"WE HAD an honor system at my high school, but then everyone kept cheating and it went away." These are the words I heard from a group of incoming first years as I was introducing the University's honor system to them earlier this summer.
FOR THREE years I have been writing for this paper, and for three years I have been giving the same advice in my annual mail-out column.
As an institution dedicated to the critical enhancement of the mind, a university should provide a unique arena for open dialog, freedom of thought and the unfettered debate of all controversial ideas.
THE AVERAGE student spends nearly one and half of their four years here at the University partaking in one single activity: sleep.
IHAVE a confession to make: I am an engineer. Yes, they really do let us write (occasionally). All joking aside, welcome to U.Va.
THOMAS JEFFERSON said a lot of things. And a lot of them are written down on the books, buildings, papers and walls that make up his university.
"C'MON AMEY," he said. "You know you don't belong at U.Va." Um, excuse me? Stunned, I interrogated him as to what exactly he meant by that.
LAST WEEK, the world was saddened to learn of the deaths of two conjoined Iranian twins connected at the head.
ON MONDAY The Justice Department rebuffed a six-month-old order from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to allow Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," access to another imprisoned member of al Qaeda.
LIVING the privileged lives of University students, it often -- if not always -- proves easy to forget the world outside of the "U.Va.
THE VERY core of the government of the United States of America is under attack. These attacks are not coming from disgruntled citizens or terrorists from another country, but from the nine judge council that sits at the head of the judicial branch of our government.
GOOD NEWS, everyone. The Supreme Court has upheldthe use of race in college admissions. Whew, for a minute there I thought I'd come back to school in the fall, and everyone would be white. Because that's what would happen, right?
DURING April of last semester, the James Madison University Board of Visitors voted 7-6 in favor of a controversial motion that banned the distribution of the "morning after" contraceptive pill in JMU-affiliated health centers.
THIS PAST week, headlines abounded on our nation's newspapers recording the historic decision of the Supreme Court to uphold affirmative action in higher education admissions policies.
DON'T CALL me. Ever. Maybe you are just tired of picking up the phone to hear a computer clicking on the other end.
QUICK, who are the nine front-runners for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination? Stuck on Joe Lieberman and John Kerry?
THERE aren't many imaginable issues that have the power to unite steadfast conservative Republicans like Dick Armey and Bob Barr under the same banner as both Al Sharpton and John Kerry.
LAST WEEK, the Middle East peace process began anew, absent the familiar face of Yasser Arafat. The longtime Palestinian leader was recently sidelined in favor of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, a new leader uncompromised by terrorist associations.
SOME OF the best scenery in the world is being destroyed bit by bit. Early this month, the government of mainland China closed the floodgates on the Three Gorges Dam.
