leON arCeO, aDaire BUrNSeD, leXie GaGNON & hONOr WOOD | The Cavalier Daily
NEWS
Guides break from U.Va. to give unsanctioned historical tours
The University recently extended its suspension of the Guide Service’s historical tours through the end of the academic year
Cecilia Mould | Staff Writer
The University Guide Service said that it will continue to give historical tours independent of the University and without administrative approval, according to a guest column written by Guide Service leadership that was published in The Cavalier Daily. This announcement came shortly after the University extended a suspension on Guide Service-led historical tours through the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year, which Guide Service leadership said was a decision that the University made without providing adequate explanation.
“As the leaders of the University Guide Service, we believe that student-led tours are integral to the process of telling the University’s history and that our suspension has only caused harm to both the organization and the University writ large,” the Guide Service leaders wrote. “As such, we are announcing our return to giving historical tours independent of the University administration.”
In the column, the Guide Service leaders described the University’s decision to suspend historical tours as “a disservice to the University community.” They said that the administration’s initial decision to pause tours, as well as their actions since, have made the Guide Service skeptical of the University’s ability to oversee its tours.
“We search for comprehensive historical understandings through in-person, open conversation with guests,” the column read. “Shutting down these tours stifles open discourse in a way that damages the contemporary community and the act of producing, contesting and engaging with history.”
The Guide Service is a student-run organization which used to provide admissions tours of the University to prospective students as well as historical tours of Grounds. As a Special Status Organization on Grounds, members of the Guide Service acted on the University’s behalf by offering University-sanctioned tours.
The University first issued a suspension for both admissions and historical tours led by the Guide Service just before the beginning of the Fall 2024 semester, citing concerns about guide reliability and tour quality.
Jack Giese, co-chair of the Guide Service and fourth-year College student, said that at the time of the original suspension, the University outlined a plan
for the reestablishment of admissions tours, which included a semester-long training program for Guides conducted throughout the Fall 2024 semester.
This plan requires Guides to attend 10 training sessions led by the Office of Admission and have their tours observed and approved by staff in the Office of Admission or Student Affairs. In place of admissions tours led by members of the Guide Service, interns employed and paid by the Office of Admission are currently leading tours for prospective students.
Despite the detailed plan for Guides to be able to return to giving admissions tours, no plan or timeframe was established for the reinstatement of historical tours — although the Guide Service co-chairs said they were still in ongoing talks with the University administration.
According to Davis Taliaferro, co-chair of the Guide Service and fourth-year College student, the University has told the Guide Service that discussions about reestablishing historical tours will be postponed to the summer of 2025 at the earliest.
Further, while Taliaferro said the Guide Service has received constructive feedback from the University regarding their admissions tours, he said that they have received very little explanation for the reason for suspending historical tours — both following the original suspension and in the wake of the extension.
According to Taliaferro and Giese, the University told them that the extended suspension was a response to concerns about the comprehensiveness and consistency of historical tours. However, Taliaferro said he finds the University’s explanation unexpected, as feedback from attendees of recent historical tours did not indicate major concerns over their content.
“We didn’t have much reason to believe there were concerns over the historical tours,” Taliaferro said. “Ultimately, they gave us some language that said this approach responds to concerns about the comprehensiveness and consistency of some of the [Guide Service] historic tours in recent years. So that’s what they’ve given us — not very specific, and no particular feedback or anything to tie that to.”
Taliaferro and Giese said that all new members of the Guide Service complete 40 hours of in-class
training and 40 hours of individual preparation — which includes research and planning tour outlines — to be eligible to give historical tours. They added that this level of training gives Guides a wide range of adaptability and expertise.
However, Taliaferro and Giese said that they have found it difficult to address the University’s concerns about comprehensive tours as they have not been presented clearly.
Furthermore, Taliaferro and Giese emphasized the harm a prolonged suspension of historical tours could cause, highlighting how it disrupts the Guides’ ability to fine-tune their training processes and adapt tours to evolving contexts.
“With a year-long suspension, there’s a lot of institutional knowledge that’s lost,” Taliaferro said. “We lose the opportunity to be giving tours in the ever changing world that exists as national politics, local politics and even history change as people discover more. We see a year-long suspension as really, really harmful to our survival in terms of providing quality historical tours.”
Beyond the interruptions to the Guide Service’s own training process, Giese said preventing students from writing and giving their own historical tours undermines their ability to convey the
University’s full history.
“The historical tours we give are written by students, which I think offers a really unique perspective,” Giese said. “They reflect individual students grappling with our history and trying to point out what’s important for visitors to understand, but they’re developed in consultation and with a lot of help from voices across our community.”
According to University Spokesperson Bethanie Glover, the University will create a self-guided tour that will act in the place of Guide Service historical tours. Glover said the tour will be initially released in brochure format for interested visitors before the University develops a more comprehensive, self-guided audio or online historical tour to be released near the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester.
Prior to the guest column by the Guide Service, Glover said the University was expecting to conclude the admissions tours training process within the next few weeks, and that Guides who have finished this process will be allowed to give admissions tours again next semester.
“We appreciate the hard work that many of the Guides and the leadership of the organization have put into attending and participat-
ing in the training sessions over the course of the semester,” Glover said. “We are hopeful that we will move forward together in a more positive and collaborative way.”
However, this statement was made before Guides announced independent tours. At the time of publication, University Communications did not respond to a request for comment on the Guide Service’s announcement and its impact on ongoing negotiations. It is unclear if this announcement will affect the timeline for a return to Guides-led admissions tours or their collaborative relationship with the University more broadly.
The Guide Service has an online special tour request form on their website and said they will be using that form to schedule Guide Service-led historical tours in the spring, unsanctioned by the University.
“This University has so much history,” the column by Guide Service leadership read. “Our tours offer the opportunity for this history to educate and inspire celebration, discussion and growth for the entire University community. For this reason, we are committed to continuing our mission.”
ANNAGRACE PARMER THE CAVALIER DAILY
Taliaferro said the Guide Service has received very little explanation for the reason for suspending historical tours — both following the original suspension and in the wake of the extension.
Lighting of the Lawn to feature “Lights Up” theme, drone show
The entrances will be located near the Garrett Hall and Rouss/Robertson sidewalks
Ford McCracken | Senior Associate
The University will hold its 24th annual Lighting of the Lawn Friday, a time-honored annual holiday concert and light show which features performances from student a cappella groups, bands and dance teams. After the performance portion of the event, which begins at 7 p.m., the Lawn and Rotunda will be illuminated with multicolored lights at 8:55 p.m., followed by LOTL’s first drone light show in the sky above.
The theme for this year’s event is “Lights Up,” which Chelsea Huffman and Riley McNeill — LOTL co-chairs and fourth-year College students — said is both an allusion to the drone show and a metaphor for how the event brings the community together.
“Lights up serves as a reminder that we need to reflect on and celebrate our shared experiences, and it highlights the ways that we uplift each other and the strengths that we each bring to the University,” Huffman said.
LOTL is open to the University and Charlottesville communities.
According to the chairs, an estimated 15,000 people are expected to attend the event, which is consistent with previous years.
In addition to holiday performances, this year, LOTL will feature a 10 to 15 minute drone light show — the first for the University and Charlottesville. According to McNeill, the show will be put on by lighting company Sky Elements, which is responsible for 70 percent of drone shows in the U.S. Sky Elements placed third on “America’s Got Talent” in September with a drone show that AGT Host Simon Cowell called a “really special act.”
First held in 2001 as a way to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and bring the University together after the tragedy, LOTL has continued in the following years as a way to foster and celebrate the University and Charlottesville communities ahead of the holiday season.
The tradition again worked to bring the University together in the face of tragedy after the Nov. 13, 2022 shooting that killed three University students. In the years since, the event has displayed lights that read “1 15 41” — the numbers of Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler, who lost their lives in the shooting.
To continue to honor their lives, in a portion of the drone show, the drones will assemble to display “1 15 41” in the sky in memory of Davis Jr., Perry and Chandler. The drones will then move onto holiday displays with stars and a depiction
of a snowball fight, as well as show University imagery like the V sabre logo.
“There’s going to be a lot of different U.Va.-specific imagery in the sky,” McNeill said. “We tried to get them to put Jim Ryan’s face up there, but he did not like that idea at all.”
Instead, according to McNeill, University President Jim Ryan will begin the drone show by pressing the launch button himself.
In addition to the musical performances, the event will also feature four poetry readers from the University community to read holiday poems — Vicki Gist, senior associate dean of students, Larry Sabato, director the University’s Center for Politics, Philip Bourne, dean of the School of Data Science, and former Virginia rower Sky Dahl.
The event will also feature concessions available for purchase on South Lawn from local food trucks, including It’s Poppin Time, Carpe Donuts, Otto Turkish Street Food and Sombrero’s. The LOTL committee will also provide complimentary hot chocolate, apple cider and other refreshments for those in attendance.
In light of these amenities and the new addition of a drone show, this year’s LOTL comes with a higher
price tag — the cost increased from around $80,000 last year to over $100,000 this year, according to Huffman and McNeill. In addition, an unexpected roadbump from last year’s light show, in which some of the lights did not turn on, led the LOTL committee to purchase all new lights, also increasing the event’s cost this year.
“At the beginning of this year, we were starting from the lowest place [of funds], actually, other than the first year, when they had literally nothing,” McNeill said.
To ensure they could put on a memorable and special night for the community, the LOTL committee fundraised for the event through donations from the Parents Fund, the Alumni Association, the Office of Student Affairs and the Honor Committee to overcome these funding hurdles. To further “cut costs” for the event, McNeill said members of the LOTL committee assist Facilities Management with putting up the lights.
Beyond fostering a fun and joyful environment, LOTL will work to create a safe atmosphere for attendees by providing security from local police and designated entrances with walk-through metal detectors for attendees. While there is no clear bag policy for the event, bags may be subject to search and
liquids will not be permitted past security. LOTL is free to attend and open to the public.
