take Two Perhaps the biggest challenge for potential transfer students is getting accepted. Though 39 percent of first-year applicants are admitted, the University only admits about 22 percent of the approximately 2,200 annual transfer applicants. Director of Institutional Studies George Stovall said he works in conjunction with the admissions office to determine the number of transfer spots the University will offer each year. "Based on past experience, the University knows how many qualified applicants we are going to get and then the Provost approves the number," Stovall said. He added that the University tries to accept as many students from the Virginia community college system as they can, but that group accounts for only a third of the transfer population. Housing Hurdles Because transfers receive acceptance letters even after first years get their housing assignments, housing slots are scarce until openings arise early in the school year. "Housing is the number one concern of transfer students coming in," said Virginia Barb, co-chair of the Transfer Student Peer Advisor program. Most transfers have their housing horror tales to tell, but with the closing of Bice and the incomplete status of two new apartment complexes, even more transfers were scrambling for housing than usual this semester. Housing does not guarantee accommodations for transfers. "Usually, we do reserve some spots for transfer students in the fall, but this year because Bice was closed our first priority was returning students," Chief Housing Officer Mark Doherty said.
Will Sowers, Student Council vice president for administration, proposed a bill to Council at last night's meeting which will change the way student self-governance is conducted at the University if passed at next week's meeting. Sowers, who has headed the elections reform movement since it began last March, proposed a referendum to be placed on the fall elections ballot to solicit student approval for an entirely new elections system. Discrepancies in the Spring 2003 elections prompted Council to initiate elections reform.
As hurricane Isabel continues to churn northward toward central Virginia, members of both the University and Charlottesville community continue emergency preparations in anticipation of its landfall. Although the strength and direction of the hurricane could change significantly in the next two days, both University and local officials urge Charlottesville residents to take precautionary measures such as stocking up on food and water, "buttoning up" their residences and securing outdoor furniture and other items which could cause damage with the expected high winds and heavy rain. "Be prepared, but calm," Director of Facilities Operations Chris Willis said.
The official launch of a new telecommunications network, National LambdaRail, has some scientists excited about its capability to connect distant researchers. The network, announced yesterday, is slated to begin operations in most parts of the nation by the end of 2004.
A group of students at the University of Michigan is pushing for a boycott of Coors beer in response to a controversial political contribution by former company president Joseph Coors Sr. Coors, who was president of the Coors Brewing Company during a nationwide boycott of its products in 1977, recently donated over $100,000 to support Ward Connerly, a member of the University of California's Board of Regents and outspoken proponent of California's Proposition 54, which would remove racially identifying information from state applications. While Coors retired from the company in 2000 and passed away in March of this year, the student group, known as the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, alleges the Coors Brewing Company has a history of unfair labor practices. Western Michigan University's Student Assembly endorsed a similar boycott last year after union employees were locked out of a Coors manufacturing plant in the university's home city of Kalamazoo. The Coors Brewing Company, which markets many brand names including Coors Light, Keystone Premium, and Zima, is the country's third largest beer producer.
As taps wafted across the Amphitheater, students rose from their academic pursuits as cadets saluted in remembrance of prisoners of war and those missing in action. The three ROTC battalions on Grounds assembled yesterday at the Amphitheater to honor the nearly 90,000 American servicemen unaccounted for in the last three major wars.
A small group of students find life at U.Va. to be less than bright and gay. While University Spokesperson Carol Wood said the University's retention rate for first-year students is 97 percent -- meaning most students enjoy life at the University, or at least tolerate it well enough that inertia compels them to stay -- a few do decide to transfer away each year. Choosing to Leave Except when a student withdraws partway through a semester, administrators do not conduct formal exit interviews or surveys of students who leave the University.
The Inter-Fraternity Council revised its Judiciary Committee bylaws last Thursday as the first in a series of steps to reduce liability and strengthen the fraternity system. One of the major revisions, informally titled the "gentleman's bylaw," stemmed from last fall's blackface incident at a joint Halloween party thrown by Kappa Alpha and Zeta Psi fraternities, said David Bowman, IFC vice president of judiciary. "The fraternities couldn't be held accountable [in the past] for anything because they didn't violate any [specific] IFC standards of conduct," Bowman said. The "gentleman's bylaw" provides grounds for a judiciary sanction should any IFC fraternity member engage in conduct that sheds a negative light on the fraternity system, IFC President Ryan Ewalt said. As stated in the Judiciary Committee bylaws, the IFC could impose sanctions on any fraternity member who engages in "conduct that is incompatible with the good character and personal responsibility expected of all members of the fraternity community and that dishonors the fraternity system at the University of Virginia." "The standards of conduct, [including] rush violations and social violations, are more clearly defined," Bowman said. Other minor bylaw revisions included grammatical and organizational changes. "We made the whole document more coherent through reorganization and amendment," Bowman said.
