New Office of Admission website!

And we're back...

The Office of Admission just launched a brand new website! Some of the content is the same, but there are plenty of new features to explore. Unfortunately, as with almost any new website, there are some blips to be worked out. We just noticed that the essay questions posted are from last year and the visit calendar doesn't go past June.

Fixes are on the way. For now, the essay questions for the 2007 application are:

2007 FIRST YEAR ESSAY QUESTIONS

(1) Please answer the question that corresponds to the school you selected on Part I of your application in half a page, or roughly 250 words.
College of Arts and Sciences: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised or unsettled or challenged you, and in what way?

School of Engineering: Discuss experiences that led you to choose an engineering education at U.Va. and the role that scientific curiosity plays in your life.

School of Architecture: What led you to apply to the School of Architecture?

School of Nursing: Discuss experiences that led you to choose the School of Nursing.

________________________________________________________________

(2) Answer one of the following questions. Limit your response to half a page, or approximately 250 words.

a. What is your favorite word, and why?

b. Describe the world you come from and how that world shaped who you are.

c. "Belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light. " (Franz Kafka) Do you have a belief that is like a guillotine? In what way?

d. What kind of diversity will you bring to U.Va.?

e. "We might say that we were looking for global schemas, symmetries, universal and unchanging laws - and what we have discovered is the mutable, the ephemeral, the complex." Support or challenge Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine's assertion.

f. According to J.H Plumb, "History is now strictly organized, powerfully disciplined, but it possesses only a modest educational value and even less conscious social purpose." According to George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Discuss your point of view.

_______________________________________________________________

(3) Please write on a topic of your choice.

If an essay question for another college piqued your interest, feel free to to submit your response to that question. Please limit your submission to one page, or approximately 500 words.

Show me the money!

When I have a little extra time at the end of my information sessions, I try to talk a little bit about scholarships. I've heard about so many interesting ones, but despite financial aid search engines all over the web, many students seem unaware of all the money that's out there.

A colleague of mine put together a comprehensive list of all the scholarships we have at UVA and I thought I'd profile some of them. We're working on getting them all on our website (we're launching a new Office of Admission website this summer), but until then, I thought this might be a good place to post that information.


The Jefferson Scholarship
A full tuition scholarship sponsored by the Alumni Association.

Criteria: Excellence in leadership, scholarship and citizenship

Selection Process: Candidates are nominated by participating schools (see website for more info) and interviewed locally by alumni panels. Finalists attend a selection weekend in Charlottesville in early spring and notified of awards around May 1st.

Special Notes:
-The Office of Admission may nominate "at large" candidates who do not go to nominating schools.
-International students are eligible and have been awarded this scholarship.



The University Achievement Award
About 50 full tuition scholarships awarded to exceptional students from Virginia who will add to the diversity of the student population.

Criteria: Virginia residency, academic merit, leadership, need and citizenship. A student must also satisfy at least two of the following conditions: (1) have a history of overcoming disadvantage; (2) be a first generation college student; (3) be a member of an underrepresented minority or ethnic group; (4) be a member of a low income family; (5) reside in a rural or inner-city location; (6) have been raised in a single parent household.

Selection Process: A committee reviews all applicants from Virginia for possible awards. Award notifications are sent in early April.



Faculty/Staff Undergraduate Scholarship
Need-based scholarship for children of full-time faculty or staff. The average award is $3,000. Open to first year and transfer students.

Criteria: Parent must be employed by the University full-time for at least one year; student must be in good academic standing.

Selection Process: Student must complete all Financial Aid paperwork by March 1st and submit a separate application for the scholarship (link opens a PDF).



The Holland Scholarship
Administered by the Holland Alumni Board and Ron Brown Foundation. Provides a $10,000 (Virginian) or $20,000 (out of state student) scholarship annually to outstanding African American students.

Criteria: Demonstrated love of learning, academic achievement, involvement and leadership.

Selection Process: All African American applicants are reviewed by a committee. Finalists attend a selection weekend in Charlottesville. Award notifications are sent in late March/early April.



The Ridley Scholarship
Awards for African American students administered by The Black Alumni Association. Renewable for four years.