Even as the specific contents of the LOTL show change from year to year, its community-building aspect is what makes the event attractive to some students. Thirdyear College student Maya Wrona said she attended LOTL for the first time last year and is looking forward to the event again because of the community she felt.
“I really liked the environment that was created,” Wrona said. “It really felt like we were a community, like a real ‘this is U.Va.’ moment.”
For those that have yet to attend, the committee has worked on promoting the event to encourage new student turnout through posts on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, as well as tabling on the Lawn and writing promotionals with sidewalk chalk. Still, the chairs said the main way students find out about LOTL is through word of mouth.
Wrona’s enthusiasm for the event also demonstrates the strength of word of mouth advertising.
“I think I’m gonna bring some of my friends that haven’t gone before, just because I think this is a really pivotal experience for what it means to be a U.Va. student,” Wrona said.
Even first-years who may not know as many past-LOTL attendees are still hearing about the excitement that surrounds the event.
First-year College student Grace Faughnan said she is excited to attend LOTL for the first time after hearing about the event from her sister, who is a second-year at the University.
“She’s been talking about it probably since September,” Faughnan said. “She’s like, ‘Lighting of the Lawn is my favorite U.Va. tradition, you have to go.’”
First-year College student Naomi Million said she heard about LOTL from a close family friend who was part of the LOTL committee and was adamant that Million attend the event. Million said she is most looking forward to experiencing LOTL with a large community.
“I don’t think there’s very many things that are universal experiences anymore,” Million said. “I think the fact that there’s something that everybody at the school can say they’ve experienced or did together is really cool.”
Nina Broderick and Thomas Baxter contributed to the reporting in this article.
DOMENICK FINI THE CAVALIER DAILY
After the concert portion of the event, which begins at 7 p.m., the Lawn and Rotunda will be illuminated with multicolored lights at 8:55 p.m., followed by LOTL’s first drone light show in the sky above.
How has the Honor Committee transformed sanctioning?
The Committee made the historic switch to a multi-sanction system in July 2023, after having a single-sanction approach for over a century
Lexie Stadler | Senior Writer
The Honor Committee transitioned to a multi-sanction system in July 2023, marking a historic shift from the single-sanction model that had governed the University’s Honor system since 1842. The new approach replaced the automatic single-sanction — a two semester leave of absence at the time — with a range of sanctions tailored to the specifics of each case, offering options from rehabilitative measures like educational seminars to more punitive actions such as suspension and expulsion.
Over the past three semesters, the Committee has focused on fine-tuning the processes that underpin the change — working to ensure the new system upholds core principles like restoration, proportionality and fairness in sanctioning. This period of refinement has raised broader questions about the Committee’s sanctioning philosophy — particularly how to balance fairness with flexibility, and how to maintain consistency while honoring the individual circumstances of each case.
The University’s Honor System was established in 1842 and is based on the idea of a Community of Trust — the shared commitment of students, faculty and administrators to uphold the honor code. The system works to hold all students accountable to the honor pledge they take against acts of lying, cheating or stealing. From its founding, the system’s single-sanction model mandated expulsion for conviction of any honor offense. However, in 2022, students voted to replace expulsion with a two-semester suspension, addressing concerns that the single-sanction model was overly punitive and disproportionately impacted marginalized groups.
Building on this momentum, the Committee adopted the multi-sanction system in 2023 — reintroducing expulsion alongside a broader spectrum of options to better reflect the values of fairness and accountability. These changes were driven by the Committee’s Constitutional Convention and a student referendum under Gabrielle Bray, former chair of the Committee and class of 2023 alumna.
Under Bray, the Convention invited delegates from over 30 Contracted Independent Organizations to draft a framework for the new multi-sanction system. Using this feedback, the Committee refined and consolidated these ideas into a final proposal — which was then presented to
the student body in a referendum during student elections. Students ultimately approved the adoption of the multi-sanction system, with 88.69 percent of students voting in favor.
By allowing students to repair harm and regain their place within the Community of Trust, the multi-sanction system aimed to promote growth and learning over automatic punishment.
The single-sanction model mandated a single consequence and did not consider paths for this sort of restoration. Laura Howard, chair of the Committee and fourth-year College student, said that because the possibility for restoration was a big reason for the shift to multi sanction, restorative sanctions were the Committee’s focus immediately following the referendum’s implementation during the term of her predecessor Hamza Aziz, former chair of the Committee and class of 2024 alumnus.
“[The Committee was] keeping the goal of restoration in mind a lot [in 2023] because that was the largest change from the single-sanction [system],” Howard said. “I would argue that [this] goal has [also] carried on into this year.”
Since the multi-sanction system’s implementation, the Committee has employed a range of restorative sanctions like ethics seminars, mentorship programs and reflective writings to help students understand the impact of their actions. For example, the seven-week restorative seminar brings sanctioned students together for weekly sessions led by Committee members, prompting dialogue on honor principles and encouraging reflection. According to a document provided by the Committee, the seminar has been used in at least 18 cases to address offenses ranging from unauthorized aid to plagiarism. Prior to the shift, the students involved in the 18 cases would have been dealt suspensions, regardless of the specifics of the case.
While restoration was a driving focus under Aziz, Howard said that the focus of the current term has expanded to include “proportionality.” Proportionality refers to the process of evaluating whether a punishment fits the specific violation, ensuring sanctions are neither excessively harsh nor overly lenient. For example, honor cases can range from minor infractions — like checking answers online for a low-stakes homework assignment — to more
serious offenses, such as plagiarism on a major thesis or exam.
The multi-sanction system allows the Committee to distinguish between minor infractions and more serious violations. This flexibility has created benefits for faculty as well as accused students. Under the single-sanction model, faculty members were hesitant to report minor infractions, as all guilty verdicts led to suspension or expulsion. Now, faculty members can report infractions to the Committee without the looming threat of removing students from the University.
The responsibility for addressing concerns about proportionality has largely been assigned to the Ad-Hoc Sanctions Working Group, a subcommittee created at the start of Howard’s term. Chaired by Will Hancock, vice chair for the undergraduate community and third-year College student, SWG is tasked with improving and designing procedures for a panel for sanction — the stage in a case where a panel of five Committee members reviews evidence, hears arguments for sanctions and decides on an appropriate outcome. SWG also works to draft new sanctions and refine existing ones to address gaps in the current sanctioning system.
One change that has come as a result of SWG’s work is a recent procedural update, which was introduced Oct. 6 and passed through a bylaw change Oct. 20. The change granted the Counsel for the Community — Committee members who represent the University community in a case — greater discretion to present their own independent arguments in a panel for sanctions, separate from the reporter’s perspective.
The update also established a pre-sanctioning process, a phase where evidence and arguments for potential sanctions are prepared and shared with all parties before the panel convenes, providing guilty students clearer notice of the arguments.
The changes aimed to ensure that students’ rights, as outlined in the Honor Constitution — such as the right to be informed of evidence and proposed sanctions — were upheld through the sanctioning process. Hancock said that the original bylaws were developed quickly, leaving procedural gaps that needed adjustment as the system evolved.
“[The Sanctions Working Group was] making sure the students’ rights that were guaranteed
in the Constitution were secure not just at the hearing for guilt … but at the panel for sanctions,” Hancock said. “These were such fresh bylaws that there were some gaps.”
Hancock said that fine-tuning processes took up much of SWG’s time this term, but that the subcommittee will now focus on outlining new sanctions. Earlier this term, the Committee mentioned the issue of a severity gap in sanctions — a lack of intermediate options between rehabilitative measures, like educational seminars, and more severe penalties, such as suspension or expulsion.
To address this, SWG is developing new ways to fill this gap, such as using transcript notations more frequently as an intermediate sanction.
“Some of our sanctions work [was] paused while we were overhauling the panel for sanction process,” Hancock said. “Now, we’re able to return a little bit more towards sanctions.”
Though the Committee provides sanctioning guidelines to assist panelists from the Panel for Sanctions in their evaluations, the guidelines are not mandates — panelists still retain full discretion to determine sanctions they find appropriate based on the specifics of each case. Hancock said that senior support officers — experienced members who train and guide other support officers — attend SWG meetings to stay informed on new guidelines, ensuring they can effectively train members on updated procedures.
But SWG is far from the only group working to improve the sanctioning process. Recently, the Policies & Procedures Committee — a subcommittee responsible for reviewing and proposing changes to the Committee’s bylaws — introduced a formalized “precedent document.” The document consolidates public summaries of past cases with similar offenses and outcomes, serving as a reference tool to promote consistency while preserving flexibility. However, its use is not mandatory, which allows panelists the freedom to evaluate each case independently.
Howard said that given the unique circumstances that every guilty student faces, the discretion granted to panelists is a key advantage of the multi-sanction system — flexibility enables panelists to tailor sanctions to the unique circumstances of each case, rather than sanctions that are constrained by rigid precedent.
“Each individual student is completely different, and their commission of an Honor offense is completely different,” Howard said. “The discretion of the panel for sanction is actually an advantage, because it enables them to be flexible and adapt to what each individual student needs.”
This flexibility is overseen and supported by the vice chair for sanctions — a role introduced with the multi-sanction system to ensure fairness and procedural consistency in sanctioning panels.
Carson Breus, fourth-year Commerce student, became the inaugural vice chair for sanctions Apr. 2023 and is currently serving her second term in the position. Breus has staffed approximately 60 cases thus far.
In her role as a neutral facilitator, Breus ensures that deliberations in sanctions are conducted fairly and in accordance with the Committee’s guidelines. This responsibility involves maintaining procedural integrity and clarifying the sanctioning process to panelists, without advocating for specific sanctioning outcomes.
Breus said that the Committee’s early experiences with the multi-sanction system were marked by adjustment and learning, as panelists navigated new procedures and exercised individual judgment in sanctioning cases. Initially, panelists worked to create non-binding precedents for the first time with the Committee’s guiding principles in mind.
“Creating [sanctioning] precedent can be a very daunting thing [for panelists],” Breus said.
“[With] a system that is so new, changes are always in flux.”