When he originally signed his lease, second-year College student Louis Ford thought that by this point in the semester he would be living in Camden Plaza.
Perhaps unknown to the traditional undergraduate community, adults with full-time careers and families have an opportunity to earn an undergraduate degree at the University through the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degree program. "The program is designed for working adults who would like to complete their undergraduate degrees on a part-time basis or at night," said Donna Plasket, director of the BIS program. Students enrolled in the program have completed their first two years of college at an earlier time and enter as third years.
While the current trend of "social norms" anti-drinking campaigns is drawing criticism for its purported ineffectiveness, the University boasts high success rates for a more old-fashioned approach to alcohol prevention: Classroom-based education. "Choices," the class offered through the University's Center for Alcohol and Substance Education, showed positive results for the 2002-2003 academic year, Dean of Students Penny Rue said. "Choices" consists of two, 2 1/2-hour courses offered once a month during which participants are instructed through lectures, power point presentations and videos, CASE Director Susan Bruce said. All the information presented through "Choices" is based on current research. "We believe our instruction goes beyond the level of alcohol education most people have received by the time they graduate from high school," Bruce said. The program emphasizes lifelong alcohol issues and is not limited to alcohol in a college setting, she added. "We really focus on the negative consequences of drinking," Bruce said.
University students will have to wait at least another week before their contributions to a NASA rocket are launched into space. All scheduled launches and flight experiments where the rocket is located, at the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore, have been postponed in anticipation of rough weather conditions resulting from Hurricane Isabel. The rocket, which was originally scheduled for lift-off this morning, will remain in storage at Wallops Island until its launch can be rescheduled, possibly within the next month. The delay is not expected to negatively impact research, which will measure atmospheric and oceanic data. -- Compiled by Jason Amirhadji
Fifty-five percent of Virginia K-12 public schools met the federal government's definition of "adequate yearly progress," as set out in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, the Virginia Department of Education announced Thursday. However, 82 percent of state school divisions did not meet Virginia's AYP standards, including Charlottesville City and Albemarle County Public Schools. Virginia educators, however, contend that the overall numbers are misleading because of the method by which the AYP standards are set and do not reflect how Virginia schools performed in the past year. The AYP tests how much schools are improving toward meeting the final goals of the NCLB Act, which are 100 percent student proficiency in reading and math nationwide by 2014. To meet the standard of making adequate yearly progress, a school had to meet between 29 and 35 benchmarks.
Charging University administrators of stifling free thought with the possible imposition of a diversity training exercise, the newly-formed Individual Rights Coalition unveiled itself yesterday under the auspices of protecting freedom of speech on Grounds. Started by a group of four students, the coalition used flyers and its Web site, www.freeuva.com, to announce its formation and advocate a "Petition Against Thought Reform at U.Va." Vice President for Student Affairs Pat Lampkin addressed the IRC's grievances by pointing out that plans for the diversity training exercise have yet to be finalized. "They're responding to something that hasn't even been developed," Lampkin said, adding that it is unclear at this point whether the exercise will be mandatory. "We do want all students to be exposed to it," she said. A self-proclaimed non-partisan organization, the IRC also tabled the Lawn yesterday to promote student scrutiny of University policies dealing with speech and diversity. The IRC was formed initially in response to the University Board of Visitors' announcement in May that it planned to discuss the implementation of a Web-based diversity training system that all students would be required to complete prior to class registration. "We felt that there wasn't any organization on Grounds that would pursue this issue -
Private donor support to the University reached an all-time high of $261.9 million for the now-ended 2002-2003 fiscal year, up 2.7 percent from the previous year.
As hurricane Isabel propels up the east coast, the city of Charlottesville and the University are preparing for potential effects of the storm. Charlottesville Spokesperson Maurice Jones said the City is working closely with the police and fire departments, as well as social services to organize a plan should the hurricane hit the Charlottesville area. "For years we have had a plan to deal with national disasters," Jones said.