Criteria: African Americans demonstrating financial need, academic performance, leadership, and community service. Must maintain full-time enrollment, 2.0 GPA and be involved in university organizations.

Selection process: All African American applicants are sent application information between December and March. Applicants must submit their responses by March 30th. A selection committee reviews applicants and makes award notifications in mid-April.

Special Notes: The Ridley Board administers a number of other scholarships as part of The Ridley Scholarship. The pages linked below include information about specific funds, some with stories about the students for whom the funds are named.
The Gregory Raven Batipps Memorial Fund
The Ravenell Ricky Keller III Scholarship
The Meikel Andrade Memorial Scholarship
Annetta Thomapson Fund
Richmond/Ridley Endowed Scholarship
The Guinee Family Endowed Scholarship Fund




Virginia Engineering Scholarship
Scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 for outstanding minority applicants to the engineering school. Administered by the Director of Minority Programs* in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Criteria: Strong performance in the sciences, leadership potential, involvement, and research interests.

Selection Process: All minority applicants to the engineering school are reviewed. Award notifications are sent in early May.

*This might be from old documentation. SEAS now has a Center for Diversity in Engineering that may oversee this award.



Berkley and Susan Fontaine Minor Foundation Scholarship
Scholarship awarding $4,000 annually to two outstanding students from West Virginia.

Criteria: West Virginia residency, superior academic achievement, involvement and leadership

Selection Process: All applicants from West Virginia are reviewed by the Office of Admission for possible award. Finalists are recommended to the Minor Foundation. The Foundation notifies award winners in April.



H. Kruger Kaprielian Scholarship
Need-based scholarship awarded to a student of Armenian descent.

Criteria: US citizen or permanent resident with Armenian ancestry.

Selection Process: Candidates must submit a letter to the Office of Financial Services to be considered.



Charles F. Wonson Scholarship
A need-based award given to a graduate of Robert E. Lee High School in Staunton, VA.

Criteria: Attendance at Robert E. Lee High School, good academic standing.

Selection Process: Admitted applicants from Robert E. Lee High School are automatically awarded this scholarship in their financial aid packages.



Glover Scholarship
Award given every four years to one student, worth approximately $6660. Next award year: 2007.

Criteria: Attendance at Lynchburg, VA area high schools, good academic standing.

Selection Process: A local alumni committee oversees selection process. Area high schools are sent application information.



V. Thomas Foreland, Jr. Scholarship
A merit and/or need based scholarship of approximately $3,000 awarded to two students from Chesapeake, VA who attended Oscar F. Smith High School, Norfolk Academy, or Nansemond-Suffolk Academy.

Criteria: Attendance at one of the above schools, good academic standing.

Selection Process: Office of Financial Aid reviews all applicants from the geographic area for possible award. Notification sent in April.



George E. Hamovit Memorial Scholarship
Need based award of $1,500 to $3,000, renewable each year, given to a student from Petersburg, VA who attended Petersburg High School.

Criteria: Petersburg, VA residency, strong academic standing, demonstrated need.

Selection Process: Office of Financial Aid reviews all applicants from Petersburg for possible award.



Zirkle Scholarship
A $2,000 award for students of Rockingham County/Harrisburg/Staunton, VA, renewable each year. Three students are typically selected for the award.

Criteria: Residency in areas listed above, good academic standing, financial need.

Selection Process: Office of Financial Aid and the Alumni Association consider all applicants from eligible area. Top candidates given to the local alumni chapter for review.



Mississippi Scholarship
A need-based award of approximately $7,500 given to an African American student from Mississippi. Next award will be made in 2009.

Criteria: Mississippi residency, good academic standing

Selection Process: All African American applicants from Mississippi are considered. Award notifications made in early April.



Mellon Scholarship
A one-time $2,000 award given to a non-traditional student attempting to complete a degree. Often given to transfer students.

Criteria: Non-traditional student in good academic standing

Selection Process: All non-traditional students are automatically reviewed by the transfer admission dean. Nominations sent to the Alumni Association and notification is made in May.



Bailey Tiffany Scholarship
A grant for residents of Accomack or Northampton County, VA. Award typically covers tuition and fees.

Criteria: Residency in Accomack or Northampton County, VA.

Selection Process: Automatically awarded as part of the Financial Aid package.