Hancock said that the Committee’s processes will change with the evolving needs of the student body, and that there is no perfect standard for sanctioning. While the Committee is working to refine its overarching sanctioning philosophy — outlining which sanctions to use and the reasoning behind them — he said this philosophy might evolve over time to reflect changes in the student body’s perspectives on fairness, accountability and restoration within the Honor system.
“[If] the [student body]’ view on sanctioning changes over the next five years, so should the Committee’s view, because we are a student-run system,” Hancock said.
“It is less that [the Committee] is reaching for some sort of golden right, but [that] we’re reaching for what represents student views the best on sanctioning.”
ADVICE: Avoiding food theft and long lines with Grubhub
Editor’s note: This article is a humor column.
Dear Advice Columnist Tara Pitz,
My name is Olive, and I am a firstyear Engineering student. When I’m not busy using my courseload to fuel my superiority complex, I find myself worried about ordering food through Grubhub. After the University added meal swipes to Subway, the hours-long lines have me questioning if I should have placed my sandwich order when I submitted my University application. To make matters worse, I’ve heard rumors of food theft.
The problem is, Grubhub is my goto when Newcomb, O’Hill or Runk isn’t cutting it. How can I avoid the long lines and prevent my food from getting stolen?
Sincerely, Olive Eten
Dear Olive, First, I want to empathize with you, and let you know that you are not alone. Buying food on Grubhub is a cornerstone of our time at the University, and it is a struggle when the process does not unfold smoothly. To that end, I have compiled three ethical tips to combat the issues.
Bribe the workers
The University won’t address long lines at Subway — you must take matters into your own hands. Before you hit the “I’m here” button, slide the worker behind the counter a bill. It could be a five, a 10, a Monopoly 10 — the sum doesn’t matter, as you’d still be giving them a better wage than the University. And if you’re wondering whether bribery is enough, throw in a “thank-you” for good measure. This phrase has become a rarity. Workers are so unaccustomed to appreciation that they’ll bend over backwards to help you, either from gratitude or as a
HUMOR CARTOON
reflex from dodging students shouting “hurry up.”
If anyone tries to steal your food, BLACKMAIL THEM!
Unfortunately, cases of food theft are more than just rumors. The Honor Committee says the biggest sign of our Community of Trust is that you can leave your backpack anywhere, but good luck leaving your Grubhub order in the open. The University has tried to respond with food lock boxes at select locations around Grounds, but most of the places students frequent don’t have them installed. Whatever are we to do? Well, next time you see a thief swiping your order — pull out your phone. Follow them throughout the day and snap incriminating photos of them in compromising situations, such as refilling their drink at Subway or checking in at Chick-fil-A while in Gilmer. Your food may be gone, but you have blackmail at your convenience. Your personal hench-
Wheel of Misfortune
man will now deliver your orders and guard your food from any future theft. They are subject to your will forever. Remember, in the spirit of the Honor Code, blackmail is only unethical if you get caught.
Cry it out…
Grubhub annoyances are frustrating when you have exams, projects and papers to deal with. I know you’ve been hoping for support on Grounds to help manage stress, as we all have. Although, who needs more mental health resources on college campuses when deleting Instagram will solve our problems? But until this happens, I suggest an alternative — crying hysterically. While this can’t solve your academic issues — trust me, I’ve tried — it evokes a surprising amount of alarm in those around you. All you need to do is fall to your knees in front of the food counter, arms outstretched, tears streaming down your face, repeating the phrase “Why, God, why?” Sure,
you’ll have to go through public humiliation, but by default, you’ll become first in line. You can even “accidentally” grab someone else’s order, too. Don’t worry about whether this would be an Honor Code violation — if anything does happen, send your victim to the guillotine in your place.
I know what you must be thinking. Bribery and blackmail are “technically” felonies. However, think longterm — only 32 more and you could be elected to the highest political office in the country. And if you’re hesitant about emotional manipulation, rest easy knowing you can invalidate people’s feelings by calling them a snowflake. Good luck.
Sincerely,
Tara Pitz
NIKITHA PRABHU is a humor columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at humor@cavalierdaily.com
Another Year ... Another
Loss
Sahar Asghari | Cartoonist
Blake Maguire | Cartoonist
OPINION
LEAD EDITORIAL
Batten leaves students and professors behind the curve
The Batten Curve states that each Batten class should have a mean GPA around 3.5. This pedagogical tool, intended to support consistency across the school’s classes, has stirred student concerns about unfair grade distributions, deflated GPAs and unnecessarily limited postgraduate opportunities for Batten students. Beyond those tangible concerns, the Batten Curve cultivates a toxic culture of competitiveness that undermines professors’ autonomy and jeopardizes classroom dynamics.
To be clear — not all curves are harmful in the way that the Batten Curve is. Indeed, professors may use a curve to compensate for a poorly written exam. However, Batten takes this practice too far with its top-down imposition. Simply put, this curve is a problematic demand that intrudes into professors’ classrooms and destabilizes students’ academic lives.
Yet, Batten continues to choose this path. It is the only school at
The Batten Curve is pedagogically unsound and fails to achieve its stated purpose of maintaining rigor
the University that imposes a curve policy from the top down. This implementation of the curve sacrifices Batten professors’ freedom to lead and adapt their own classrooms — a pedagogical mistake. Beyond the years of expertise that professors bring, they have a ground-level knowledge of their unique classroom dynamics each year. The Batten Curve suggests that classroom dynamics from semester to semester are predictable. They are not. Given this variety, professors are the ones best equipped to develop their own grading policy. But, in Batten, if a professor wants this degree of flexibility, they must first submit a justification. It is hard to imagine that this extent of micromanagement and top-down oversight is warranted. After all, it is in students’ best interest that professors are empowered to adapt their grading policies to their specific classrooms. Forcing professors to abide by a standardized grading policy therefore diminishes the
THE CAVALIER DAILY
The Cavalier Daily is a financially and editorially independent news organization staffed and managed entirely by students of the University of Virginia. The opinions expressed in The Cavalier Daily are not necessarily those of the students, faculty, staff or administration of the University of Virginia. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial board. Cartoons and columns represent the views of the authors. The managing board of The Cavalier Daily has sole authority over and responsibility for all content.
No part of The Cavalier Daily or The Cavalier Daily online edition may be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the editor-in-chief. The Cavalier Daily is published Thursdays in print and daily online at cavalierdaily. com. It is printed on at least 40 percent recycled paper. 2022 The Cavalier Daily Inc.
HAVE AN OPINION?
The Cavalier Daily welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns. Writers must provide full name, telephone number and University affiliation, if appropriate. Letters should not exceed 250 words in length and columns should not exceed 700. The Cavalier Daily does not guarantee publication of submissions and may edit all material for content and grammar. Submit to opinion@cavalierdaily.com or P.O. Box 400703, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4703
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
To better serve readers, The Cavalier Daily has a public editor to respond to questions and concerns regarding its practices. The public editor writes a column published every week on the opinion pages based on reader feedback and his independent observations. He also welcomes queries pertaining to journalism and the newspaper industry in general. The public editor is available at publiceditor@cavalierdaily.com.
freedom of professors to analyze student performance on their own terms and adjust grading decisions accordingly.
Batten professors are further obliged to this standard Batten curve in the name of maintaining academic rigor in the school. Academic rigor, or the standards of excellence that professors expect from their students, is perceived to be undermined when too many students receive high GPAs. In response to this perception, Batten argues that the curve is necessary because a wide range of GPAs displays the school’s degree as more rigorous and valuable. It is no longer enough for a Batten student to work hard and feel challenged by the course material.
To make their classes fit into the curve requirement, professors must resort to creating harder exams in order to have grades reflect a bell curve — or take the more harrowing option of curving students down a letter grade at the
THE CAVALIER DAILY
MANAGING BOARD
Editor-in-Chief
Nathan Onibudo
Managing Editor
Grace Thrush
Executive Editor
Naima Sawaya
Operations Manager
Honor Wood
Chief Financial Officer
Charlie Healy
EDITORIAL BOARD
Nathan Onibudo
Naima Sawaya
Songhan Pang
Dan Freed
Paul Kurtzweil
Wylie Brunman
Farah Eljazzar
JUNIOR BOARD
Assistant Managing Editors
Hailey Chung
Blaine Hutchens
(SA) Annabelle Gristina
(SA) Emma Herold
(SA) Catherine Kuryla
(SA) Calla Mischen
(SA) Lydia Sweeney
(SA) Vera Woody
Assistant Operations Manager
Olivia Winesett
News Editors
Finn Trainer
Thomas Baxter
(SA) Ford McCracken
end of the semester. In either case, students’ grades do not reflect mastery of the subject material. A universally imposed curve means that curving a student’s grade upward creates a false impression of greater mastery, while curving it downward implies less mastery than the grade suggests. The need to display or fit into a perfect normal distribution, then, is framed as more important than measuring students’ proficiency. When a classroom has a curve, one idea reigns supreme for grading — that meaningful academic success for one student necessarily comes at the expense of another student’s guaranteed mediocrity or failure.
The very idea of simulating a cutthroat environment is at odds with fostering a supportive school community, and we should not mix up the two in the classroom. After all, collaborative work — the style of learning that Batten is centered on — is a life skill necessary for success in the workplace. This is not to
Sports Editors
Ben Istvan
Xander Tilock (SA) Victoria Blankenship (SA) Michael Liebermann
Arts & Entertainment Editors
Delores Cyrus
Delaney Hammond (SA) Leila Mohajer
Life Editors
Mia Tan
Kate Johnson (SA) Elizabeth Parsons
(SA) Grace Scott
Podcast Editor
Evelyn Lewis
Opinion Editors
Dan Freed
Songhan Pang (SA) Wylie Brunman
(SA) Paul Kurtzweil
Humor Editor
Wardah Kamran (SA) Emma Nero
Cartoon Editor
Sarah Elder (SA) Ada Malpani
Photo Editors
Leon Arceo
Adaire Burnsed (SA) Alison Pike (SA) Albert Tang (SA) Tess Ginsberg (SA) Kate MacArthur
say that the world of employment does not also demand the sort of competition intrinsic in the curve. But college is not supposed to be a workplace. Removing the curve gives Batten a chance to truly promote the values of collaborative learning.
The Batten School must allow professors to design grading systems tailored to the needs of their own students. Top-down enforcement of flawed grading policies has squashed classroom collaboration and placed professors in impossible situations. Luckily for the Batten School, this is one of the few policy issues in the world that has a truly straightforward solution — just remove the curve.
THE CAVALIER DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD is composed of the Executive Editor, the Editor-in-Chief, the two Opinion Editors, their Senior Associates and an Opinion Columnist. The board can be reached at eb@cavalierdaily.com.
Design Editors
Lexie Gagnon
Sarah St. John
Mariam Seshan
Chinese Translation Editor
Dailin Li
Social Media Managers
Covonna Bynum
Cody Scarce (SA) Halle McCormack
Finance Manager
Wilson Simmons
Advertising Manager
Will Peres
Website Manager
Leigh Bailey
Analytics Managers
Elisabeth Bass
Bella Binder
Irene Si
Archivist
Grace Franklin
DEI Chair
Leena Fraihat
Advising changes are a step toward student success
The new advising model works to create a more efficient system for aligning students with advisors and providing academic support
Students at the University are notorious for their concerns and complaints regarding the current advising system, specifically about its lack of academic support. Aiming to remedy these worries, administrators worked tirelessly to form an advising model in April 2024 that combined pre-major advising with the first-year Engagements program. This new model will be launched next fall, though parts of it are being implemented now. The University’s adoption of a restructured advising system demonstrates a commendable commitment to fostering student success — not only does this new system address long-standing concerns of student disconnect from their advisors, but it also tailors guidance to students’ academic interests and career aspirations.
The existing advising framework simply fails to accomplish its set objectives. Incoming students are assigned a faculty advisor, who may or may not be in their area of academic focus. They meet with this advisor sparingly, and it is rare that a student finds their advisor’s advice useful. The COLA system attempts to remedy this divide by allowing students to sign up for a class where
their instructor becomes their advisor, until the declaration of their major. However, in itself, this optional course is not an opportunity utilized by every single first-year student, nor do these COLA professors comprise the entirety of academia at the University.
A more successful advising plan would need to meet the va -
the infrequency of required meetings — typically limited to once a semester for fifteen minutes to remove an advisor hold during course selection. The new system takes measures to combat this disconnect by ensuring that students meet regularly with their advisors. Yes, these meetings are first in formalized classroom settings. But, as the COLA model suggests,
put an unfair responsibility upon both parties — the expectation for faculty to be all-knowing experts on every facet of the College and the idea that students must academically navigate their first years with little assistance. Instead, these new advisors are better equipped to provide relevant professional opportunities and resources in specific fields. Im -
These new advisors are better equipped to provide relevant professional opportunities and resources in specific fields.
riety of academic interests offered at the University in a way similar to COLAs, but on a wider and more personalized scale. And the new advising framework plans to do just that. Under the new framework, every first-year student’s advisor will be an advising professional or a faculty member who has undergone specific advising training.
In this way, the new system addresses the social and academic disconnects that have long plagued advising. This lack of connection was primarily due to
classroom sessions facilitate a type of familiarity which is essential in an effective advising relationship. By creating interpersonal connections with advisors in a classroom setting first, the new system creates an interconnected network of student-faculty relations.
The new system, in pairing advisors with students who have academic interests that align with the advisors’ areas of expertise, ensures that students are provided with tailored guidance. Under the old system, mix-and-match pairs between students and faculty
plementing a system that matches students with advisors in their respective areas of interest ensures that first-years and second-years receive the targeted support they need to thrive academically and professionally.
Several schools within the University have already implemented a system similar to the one which has been proposed for the College. Specifically, the College’s new advising framework is similar to the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s current advising model, in which first-year
Stop ghosting us, Gov. Youngkin
Engineering students take a series of “Engineering Foundations” courses throughout their first year. Much like in the College’s new model, these courses are taught by students’ academic advisors. By adopting a comparable approach, the College aligns itself with these successful institutional precedents, fostering stronger connections between students and advisors from the start of their academic journeys.
With the long history of student complaints regarding advising in the College, it is commendable that the University administration is committed to responding to student concerns and prioritizing student academic well-being. The work the administration has done will ultimately create a more interconnected system of student-faculty relations within this institution and facilitate a pathway for students to succeed.
FARAH ELJAZZAR is an opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
Youngkin should respond to student leader requests to meet with him and discuss substantial and concerning changes occurring at Virginia universities
Over one month after student leaders at universities across Virginia requested a meeting with Gov. Youngkin, the administration has still left no word on whether this meeting would be considered. The request came amid changes to DEI programs and support systems at Virginia universities. Through this request, student leaders entreated the Governor to hear student experiences that arose because of his changes. The silence from the Governor is resounding — not only does it elicit concerns about whether his care for his student constituents is sincere, but it also propounds a sense that Youngkin is content to live in ignorant bliss when remolding state universities. For the sake of students — and the Governor — his state administration should rethink its stance on this meeting and its approach to interacting with students.
The request from students did not arise in a vacuum. Gov. Youngkin has requested reviews of the DEI course syllabi at the Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University. The Governor has also reshaped the Boards of Visitors at universities across the state with
conservative majorities that intend to make profound changes to university programs, particularly DEI programs and safe spaces. With such great change comes grand concern from students on the ramifications for the institutions they learn at and grow in. Thus, the request from
solely with administrative leaders to hear about issues pertaining to the student environment is both ill-advised and ignorant. As the ones who viscerally experience this ecosystem, it is obvious that our student experiences would be instructive.
be the only beneficiary of a meeting with student leaders — as the letter notes, students feel the consequences of actions that Gov. Youngkin takes at universities. As one of the many important stakeholders at institutions of higher education, students have a strong interest in the
As the ones who viscerally experience this ecosystem, it is obvious that our student experiences would be instructive.”
student body presidents at ten state universities, including our university, to meet with the Governor to directly voice their worries about changes to DEI programs.
Gov. Youngkin ought to heed their request, if only for his own benefit. Having made education a hallmark of his road to election and having instituted these significant changes to our universities, it is clear that education is a priority for the Governor. Indeed, Youngkin has met with almost all college and university presidents to discuss free speech on campuses. But meeting
The informative costs of not meeting with student representatives and learning about our experiences before now are evident. For example, the Editorial Board of this newspaper and others have written about the importance of safe spaces and attacks on them. If the Governor were to meet with student representatives, such concerns would be heard by the state administration. In doing so, the actions the Governor takes towards our universities would be better informed of student experiences.
Governor Youngkin would not
decisions Youngkin makes. Meeting with the administrative stakeholder, university leadership, but not internal stakeholders, students, is not only detrimental to Youngkin’s understanding of university issues but deleterious to students and their university experience.
A display of receptiveness to student concerns would improve the sense of representation students hold toward their political leaders. More than half of young people believe their vote matters “only a little” or “not at all” — a consequence of deprioritization of this voter bloc
by political leaders. Meeting with student leaders would demonstrate a recognition of their value as stakeholders at universities. It would also affirm the importance of students in our representative political system, thus causing students to adjust their attitudes toward political leaders positively.
The request by student leaders is not a novel concept — our state leader meets with other stakeholders affected by his actions. What makes this notable is the neglect to similarly consider the experiences of students, disenfranchising students of our stakeholder position. Meeting with student leaders will be a benefit to both sides — Youngkin will gain understanding regarding the experiences of educational stakeholders, and students will gain recognition for their stakeholder position and confidence in the political process. All that is needed, Gov. Youngkin, is for you to meet our outstretched hand.
WYLIE BRUNMAN is a senior associate opinion editor for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@ cavalierdaily.com.
YEAR IN REVIEW
CD Staff Writers
The latest Israel-Palestine conflict has renewed debates about free speech in our society. One question has become especially prevalent — what, if any, role do university presidents have in responding to international, national and local tragedies? While this question has no easy answers, what has become clear to us — the 134th and 135th Editorial Boards of The Cavalier Daily — is that we cannot and should not expect university presidents, or other institutional representatives, to articulate developed stances on every single political and social issue of the day. To do so would be antithetical to the mission of any university which is to protect academic freedom, debate and dissent. As such, we as students must reframe our expectations for university leaders — instead of demanding explicit statements, we should expect critical neutrality that encourages open discourse and contextualizes debates. This is not silence in the face of injustice. Rather, we call for a neutrality that is characterized by its insistence on facts and deployed in a way that empowers individuals within the institution to engage in discourse.
EDITORIAL: We expect too much of our university presidents 1.28
Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee approves recommendation to rename Alderman Library to Edgar Shannon Library
The Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee voted to recommend renaming Alderman Library to Edgar Shannon Library during its Thursday meeting. The recommendation moves the proposal ahead to the Full Board which convened Friday. The Board also approved designs for a North Grounds parking garage and Darden student housing during the Committee’s meeting.
Jewish Leadership Advisory Board criticizes politicization of Jewish student experiences
The Jewish Leadership Advisory Board, an elected organization of Jewish student leaders, criticized the Board of Visitors for politicizing the experiences of Jewish students at the University in an April 3 letter acquired by The Cavalier Daily. The letter came after the March 1 meeting of the Board of Visitors, where Bert Ellis, Board member and College and Darden alumnus, criticized the University and Rector Robert Hardie for their responses to allegations of rising antisemitism on Grounds.
3.1 4.22 4.16
Two fraternities suspended, one terminated after hazing allegations
The Theta Chi and Sigma Alpha Mu fraternities had their Fraternal Organization Agreements suspended by the University, while the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity had its FOA terminated after allegations of hazing, according to Ben Ueltschey, Inter-fraternity Council president and third-year College student. While the Theta Chi and Sigma Alpha Mu fraternities face temporary suspensions, the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity will have its FOA terminated for a minimum of four years. It is unclear when the violations in all three chapters took place or when the University moved to suspend and terminate their FOAs.