Margaret E. Phillips Scholarship
Awarded to students striving to become Ministers in the Protestant Episcopal Church in America. Amount varies.

Criteria: Interest in religious studies with intention to become and Episcopal minister.

Selection Process: Candidates must submit a letter to the Office of Financial Services to be considered.

Special Note: Rarely applied for.



Warwick High School Class of 1952 Scholarship
A $100 award to students from Warwick High School (VA).

Criteria: Attendance at Warwick High School, good academic standing

Selection Process: All students offered admission from Warwick High School are invited to apply. Award is deposited directly into the winner's account in the University Bursar's office.



Los Angeles Alumni Club Scholarship
Award for LA area residents administered by the Alumni Association chapter.

Criteria: Residency in the Los Angeles area, good academic standing

Selection Process: A local alumni panel reviews all applicants from LA for the award.

Special Notes: Need considered, but not strictly a need-based award.



Other places to look for UVA scholarships:
UVA Alumni Association's comprehensive list of AA funded scholarships
Center for Undergraduate Excellence scholarship page
Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards ($3.000 for current students interested in research)
Computer Science Wiki (engineering school)
SEAS Career Development scholarship page
Curry School of Education's scholarship page (many, many awards for ed students!)
UVA Financial Services scholarship page

Mapping the Blogsphere

I'm thoroughly entertained by the referral and exit pages I see on the tracker for this blog. I always wonder about the route readers took to get here or where they'll go when they move on.

A team of scientists have thought about this on a much larger scale: what can we learn from blogs about human behavior? There's a fascinating article in The Chronicle about work being done at a few universities. Some are literally trying to map the blogsphere.

Make sure to follow the link on the right hand side of that page...it's pretty interesting!

"E-Recruiting" Practices

I've never really worked with enrollment consultants before (unless you count the fact that my very first boss in student affairs is now employed by an ed. consulting firm), but I found a report compiled by one such group, called The E-Recruiting Practices Report, extremely interesting.

They polled 231 colleges about recruitment practices, focusing on the use of "cutting edge" tools like IM, blogs, chat rooms, online applications, etc. UVA wasn't included in the survey and from what I can tell, we would have stacked up pretty well because we've tried to communicate in ways our students do.

It'd be great if the same group would follow up with a broad sample of students to see how this is being received. I find myself wondering if students like our methods. We send email, but only once a month during application season in hopes that students won't feel bombarded. I have my IM address on my business cards and encourage students to contact me that was (some seem to prefer IM to the phone). We have chat sessions with current students, professors and admission officers as well. While this blog isn't specifically for students, I hope those who read find it interesting.

MySpace/Facebook Revisited

The New York Times did a feature about online information coming back to haunt students during their job searches on Sunday.

Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors looking for their first job. But now, college career counselors and other experts say, some recruiters are looking up applicants on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster, where college students often post risqué or teasing photographs and provocative comments about drinking, recreational drug use and sexual exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy.

Despite anecdotal evidence that companies are checking up on student applicants, some college career center directors don't think the practice is widespread. While students have always thought Facebook was "private" because it requires a .edu email address to join, some companies are using student interns or employees who have .edu email addresses provided by their Alumni affiliation with a school to access that site.

I've commented before that we aren't looking students up during the admission process (and still get the question routinely), but that shouldn't make students feel secure in posting evidence of bad behavior online. I think every student needs to err on the side of caution and edit the information they are including in their online profiles.

Here we go again.

Looks like it's the ACT's turn to have some problems. Apparently, a slew of students have had their scores thrown out because their testing center didn't start the exam on time. The reason for the late start time at a few of the schools, according to The Chicago Tribune: breakfast. The schools, in what I think is a nice gesture, are giving their students breakfast before the exam.

I remember plenty of times when standardized tests were started late. I distinctly remember hearing students in other classrooms taking breaks or leaving when my classroom was still in test-taking mode.

A lot of people in the east (where the ACT hasn't always been popular) have been talking about the ACT as a great alternative after some of the problems the SAT has had in the last few years. Looks like neither exam is exempt from issues.

Who is most impressed with rankings?