Police forcefully clear encampment near University Chapel, detain protesters
Over 50 police officers, including state troopers in riot gear, cleared the pro-Palestinian encampment near the University chapel Saturday afternoon and detained at least 25 protesters. The removal of the encampment marked the end of a days-long protest that called on the University to disclose its investment portfolio and divest from institutions benefiting from Israeli occupation in Palestine, among other demands.
According to University Spokesperson Bethanie Glover, protestors violated two University policies relating to tents, SEC-013 and SEC-030, and they also violated SEC-041, which prohibits amplified sound, including megaphones, which the people in the encampment began to use Friday evening.
5.5 5.18 5.31
The naked party uncovered
In a university steeped in old traditions, few students witness the rise of a new one during their time on Grounds. From Lighting of the Lawn to Block Party, many students adopt University traditions that have been passed down from one generation to the next. But, for the past five semesters, some students have experienced the creation of a new tradition — the naked party. On the last day of classes, students crowd into a dimly lit house behind the Corner as organizers check their names off a guest list. After signing a tablecloth agreeing to the party’s guidelines, students enter the kitchen where they stuff their clothes into bags, grab hold of their friends and hit the dance floor in nothing but their underwear.
U.Va. to pay $9 million to Nov. 13 shooting victims and their families
The University agreed Friday to a $9 million settlement to victims and families of victims of the Nov. 13, 2022 shooting that killed three students and injured two others. According to reporting done by the Associated Press, the University will pay $2 million to each of the families of the three killed students —- football players Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler. The AP also reported that the University will pay a combined $3 million to Mike Hollins, former Virginia Football player, and fourth-year Commerce student Marlee Morgan, both of whom were injured in the shooting.
KATE MACARTHUR THE CAVALIER DAILY
ALEYNA BUYUKAKSAKAL THE CAVALIER DAILY
ALBERT TANG THE CAVALIER DAILY
KHUYEN DINH THE CAVALIER DAILY
CHRISTINA ANTON THE CAVALIER DAILY
FINN TRAINER | THE CAVALIER DAILY
CHRISTINA ANTON THE CAVALIER DAILY
U.Va. suspends admissions tours led by the University Guides Service
Office of Admission interns replaced the Guide Service — are their tours any different?
At most colleges and universities, tour guides get paid. At the University, a group of students instead volunteer through the University Guide Service to lead hundreds of admission and historical tours each semester — that is, until this fall.
The Guide Service, a Special Status Organization trusted as an agent of the University, announced a semester-long suspension of their student-led admission tours by administration Aug. 28. Some national outlets framed the decision as a result of the tours’ discussions of enslaved labor at the University, while University representatives have maintained that the organization struggled with scheduling and consistency issues. Throughout the spring semester, the University reported frequent no-shows from Guides and a failure for the Guide Service to complete tour sign-ups ahead of an agreed upon deadline.
ONIBUDO: Give us back our Hill
Construction can be found all around Grounds. The beginnings of new buildings dot the sidewalks of Jefferson Park Avenue. Scaffolding streaks across the sidewalks of the Lawn. The Edgar Shannon Library just finished a major renovation. And Scott Stadium was just adorned with a massive scoreboard. While the scoreboard is an electric addition, its construction came with additional fencing which enables the enforcement of new restrictions on who can access the Hill — the beloved grassy area on the north end of the stadium. These restrictions are a bad look for the University and constitute a failed attempt to moderate the Hill’s capacity and improve safety.
The University Guide Service announced Wednesday in a statement on Instagram that the University has suspended them from conducting both admissions and historical tours, citing concerns from the University over tour attendance and tour quality. According to the statement, the Guide Service will continue to work with the University to develop an agreement that would allow for future Guide Service-led tours, and the group will continue their recruitment operations for the semester. The Guide Service is a student-run organization on Grounds that gave admissions and historical tours to prospective students, families and visitors. As a Special Status Organization, the group is among a handful of other groups on Grounds — such as Student Council and the University Board of Elections — that are trusted to act as agents of the University. This designation means that they are required to keep a close working relationship with a University advisor. 9.5 9.8 9.16 10.21 11.6 9.17
U.Va. Health faculty demand removal of health system CEO, School of Medicine dean
This morning, the University’s Board of Visitors received a letter of no confidence for Craig Kent, chief executive officer of U.Va. Health, and Melina Kibbe, dean of the School of Medicine, Medicine professor and chief health affairs officer, demanding both of their removals. The letter, signed by 128 U.Va. Physicians Group-employed faculty, alleges that the two leaders have fostered an environment that compromises patient safety and creates a culture of fear among faculty.
Full Board approves policy on institutional neutrality, discusses development goals
The Full Board of Visitors unanimously voted Friday to accept an institutional policy drafted by the Committee on Institutional Statements recommending that the University refrain from commenting on social or political matters unless they directly affect its mission or operations. University President Jim Ryan also discussed plans for the 2024-2025 term, including securing funding for the Center for the Arts, a building that will serve as a rehearsal and performance space for students on Grounds, as well as making progress on the University’s Manning Institute for Biotechnology — a new center for University research in biotechnology.
Most unfortunate, however, is the broader context within which the Hill restrictions are situated. The University has experienced its fair share of tension recently — there has been so much for students to process, criticize and debate. To me, the Hill was a bastion of togetherness in a broader sea of chaos and increasing division. But the Hill we once knew hasn’t gone anywhere — the policies which plague it could easily be repealed. In the spirit of safety and togetherness and fun, I ask that the University do away with the restrictions and give us back our Hill.
How, and why, Tony Bennett retired
At 10:53 a.m. Friday, in a dining hall converted into a press conference room, a mounting hubbub suddenly died. There seemed no outward trigger. It just happened, as if the gravity of the approaching moment somehow struck all the assembled at precisely the same time. Here he comes. You could hear a pin drop.
Tony Bennett arrived to his retirement press conference at 11:03 a.m. He was late, by three minutes. He played at his own pace one final time.
Students weigh in on America’s future after Trump victory
United States, defeating current Vice President Kamala Harris and becoming the second president ever to serve two nonconsecutive terms. Students across the country took to the polls and waited until early in the morning for an election result. Now, many have mixed reactions to Trump’s victory, with some optimistic about the next four years and others worried about the country’s future. The buildup to the historic election, dominated by President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race in July, was mired with unknowns. Pollsters and analysts were split in their predictions in the days leading up to the election, with many believing that an extremely close race was in the cards.
DOMENICK FINI THE CAVALIER DAILY
COURTESY U.VA. COMMUNICATIONS
ALBERT TANG THE CAVALIER DAILY
MICHAEL LIEBERMANN THE CAVALIER DAILY
ANNAGRACE PARMER THE CAVALIER DAILY
BENVIN LOZADA THE CAVALIER DAILY
SPORTS
The student who conquered Everest, at O-Hill, on a unicycle
A second-year student decided it would be cool to break the unicycle world record in a brutal discipline known as “everesting”
Michael Liebermann | Senior Associate
Here he is, on a unicycle, at 2 a.m., 21 hours into an odyssey even his mother never believed would happen. He starts up the paved road of Observatory Hill. What hurts? Everything hurts. The leg muscles, pedaling upward for the 128th and final time. The knees, stabilizing the single wheel.
Second-year College student Mason Allen is minutes away from completing his task of gaining 29,029 feet of elevation in a discipline known as “everesting.” He is minutes away from a world record.
Four friends on mountain bikes who have joined this final lap fan out around him, and a fifth person, some random student from a neighboring dorm, labors up on foot. At the tip of this phalanx comes Allen, coated with a mixture of stale and fresh sweat, his diet of Clif bars and cheap Halloween candy bucking at his insides.
“It was a sight to see,” Peyton Hurt, one of the bikers in the group, said. It was also a slapdash effort, from conception to execution.
The process started earlier this fall, when Allen, a Crozet native, decided he wanted to break the unicycle everesting world record. It ended in the wee hours of Nov. 3, after 128 laps up and down the road that starts by Slaughter Recreation Center and travels up to the McCormick Observatory. He finished, officially, in 21 hours, nine minutes and four seconds, shattering the previous world record of 23 hours, three minutes and 17 seconds.
It all sounded “like a joke” at first, completely ludicrous. But Allen figured he might as well. It looked cool, after all, and the idea had wandered around his brain for a while. So he decided he would do it, attempt this thing that even seasoned endurance bikers scoffed at.
The rules of an everest, as the official website says, are “fiendishly simple.” Ride up and down a hill until you reach an elevation gain — five-and-ahalf miles — equal to that of Mount Everest. The feat is most popular in the bicycling world but also includes running, skiing and stair-climbing.
Only one person — Ben Soja, the best unicycler on the planet — had ever done it on a unicycle. That hardly deterred Allen, a lifelong endurance biker who spent his childhood following his father on what Hurt describes as “these grueling, horrible, long rides.”
The stories from friends are endless. There was the time Allen decided, in the middle of a 60-mile bike ride, to attempt the fastest ascent of a particular segment of mountain — and got it. There was the time he continued, after a social ride with U.Va. Club Cy-
cling, to “putz around town for three hours,” in the words of Luke Flaxman, the club’s president and fourth-year College student. There are all the “silly endurance rides” he has done with Flaxman.
“I always say his brain works pretty differently from most peoples,” Laura Allen, Mason’s mother, said.
This story topped them all.
The idea of a bicycle everest had knocked around Allen’s mind for years. He started considering a unicycle version over the summer, after reading about Soja. Allen thought it sounded cool. He also noticed that Soja, who finished in 23 hours, stopped for seven hours during his attempt.
“I was like, ‘That’s a lot of ground,’” Allen said. “I think, if I just stop less, I can take it.”
He floated the idea first to his mountain biking friends. Nobody seemed surprised that he would entertain the idea. But they never really believed it, greeting the thought with a laugh, wondering why.
Flaxman, on the other hand, knew, the moment the words left Allen’s lips, that it was happening. It was just a question of when and where. The concept solidified in Allen’s mind as the fall semester progressed, until he decided for real and started telling people it would happen.
Allen performed about seven training rides in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 2 attempt. Before that, he had last mounted a one-wheeled bike in February.
The schedule, though, remained vague. An interested Hurt, out for a ride with Allen Oct. 31 — a Thursday — asked when the attempt would take place.
“He said, ‘Saturday,’” Hurt said, pausing. “And I was like, ‘What, two days from now, Saturday?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’”
Allen chose a brutal place to do it. An ideal mountain for a cycling everest allows for laps of 30-40 minutes on a consistent slope of 11-12 percent incline. O-Hill is far from that — the laps last roughly four-and-a-half minutes, with grades that fluctuate from close to 0 percent to close to 20 percent. The hill’s two “unproductive” flat portions are the most difficult, wasting time and effort without adding to the elevation gain.
But Allen committed to O-Hill a couple weeks before the attempt. It was close, and it was convenient. He could just roll out of bed and go there from his nearby apartment. Turns out that’s exactly what he did.
He mapped out almost nothing for the momentous day. He had no sched-
uled start time, no reserve brake pads, no headlamp. His most thoughtful piece of preparation consisted of eating a bunch of pasta the day before. He went to sleep after midnight and, struggling to sleep, woke up a few hours later and started getting ready. He began in the darkness around 5:10 a.m., alone, holding his phone flashlight to see where he was going.
His parents, even that morning, hardly viewed the attempt seriously. It took them until the middle of the day to realize it was happening.
“We’re like, ‘Yeah, I guess we’ll go over and say hello,’” Laura Allen said. “We didn’t think he’d make it that long. Just cause he’d get bored.”
The rules of everesting are unforgiving. No sleeping. No partial laps. Just up and down the same stretch of asphalt with maybe a few short breaks, a monotonous mental slog. Allen’s whole life of biking had conditioned him to deal with that. He planned to erase the emotion, the thoughts about what was to come, and just take it “one lap at a time.” But it was still a slog.
“No matter how fit you are,” Hurt said about endurance rides of this magnitude, “you are going to get to that point, that [mental] low point — and stay there.”
The first few hours, as light replaced the darkness and people stirred in the abutting dorms, sailed past with relative ease. Allen moved consistently for the first 11 hours, stopping for only 45 minutes. He reached the halfway point two hours ahead of the world-record pace.
People rotated in and out during those early hours, mostly just his parents and a couple of friends. Local biker friends joined him, cycling up the hill for a lap or two. Allen ate basically the entire time, as he rode or during short breaks. By the end, he consumed somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 calories.
“That’s the entire trick with ultra-endurance events,” Allen said. “It’s just an eating competition. It’s just how much food can your stomach handle while doing a bunch of physical activity.”
At around 10 a.m. he dispatched his mother to buy new brake pads. It was going fine. But by 6:30 p.m., Allen, a couple hours past the halfway mark, received a call from Hurt.
“I’m 19,000 feet in,” Allen told his friend. “And mentally dead.”
And so the grueling monotony continued. Allen lost count of the number of laps somewhere in the 90s, reverting to tracking elevation on his devices.
In the last nine or 10 hours, his legs
“kind of blew up.” At one point, Allen sent out an SOS to the club cycling group chat. He needed ice to numb his ankles and knees. So Flaxman drove to 7 Day Junior and returned with a bag of ice, which Allen used between laps. Flaxman also supplied the club cycling headlamps.
By nightfall, Flaxman and Hurt were both texting people, trying to marshal support, trying to push Allen through the mental warfare. About 20 or so people hovered around the hill from 8 p.m. until the 2 a.m. conclusion, from club cycling teammates to adult bikers to local high schoolers. He would not have finished without them.
“I think it made all the difference,” Laura Allen said.
They hung around for the last couple hours, stationed along the hill, raising his spirits to try and wring out those final ounces of effort. He finally reached the last lap with that impromptu formation of riders, exhausted and beaten, clawing doggedly up the mountain.
Allen and the group reached the top. He dismounted, moving slowly, clothes wet and sweaty, towards the camping chair awaiting him. He melted into it, a man overlooking his kingdom.
It took a little while for the emotion to puncture the wall of fatigue. Exhaustion had filled every recess of Allen’s mind for hours, and only the next morning — after getting shuttled back to his apartment and collapsing into bed — did the magnitude of his accomplishment really sink in.
In interviews a week later with Allen and the people around him, one thing became clear — he never did it
for the glory. He found it anyway. Users of the exercise app Strava, scrolling their feeds the next morning, must have stopped in disbelief.
“It looks like a joke,” Hurt said. “No unicycle ride could be that big on such a small hill. It looks like it’s edited or photoshopped. And, sure enough, it isn’t.”
How did he do it? Hurt referenced Allen’s “extreme mental ability to keep on going.” Laura Allen pointed to years of physical and mental conditioning. Flaxman just shrugs and says Allen’s been preparing for this all his life.
“I’m competitive,” Allen said. “I thought I could get it. I don’t have any world records. It seems like it’d be pretty cool to have one.”
Allen has no real plans to take his biking professional. He wants to qualify for a world cup, at least. But mostly he wants to take his recreational biking as far as possible, go to graduate school and get a PhD in Economics. That just makes it all even more ludicrous.
“A lot of people are very amused that there’s just this random kid from Virginia who has no unicycling pedigree who just went and took the record,” Flaxman said.
Other professional unicyclists have started strategizing, Allen has heard, to break the record. They will likely succeed, given the rushed nature of Allen’s attempt, the inferiority of his equipment, the poor terrain and his existence as a less-than-professional unicyclist.
Allen just wants to hold the record for a little while. Maybe a year. That would be nice.
COURTESY MASON ALLEN
Mason Allen pedals ahead during his 21-hour world-record.
Thank you, Jonas Sanker
A goodbye to Virginia football’s longtime anchor in the secondary — and one of Charlottesville’s own
Peter Kriebel | Staff Writer
Over the past four years, regardless of their knowledge of the sport, spectators at Scott Stadium took notice of number 20 constantly flying around the field. “Tackle made by Jonas Sanker” rang over the public address system eight to 10 times in a given home game — it was as much a gameday staple as “The Good Old Song.”
Safety is often a thankless position in football. It is nuanced in nature and overlooked by the untrained eye. But Sanker, who played his last game for Virginia Saturday, was the rare safety whose play commanded attention — no nuance required. He possessed a talent that could be communicated to someone whether they understood football or not.
Sanker’s skillset was a perfect match for defensive coordinator John Rudzinski’s scheme, which relies heavily on safeties to defend the run game. Sanker was an extremely reliable tackler and had the fluidity and the instincts to be counted on in coverage — a consummate chess piece in the secondary.
He is also a local kid. Sanker attended The Covenant School in
Charlottesville, where he won consecutive state championships and became a three-star recruit. He committed to Virginia in 2020 and wasted no time getting onto the field, seeing action in nine games as a freshman. In his sophomore season, Sanker appeared in every game, starting in nine of them and notching his first career interception against Syracuse. But just as Sanker was making his name known, tragedy struck. The Nov. 13, 2022 shooting that took the lives of Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler devastated the football team and the University community at large. The season ended prematurely as the team grieved and sought closure. It was an emotional offseason but a galvanizing one, and Sanker emerged as a team leader. On the field, he had established himself as a cornerstone of the defense, his consistency anomalous on an otherwise unstable unit. During that 2023 season, his nose for the football led him to a team-leading 107 tackles and first-team All-ACC honors — he became the first Cavalier safety to earn the title since Juan Thorn-
hill in 2018.
But Sanker’s individual success did not spread to the rest of the team, which posted its second straight three-win season under Coach Tony Elliott. The defense was bad, finishing last in the ACC in points allowed.
Still, Sanker impressed and earned a spot on the All-ACC preseason team and the watchlist for the Bednarik Award — given to college football’s best defensive player — ahead of his senior season.
The 2024 preseason buzz was well-founded. The Charlottesville native became the first Cavalier to win ACC Defensive Back of the Week four times in a single season, catching the eyes of National Football League scouts and receiving an invitation to the Senior Bowl.
Sanker displayed his patented consistency and found his stride as a playmaker, especially in big moments. It is hard for a defensive back to take over a game, but he did just that Nov. 9 at No. 18 Pittsburgh. Expectedly, Virginia trailed 13-7 early in the third quarter as the Panthers faced a field goal attempt to push the lead to two scores.
In a flash, Sanker heroically leapt into the air to block the kick. It saved three points and also inspired the Cavalier offense, which scored a touchdown to take a 14-13 lead two minutes later.
The very next play after Virginia’s ensuing kickoff, the senior intercepted a pass and returned it to the Panthers’ 20-yard line. Virginia scored another touchdown on its ensuing drive and never looked back. Almost single handedly, Sanker had turned the tide from a potential fourth-straight loss into a season-saving upset win.
A similar moment occurred against Boston College a month prior, when the Cavaliers led by three points in the fourth quarter with the Eagles driving down the field. As if on cue, Sanker’s tenacious effort was rewarded when a fumble improbably bounced off of sophomore linebacker Kam Robinson’s foot and fluttered into his arms for a game-sealing scoop-andscore. Virginia moved to 2-0 in the ACC for the first time since 2019, and once again, their star safety was at the forefront.
However, it has not only been
during Cavalier wins that Sanker has stood out. The team lost a lot — 28 times, in 45 games — during Sanker’s tenure. Despite that, he carried on with a sort of stoic proficiency, unaffected by external circumstances.
Sanker’s final performance as a Cavalier — Saturday’s 37-17 loss to Virginia Tech — was a microcosmic example of his Virginia career. He racked up nine tackles and hustled 50 yards downfield to try to make a chasedown stop while the team trailed by multiple scores late in the game. Once again, Sanker was excellent on a team unable to get over the hump.
When Sanker committed to Virginia four years ago, he looked up to former Cavalier defensive backs like Thornhill and Bryce Hall, a pair of current NFL players who forged legacies at the University. Four years later, in his home city, there is no doubt Sanker has left behind one of his own.