I think it's safe to say that many of us in higher ed are reluctantly obsessed (and obsessed might be a tad to strong) with the rankings we receive from the press. Regardless of our opinion about the authority of the magazines and their methodologies, constituents' interest in the rankings translates in our interest in the rankings.

Our publications list our accomplishments on these lists, even if The Princeton review rank us 2nd in ability to take a bus to the airport (no, that's not a category, but there are some odd ones on that list). Each year, we brainstorm ways to improve our rankings and secretly hope that those above us on the lists don't maintain their positions.

I admit that I get caught up in this. I'd love to believe that people analyze school websites and course catalogues before deciding that one school is "better" than another. I have to face facts, though. The guidebooks and ranking issues affect the perception of quality.

But, I want to know why. Why do YOU care about the rankings? If you comment, I'd love to know if you're a student, parent, colleague, etc.

Where are the admission blogs?

About a week ago, I emailed a listserve made up of my colleagues asking for links to any blogs being written about the admission process. The results were a little disappointing. Plenty of emails came in asking me how to set up a blog, but not many came in with URLs for others.

I did some Googling and came up with the short list on the sidebar of this page. I was very surprised by the lack of "issues" oriented blogs. Most are newsletter style, telling students information that they can find elsewhere (Our deadline is coming up!). We aren't exactly lacking in "hot button" topics in this field. Perhaps people just don't want to take a side for fear that their opinion will reflect poorly on their institution. Or, perhaps, many of us think we're too busy or not savvy enough to write in a blog.

If you know of a good admission blog, please share it via the comment function. If you want help starting a blog, contact me (leave your email address in the comment box) and I'll walk you through it. There should be other admission officers blogging out there!

A little help for NOLA

I've already written about my love for New Orleans. For those "in the know", yes JazzFest ran the last two weeks and no, I wasn't there this year. MSN had a live stream for some of the shows, so I got to watch a bit of the festivities. Another local blogger posted a link to some photos from the weekend.

Anyway, scrolling through my Headline News this morning (a daily email about UVA in the news), one of the stories jumped out at me:

U.VA. ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS COMPETE TO REBUILD NEW ORLEANS

Of course I had to check it out.

The students competed with professionals and were recognized for their talents from the 275 entries. The judges selected two winners, three commended projects and about 20 others for exhibition.

Projects by finalists are currently on display at New Orleans’s Ogden Museum of Art and will be exhibited at the American Institute of Architects convention in Los Angeles in June. Winning designs will be published in the June issue of Architectural Record magazine with selected designed posted on the McGraw-Hill Construction Web sites.

I'll definitely be picking up Archtectural Record (okay, maybe reading it in the aisle at Barnes & Noble) when the next issue comes out.

I know I usually focus on "issues" on this blog and stay away from being a newsletter, but this was such a great story that I had to post about it.

It's been a while...

...since I posted a picture.

When we go "on the road", it's with mixed emotions. On one hand, we know we're going to meet great kids and see colleagues who have become our friends over time. On the other hand, it's time away from home, often with a grueling schedule, unhealthy food and non-stop repetition of the same answers to the same questions.

Despite this, I've always loved my trips to NYC for the spring college fairs (maybe because I grew up in the area!). One afternoon on this year's trip, I found myself taking the subway all that way out to the last stop in Brooklyn with my friends from Kenyon to the fair at Poly Prep. The walk to the school was like any other walk in Brooklyn, but when we turned into the school's gate, I saw a first: a live chicken.

I'm a "city kid". I've only seen chickens on the dinner table. I never saw a live chicken before and I was delighted! The college counselor at the school said the chickens come from people who want to get rid of Easter chicks that have gotten too big to keep (they toss them over the fence at night!). Regardless, the Poly Prep campus has a slew of chickens running around.

On my way out of the campus, I snapped a few pictures. Scratch that. I chased some chickens and took their pictures. I wonder what the high school students thought of the crazy admission dean running after their chickens.

Waitlist, Part 2

I guess I should lead this off by saying this blog is about my take on the admission process. Please do not interpret my blog as the gospel according to UVA.

Here's what I think about the waitlist at UVA. It's big. There's no way around that. We have to bring in a class that will maintain that 2/3 : 1/3 ratio for Virginian and non-Virginian students. So, think of the waitlist as two main groups, in state and out of state. Next, consider that we have to fill four different schools within the university: College of Arts & Sciences (CLAS), School of Engineering (SEAS), School of Architecture (SARC) and School of Nursing.