For all that he has done during a testing time for Virginia football, let one final message be heard loud and clear — thank you, Jonas Sanker.
Virginia women’s lacrosse thrilled by announcement of WLL
The Women’s Lacrosse League launched last month — Coach Sonia LaMonica and the Cavaliers are excited about what this means for women’s sports
David Sewall | Staff Writer
Women’s lacrosse is the newest benefactor of a momentous era for women’s sports. The Premier Lacrosse League announced Nov. 13 the creation of the Women’s Lacrosse League, which will be composed of four teams and join Athletes Unlimited, founded in 2020, as the second professional women’s lacrosse league.
The WLL will debut at the PLL Championship Series in February 2025 —- and Virginia women’s lacrosse, plus women’s lacrosse players around the country, are excited.
“It’s about time,” Coach Sonia LaMonica said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “Any continued visibility is going to be a good thing because we’ve got such a great product in our sport … it will only enhance the brand.”
LaMonica and the Cavaliers are fresh off a 2024 campaign in which they went 15-5 and reached the ACC Tournament semifinals. Eight Virginia players earned All-ACC honors, which included three All-ACC Freshman honorees — attackers Madison Alaimo and Jenna DiNardo and midfielder Kate Galica. The team figures to be an ACC contender once again
in 2025, and it has a roster filled with potential pros.
Although most young athletes dream of playing at the highest level, the collegiate level has long been the pinnacle of these aspirations — before 2020, the pathway to professional lacrosse did not exist for women outside of the U.S. national team. Now, Alaimo and other star Cavaliers are hopeful for the future.
“It’s an amazing opportunity for the sport to keep growing and get recognition,” Alaimo said. “The boys have always had [a professional lacrosse league], but I think it’s a great improvement for the girls side of it.”
For veteran players on the roster, like senior attacker Kate Miller, the WLL represents an unexpected chance to prolong their athletic careers beyond college.
“I’m a senior, I’m thinking that things are wrapping up soon, and now you have this whole new opportunity [with] something I could do going forward with the sport I love,” Miller said.
The establishment of the WLL is a mark of significant progress, but there are some critical components that the league must develop to ensure
that it can be a suitable career option. LaMonica, who played for four years at Maryland and spent time with the Australian national team, said that the new league should focus on supporting players’ physical and mental well-being, specifically citing sports medicine and sports psychology.
At Virginia, LaMonica says those types of resources have helped empower the players, something which is reflected in the consistent success of the team. The Cavaliers have won three national titles and appear in the NCAA Tournament almost yearly.
Virginia’s recruiting pitch has been relatively simple — you will win, and win a lot, if you come to Charlottesville. Now, the added potential of playing at a professional level will become another dimension that athletes must consider during their recruitment. That dynamic favors Virginia, a premier program that already features several players likely to be considered for expanded professional opportunities. If LaMonica and her staff can develop and prepare athletes to play at the next level, the WLL could have tremendous benefits for the Cavaliers.
Virginia assistant coach Caylee
Waters, who joined LaMonica’s staff last year, competes with Athletes Unlimited in addition to being a member of the U.S. national team. She has seen firsthand the success that a professional women’s lacrosse professional league can achieve.
“Each year, [Athletes Unlimited] gains more and more investment in women’s sports not just with what we do on the field, but how we take care of ourselves off the field,” Waters said. “Financially, there’s compensation in that too, [It shows] that it matters and there’s money behind it for us.”
As a new league, WLL will have to find a way to co-exist with Athletes Unlimited. In this vein, WLL organizers have announced that the league’s season will not conflict with that of Athletes Unlimited, enabling the two organizations to feature the game’s best talent.
One major difference between Athletes Unlimited and the WLL will come in the gameplay. Athletes Unlimited employs the standard 10-on-10 format used in college lacrosse and at the international level, but the WLL will use 6-on-6 gameplay.
Waters explained that the WLL’s
small-sided format is smart, as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will feature the same format. Lacrosse has not been part of the Olympics for 80 years, and women’s lacrosse has never made an appearance, so the WLL will help the common fan — and the players — prepare for 2028.
LaMonica agrees that this format will help bring more attention to the game. She also noted that Virginia already uses it during training sessions, with the intention of getting players to compete in fast-paced action. The up-tempo style has been embraced by the Cavaliers in an effort to build the necessary attributes to play at the collegiate level.
“[Sixes] require a more all-around athlete… [with] speed and athleticism, and we’re seeing more and more amazing athletes within our sport,” LaMonica said.
The WLL’s ultimate success remains to be seen. But its creation signals continued investment in women’s sports and opens up more opportunities for Virginia athletes and the program at large.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Live Arts stages a playful production of “The Wizard of Oz”
The community theatre brings the classic tale to the merry old land of Charlottesville
Sophie
Hay | Staff Writer
“There’s no place like home,” Dorothy famously declares in the beloved musical “The Wizard of Oz.” For Dorothy, home is Kansas — but for others, like the members of Live Arts, home is something a bit less geographic and less tangible. Home is the theatre and the sense of belonging it offers. In their latest mainstage production, the artists at Live Arts craft a unique adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz” which highlights the empowerment offered by community and the importance of returning home — wherever that may be.
Live Arts is a community theatre organization that has been staging quality productions in downtown Charlottesville since 1989. The organization puts on plays and musicals, offers summer camps, classes, workshops and presents a yearly new works festival, showcasing original works by local playwrights. Per the organization’s mission statement, Live Arts believes in “forging community connections by engaging people in the creation of locally produced, volunteer-powered theater.”
The theatre’s programming is made up of seasons that consist of four to five mainstage plays and musicals, usually united around a common theme. According to the Live Arts website, the 2024-2025 season’s theme is “voyages,” and includes shows that “share a tingling feeling of adventure, stepping forward into the unknown future and back into the known past.”
Other productions that have wrapped up earlier this season include “The Iliad,” an adaptation of Homer’s epic, and “What the Constitution Means to Me,” a play in which a public speaker examines the U.S. Constitution. “The Wizard of Oz,” however, is the first musical of the season, and perhaps has the greatest name recognition of all of the shows — notably, Live Arts’s production has arrived right alongside “Wicked,” the film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical based on the characters of Oz.
The community theatre’s imaginative production of “The Wizard of Oz” is a story of homecoming — Dorothy’s homecoming, of course, but equally that of former artistic director John Gibson, who returned to Live Arts for the first time since his 2010 departure to direct the show, adopting an approach to familiar source material unlike others in the past.
Will Luckett, who plays the Tin Man, noted Gibson’s transformative innovation, offering Live Arts
audiences a new perspective on a show with many different iterations throughout different periods of history.
“The layers of telling this story are multiple,” Luckett said. “This production in particular is going to be different … it’s acknowledging the history and how [“The Wizard of Oz” exists] in the zeitgeist, the personal meaning of it. There’s these sort of different frames in the way we’re going to present it that might be different than folks have seen before.”
Leading the production alongside Gibson is “The Wizard of Oz” co-director Ray Nedzel, who said he has been involved with Live Arts for 22 years since moving to Charlottesville from Los Angeles. Similarly to Gibson, Nedzel said the sense of community he found as a cast member in Live Arts is what keeps him coming back to the organization.
“It made me feel like I could find an artistic home in Charlottesville,” Nedzel said. “It’s a great place to make things and to do things.”
Nedzel acted as marketing director for Live Arts until the pandemic and now runs a program in partnership with education travel company WorldStrides bringing local high school and college students to Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a performing arts festival in Scotland.
He and Gibson reunited in Scotland for the festival in 2023 when they first started talking about Gibson’s concept for a Live Arts production of “The Wizard of Oz” which would center the act of storytelling. In this novel interpretation of the timeless musical, rather than taking place as Dorothy explores Oz, she retells her fantastical experiences to the community members in Kansas over and over — though no one seems to believe her. An in-story group of travelling actors act out the narrative of her time in Oz, as it unfolds as a play within a play. These actors, underpaid and understaffed, must adapt her story with limited resources — however, according to Nedzel, this contributes to the magic and fantasy that characterizes Dorothy’s story.
“[The travelling actors have] got to figure it out on the fly and put together the show, piece together costumes that are somewhat good and somewhat falling apart,” Nedzel said. “Things come out of trunks, things come out of the scene shop unexpectedly. It’s really a found theatrical magic.”
Gibson is now located in Atlanta, so he relied on his friend and co-director to help him realize his vision
over 16 months of preparation. Gibson travelled to Charlottesville often to be present for rehearsals, and Nedzel alone led rehearsals in his absence.
Luckett said that Gibson maintained a rigorous rehearsal process and was steadfast in pushing actors to push themselves, getting personal as they learned to inhabit their roles.
“John is an incredible director,” Luckett said. “Someone said early on, I signed up for this because it’s like free therapy, because he pushes you to really go deep and investigate and to be collaborative, and to come out of yourself but also deeper into yourself.”
Even as members of the cast prioritized truthfulness in their performances, Luckett said the playfulness of Gibson’s concept translated to a playful experience at each stage of the show’s development. Instead of a traditional audition structure where actors learn and perform songs from a particular show, auditions for “The Wizard of Oz” involved lots of improvisation and creativity. At callbacks, Luckett said actors were required to work together to create their own song and choreography.
“The audition process was unlike any audition process that I’ve ever been through, the collaborative nature of it,” Luckett said. “It was sort of improvisational exercises, being in
your body, reacting in the moment to what was happening, practicing leading and following, incorporating sound and movement and play.”
The collaborative nature of the audition process speaks to the centrality of community when working on a Live Arts show. Luckett described Live Arts as a “community resource,” putting people in touch with their own creative abilities and with other members of the Charlottesville community who share artistic goals, while Nedzel emphasized the accessibility of community theatre and the power of artistic production to shape social environments.
“Community theater allows people to express themselves and form a relationship with their community,” Nedzel said. “I think that the creative process, or the process of creation, is how we help define the world that we live in … it affects who we are, and I think it makes us better, more rounded people, especially when we’re partnering or working with a group.”