Now, we don't break up the waitlist into smaller groups, so don't think of this as eight separate waitlists. It's still just one bunch with no ranking.

By May 1st, all the admitted students are supposed to have mailed their enrollment confirmations, saying that have either accepted or rejected our offer of admission. It usually takes a week for all of those letters to get to us. Only when the enrollment confirmations are counted do we know what will happen with the waitlist. We might realize that the Architecture school needs a few more students or that there's room in the College for a few. While keeping the in-state/out of state ratio in mind, we then go to the waitlist.


The time between April 1st and May 1st is always an uneasy one for us. It seems as though students are applying to more schools than ever (I met a student who applied to 20 at my last institution) and as a result, we always worry that a tiny fraction of the students who receive an offer will accept us back. Just yesterday at our retreat, our dean told us about a time when he'd accept just a few hundred more than the class needed because yield wasn't a huge issue. People were applying to 1-3 schools back then, so if they got accepted to a school, the odds were high that they were going there. Because of the uncertainty on the yield side, we have to maintain a sizeable waitlist.

Yes, the waitlist is still quite large. I wish we didn't have it at all. I remember the state of limbo I was in as a waitlisted student a one of my top picks. Thankfully, I wasn't admitted and wound up where I belonged.


For a future post: Why I think everyone feels the need to apply to 20 schools.

Waitlist, Part 1

In early April, we start taking "decision calls" in our office. Those are calls from parents asking why we made the decision we did for a certain student. For the first two weeks of the month, the calls are almost non-stop. The most popular question: "Why was my child waitlisted?"

Now, I've always worked in the private college sector where we didn't entertain these conversations at all (and not many people called to question our decisions). However, at a state school, we try to be responsive to our constituents and respond to each and every call.


There's a reason this is titled "Part 1". I'll continue this tomorrow. I'll be on retreat with the office for the rest of the day, discussing how we'll change strategies for next year's admission cycle.

For now, take a look at my colleague's blog at Johns Hopkins. He wrote a great entry about the waitlist a few weeks ago. Interestingly, they have a waitlist similar in size to ours at a school that doesn't have state and individual school ratios to maintain.

Message Boards...where armchair counselors and anxious students meet!

At 1:23 PM, a student posted a link to my blog on a fairly popular message board run by a private counseling firm. Traffic to this blog exploded (though that term is relative when it comes to blog traffic), with 20 hits coming within minutes of the post. New readers are, obviously, always welcome, but I'm afraid anyone coming from that site will be disappointed by the lack of "secrets" posted here. This is more of an issues-related blog where I react to things happening at UVA and in the admission field.

Anyway, welcome new people! Feel free to comment if you have something to contribute (read: swears, rants, and rude comments do not belong here).

Now, you'll notice I'm not linking to the board. There's a reason. While much of what goes on over there is the typical chatter about college admission, there's a lot of problematic info given out as well. I saw one post state with authority that UVA practices "yield protection", which means we deny students we think will turn down our offer of admission (absolutely untrue). I see post after post telling high schoolers "you're in" in response to a list of stats (an entire forum is called "What are my chances?").

The fact is, admission isn't a science (to quote the first Dean for whom I ever worked) because it's about more than calculations and stats. College admission is a mysterious thing that even surprises those of us in the field. I don't think the "armchair counselors" out there are doing any service by suggesting that one can "handicap" chances of admission.

So, be careful if you frequent the admission message boards. I know it's great to have others with whom you can chat about admission when your friends/colleagues/classmates are sick of it, but remember that the anonymity of the web allows some people to sound very knowledgeable when they might not have all the answers.

Psst...you're allowed to comment on this blog

This blog gets a good number of hits each day. I can see how visitors get here (referral pages), their general location and how much time they spend on the page.

I was pretty surprised by the number of visitors I have from Google, but realized that searching for "UVA Admission" brings up the University's page and then this blog. I was not surprised at the number of referrals from cvilleblogs, an aggregator site for local blogs to which I've become addicted in a very short amount of time.

Location has really been interesting. While there are plenty of locals reading, it seems there are people as far away as India checking in every so often. Too bad I only know French and Spanish.


Despite all the hits, there are almost no comments. What gives? Are my posts so laden with nuggets of wisdom that no comments are needed? I doubt it. Tell me what you think! I love a good discussion and was hoping to incite some good conversations with this thing.

College Admission on Steroids

At lunch today, a few of us talked about private admission coaches and whether we are able to spot applications that have been polished by professional counselors before being submitted. I'm not sure I can. I imagine I've seen plenty of these applications already, though I only read one application this year with essays that seemed too sophisticated to be the work of a 17 year old.

When I first heard about private college counselors, I figured a bunch of opportunistic folks decided to cash in on the fear and anxiety parents and student experience during the college search. I knew one woman personally who became a private counselor after retiring from her job in guidance at a public high school and couldn't reconcile the move, especially when I found out how much she was charging for her services.

A writer from the New York Times recently compared the hiring of private admission counselors to the use of steroids in baseball (In College Entrance Frenzy, a Lesson Out of Left Field).

CONSIDER this situation. An ambitious and talented person, having worked extremely hard for a decade or more, sees a competitor suddenly performing at an inexplicably higher level. That first person comes to believe the second must be obtaining secret, unacknowledged help. So, rather than risk being left behind, he pays for the same stealthy assistance.
* * * *
Under the pretense of fair competition, tens of thousands of high school students and their families employ the scholastic equivalent of steroids — test-prep courses, private consultants, Internet mills for massaging if not entirely creating their essays, exaggerated or cynical accounts of their community service.

I'm so conflicted about private college counseling. On one hand, those at schools where guidance counselors are overwhelmed by triple-digit case loads might need the extra help. On the other hand, an application that's been massaged and cleaned up by a third party shouldn't just have one person's name on it.

I'd love for someone to convince me to fall on one side of this fence.

Your MySpace is our MySpace

I've been asked more than once whether UVA looks applicants up via the web, using Google, MySpace, LiveJournal or one of the many other websites that allow students to create webpages and blogs.

For the most part, the answer would be no. We don't really have time to search for all 16,000 applicants online. However, if an applicant mentions involvement in something in particular, we might just take a look at it. One of my colleagues reviewed the application of a student who claimed to be involved in producing a fairly popular website. Curious, my colleague looked him up and couldn't find any mention of him on the site. Items he said he wrote were attributed to another person. This student wasn't extraordinary and his claims didn't help his case at all.

While UVA might not be looking for student information online, officials at some other schools are. Newsweek and USA Today (here and here) have written about this. There are numerous instances of information posted on websites like MySpace coming back to haunt students. I keep reading that students consider this an invasion of privacy. Why do they think this? Isn't it called the World Wide Web for a reason?

It was only a matter of time

According to The Chronicle, the first lawsuit against The College Board for the scoring snafu that came to light last month has been filed.

The lawsuit, filed in early April in a state court in Minnesota, was brought on behalf of an unidentified high-school senior in Dix Hills, N.Y. The lawyers who brought the case are seeking class-action status to allow any student who took the test in October, except those who received falsely high scores, to join the lawsuit.

UVA was affected by the errors. A few of our applicants had scores that went up and the CB says they won't tell us if anyone had scores that went down after the error was found. The problem I have is that now, we can't give students our SAT stats without a big conversation about how they might be off a bit. It's bad enough that we have no history with this exam, now we're back at square one.

In a way, though, this problem is getting more people, both in admission and outside of it, to see things in a more realistic light. Application review as a holistic process, not one based on formulas and rubrics. If the SAT ceases to be reliable, maybe more educators will see it for what it is: a four hour, standardized test. Nothing more, nothing less.

Accepting the Best

A few days ago, we announced an articulation agreement with Virginia's community college system (VCCS). The agreement stipulates that VCCS students who maintain a 3.4 GPA while earning their Associates Degree (there are some additional stipulations) will gain admission to UVA. I thought this was a great move. There are so many smart students out there who don't fit the traditional mold; who might not have been ready for UVA (or ready to pay for it) when they were seniors in high school. It feels great to know we're helping "non-traditional" students come to UVA. I also think students benefit from being exposed to classmates who've been out in the real world or spent time elsewhere before arriving at UVA. I hope more community college students see UVA as a viable option because of these agreements and the press they've generated.

Unfortunately, not everyone is as positive about the possible influx of community college students as we are. A recent graduate wrote a letter to the editor of The Cavalier Daily in response to an article they ran earlier this week about the articulation agreements.

Such a system would allow a lazy high school student to go to a community college where he or she could do just enough to get by and would then reward such behavior with admission to one of this nation's finest schools.

I wonder how many community college students this alum knows. I wonder if he realizes that many juggle full time jobs, families, and school. I wonder if he realizes that some of our faculty teach courses at PVCC, our local community college. I wonder if he realizes that there were plenty of VCCS students in his graduating class; Students who were admitted as transfer students in his second and third year.

Just yesterday, I was celebrating the fact that our students are aware of the world outside their campus bubble. I guess a few get through here without a wake up call.

I am certainly not saying that all people who attend community college are lesser people

Hm.

Activism alive and well at UVA

At my first institution (and at my alma mater, too), a huge issue that faculty and administration tried to address was student apathy. The majority of Wall Street Journals went immediately from the mailbox to the recycling bin. Almost nobody watched the news networks or even the evening news. Most students were content with living in the pretty bubble of campus.

I have to admit that I'm pleased to see that UVA students are more aware of issues and will act when they feel they can bring about change. Perhaps that's one of the benefits of "student self-governance", which gets a lot of talk around here. Most of us (myself included) use UVA's Honor Code as an example of student self-governance. But to be frank, there's a long history to follow with The Honor Code and while aspects of The Code change now and then (the single sanction is a hot topic on grounds right now), The Code and how it's administered isn't rocket science.



A group of 17 students have started a sit in at Madison Hall, where the President and other top administrators have their offices. They're advocating for a living wage ($10.72 per hour) to be paid to all University employees (the current hourly wage is $9.37). I only heard about this at 5:30 PM, when I got home and turned on the news (I knew there was a rally, but didn't realize students had started a sit in). When I came to work this morning, I saw some students outside Madison with a sign counting this as the second day of the sit in. I had to laugh, since this whole thing started at 5:30 last night. Or so I thought...

One of the students involved is keeping a blog, though it hasn't been updated since yesterday. They actually arrived around 9 AM yesterday morning. I'm kind of surprised that word didn't really travel around that they were there until late in the day. Anyway, according to the living wage campaign's website, they were allowed to stay in Madison Hall overnight. I'm anxious to see what gets added to the blog today.

EDIT: I had a feeling that President Casteen didn't set the minimum wage for UVA employees. At the very least, the Board of Visitors (our version of a Board of Trustees) made those decisions and I imagine that there's a bit of influence from the legislature involved as well (I'm still relatively new to UVA and the state system, so I'm not entirely certain). A statement on Casteen's website talks about this. I wonder when the next Board meeting is?

Buttons, ribbons and shirts (oh my!)

As I was walking home yesterday afternoon, I ran into a small crowd of students and administrators wearing black shirts that said "gay? fine by me." My first thought was that I hadn't heard about any rally going on (similar to when I didn't hear about the petting zoo at the amphitheatre...thanks for the invite, Second Year Class Council!). Then I started thinking about awareness campaigns I've seen here at the University since I got here last summer. The black ribbons and door hangers given out in response to racially motivated incidents in September are most prominent in my mind.

My college years were the height of the wearing a ribbon practice. It seemed as though every cause had its color. As a student back then, I wore anything that was handed to me. Breast Cancer awareness? Can't argue with that. Peace in Eastern Europe? Pin me! Save the Madagascan Aye-Aye? Sure, he's a funky little creature!

Our students have gotten even more creative with their campaigns. The "merch" they make rivals the items for sale in the bookstore. Instead of picking up a 99 cent roll of ribbon at the craft shop, our students are designing logos and contracting vendors to mass produce promotional give aways.

I guess these gimmicks rope in more people than a ribbon would, but do they foster conversation about their cause? Because of the cost involved, they can't possibly canvas the entire campus with their freebies. So, because I didn't get my black shirt yesterday, am I seen as intolerant? If that's the case, bring back the ribbons!