Kristin Baltes — music director, vocal coach and ensemble actor in “The Wizard of Oz” — has found a home at Live Arts, though not as a cast member. Baltes first joined Live Arts when she learned they were in need of accompanists when her daughter participated in one of their camps and submitted her name. She has been playing and music directing
for the organization ever since, but this is her first time onstage — Baltes said being on the other side has given her a new perspective, and she said she appreciates the bonds she’s formed with fellow cast members.
“I’ve been to billions of rehearsals before, billions, but I have never been on this side of it, so now I’m better informed about what it feels like for my students to be in a show, and what it feels like to be part of an ensemble cast,” Baltes said. “Yes, I was the music director … but there’s something different about being side-by-side [with] cast members.”
The value Nedzel, Baltes and Luckett find in community theatre is reflected in the musical’s message of empowerment through storytelling and in the ways in which characters support and complement each other.
To Nedzel, this is a key part of the play’s resonance nearly 90 years after the movie’s release.
“The journey of the play is really about acceptance and the fact that you’re more powerful than you think you are,” Nedzel said. “Everyone has different abilities, everyone has different strengths. Sometimes we don’t know our own strengths, and other people have to tell us, and that makes for a magical life.”
“The Wizard of Oz” runs through Dec. 15 at Live Arts on the Downtown Mall.
COURTESY LIVE ARTS
The community theatre’s imaginative production of “The Wizard of Oz” is a story of homecoming.
Maya Boutaghou puts multilingualism into context
The University professor’s latest book, “White Tongue, Brown Skin,” examines what it means to linguistically inherit a colonial legacy
Benjamin Apostol | Staff Writer
In her recent groundbreaking excavation of post-colonial literature, Assoc. French Prof. Maya Boutaghou investigates a far-reaching question — what does it mean to be the heir, as a female writer, of a colonial and postcolonial culture? Her third book, “White Tongue, Brown Skin: The Colonized Woman and Language” draws from her family history, experiences with students on Grounds and historic works of French-speaking multilingual writers. The book invites readers to reconsider their perceptions of colonial language.
Published this November by University of Virginia Press, this book examines how female writers who are grappling with the effects of colonialism in their societies navigate multilingualism. Formatted as a literary analysis, the book demonstrates how colonial languages can simultaneously alienate and empower those forced to learn them.
Since joining the University’s French department in the fall of 2016, Boutaghou has taught 3000- and 4000level courses, as well as a few French in Translation courses and graduate French seminars. Through shared and historical investigations, these classes have served as dynamic forums for intellectual discovery for both Boutaghou and her students.
“[They] like to ask questions … And together we have read books that outline certain aspects in ‘White Tongue, Brown Skin,’ like the alluring dimension of colonial culture and how colonialism is not just a straightforward binary oppositional situation.”
Beyond experiences with her students, Boutaghou’s family history also heavily influenced the development of the book. Boutaghou said her grandmother was born in 1917 in Algeria, 83 years into France’s colonial rule over the country. Her grandmother attended a French colonial school, eventually developing a passion for French
Boutaghou said that it is this free-flowing nature of language that made her want to examine it within the context of colonization, which is notoriously characterized by control and imposition. “Language does not belong to people,” Boutaghou said. “Language is free.”
Are we
culture and language. Boutaghou said that through schooling, her grandmother gained a newfound agency, one which enabled her to use language to contextualize the dichotomy between her admiration for French culture and her resentment of their — as her grandmother saw it — violent overrun of the Algerian people.
Her grandmother’s story is a window into what Boutaghou refers to as the “alluring” facet of powerful cultural influence in colonial forces. Boutaghou said that in situations where people grow up under colonial rule, an attraction towards that colonial culture can form regardless of feelings of oppression.
In addition to drawing upon her grandmother’s experience of living under colonial rule, Boutaghou said the book was developed with a meticulous research process focused on writers Toru Dutt, May Ziadeh, Assia Djebar and Ananda Devi and the colonial histories in their respective countries. Boutaghou said she selected these writers because of their literary prominence and unique ability to integrate aspects of their native culture
into post-colonial writings.
According to Boutaghou, their writing is a means of grappling with the ways colonization is embedded in their medium of self-expression.
“Whatever they produce as writers allows for a form of continuation between who they are as native people, [and as] Indigenous writers [within a] colonial culture,” Boutaghou said. “Through the experience of languages, these writers are repairing what is at first a trauma.”
According to Boutaghou, the textual excerpts and explorations in “White Tongue, Brown Skin” strongly exemplify linguistic nuances, mainly in the differences in how the authors express themselves emotionally, often conveying different tones and feelings with text intended to be direct translations.
Building on the foundation of postcolonial and colonial cultural dynamics outlined in the book, Boutaghou is already digging into the next chapter of her academic research in colonial history. In this new project, Boutaghou said she plans to uncover how colonial experiences historically
having a folk music revival?
A renewed interest in contemporary folk on Grounds is part of a historical cycle
CC West | Staff Writer
transformed the lifeblood of cities, with Algeria’s capital, Algiers, as a notable case study.
“The work I’m trying to do in my next project is to work on urban sensations and thinking about the colonial city as first a city of power and alienation … The city transformed by colonial experience is also a city that loses its social body and certain culture,” Boutaghou said.
Boutaghou said in this project she hopes to combine historical research with modern technology — such as virtual reality — to reconstruct lost urban and cultural landscapes. According to Boutaghou, these reconstructions will tangibly present how they looked before French colonial presence and therefore outline the impact colonialism had on these cities.
“White Tongue, Brown Skin: The Colonized Woman and Language,” Boutaghou’s comprehensive analysis of the complexities of being an heiress to a colonial language, can be purchased on online retailers or through the University of Virginia Press.
While taking a stroll down Madison Lane on a Saturday afternoon, it is almost impossible to avoid the sound of student bands flooding into Mad Bowl. Stepping into a fraternity’s yard, one is bound to see hundreds of students crowding around a wooden stage belting lyrics of folksy songs by Tyler Childers, Mt. Joy and Zach Bryan. But what is it about these artists’ songs that entices students so thoroughly?
Folk music is a genre that takes on different forms depending on the country and culture of interest. American folk, for example, is distinguished by its acoustic appeal, often with simple chord progressions and lyrics that encompass themes of love and humble living.
Contemporary folk artists have seen a recent surge in their streaming numbers, with artists who turn to the simple sounds and authentic lyrics rocketing to the top of the charts. However, this trend is not new but rather is a reemergence of a cycle that appears throughout history.
Assoc. Prof. Jack Hamilton, who teaches in both the media and American studies departments, is a cultural historian who studies sound and popular culture. He has researched the history of folk resurgences in America and says that folk has been revived several times throughout the 1900s.
“There was a folk revival in the early 20th century that was largely centered around academic study of folk musical traditions,” Hamilton said.
“The second stage was in the 1930s where there’s a lot of left political activity in the United States during the aftermath of the great depression.”
Today’s folk revival has similar beginnings to that of the 1930s. Folk songs at the time resonated with Americans due to their ability to apply to the common man, according to Hamilton. Classics such as Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” which speaks to national unity and “John Henry,” popularized by Lead Belly, about railroad workers’ struggle with big business, reflected the everyday struggles of working-class Americans.
Following the onset of the pan-
While many contemporary folk artists, such as Caamp, Noah Kahan and Hozier, sound different from traditional American folk beginnings, their dedication to minimalist sounds and soul-touching lyrics introduce the genre to a new generation of University students.
demic, a time where a nation has experienced a devastating crisis together, there is a similar appeal of nationalism with today’s folk artists.
Second-year College student Annabel Brawn said she is a frequent front-rower at University student bands’ sets and describes her generation’s connection to folk music as art that brings serenity to a world that often feels distressed.
“Folk helps us realize the value of the smallest, most beautiful parts of who we are. For me, folk music reminds me of living with my friends, the sights of Virginia, the feeling I have when I see someone I love,” Brawn said. “It is the recognition of those intimate moments that we get from folk music that can help our generation have faith in good during such uncertain periods.”
Folk music’s ability to unite loved ones during times of turmoil made an appearance during the Cold War. This era of folk revivals occurred in the mid-20th century, when a group of older folk songs were recorded for the first time on an album known as “The Anthology of American Folk Music.” According to Hamilton, this album brought the genre to the forefront of the musical landscape, inspiring fa-
mous artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Bill Oakes.
Rapid technological advancements and the looming threat of nuclear warfare left progressive youth yearning for art that evoked a simpler, more grounded era. Folk songs like Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” a nostalgic hymn about life pre-Vietnam War or Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” captured a generation’s yearning for a simpler world.
Popular songs today offer the same magnetism. With artificial intelligence being around every corner and the omnipresence of social media, many people feel anxious about technology and long for an uncomplicated sanctuary.
Take, for example, Noah Kahan. Over acoustic melodies, his work is about living in Vermont and consistently references his modest upbringing. Second-year College student Elise Bowen describes her years of being a Noah Kahan fan and the way his music has brought her tranquility.
“Noah Kahan’s music especially just feels raw, like he’s writing to write about human experiences and not just write a viral song, in that way I think it has really helped my mental health,”
Bowen said.
With his clever lyricism Kahan transports his listeners to his nostalgic memories — in doing so, he offers a world of security, away from the difficult complexities of today.
Folk music often represents both a humble life and modest beginnings that correspond to the United States’ core values of freedom, self-reliance and individualism, which is why the genre has yet to go out of style.
Backstage at a folk festival in 1967, well into the fourth folk revival, Johnny Cash was quoted saying, “The backbone of the music industry, the very soul of music, is folk music. Always have been and I think always will be.”
Folk music’s lasting presence creates melodies that unite listeners from all generations — capturing the true American spirit in its discussion of hard work and staying true to one’s roots.
The essence of this ethos shines through on a Saturday at the University as students sing along to their favorite folk tune. The next time you see such a sight, take care not to forget where that joy derives from and know that it is here for generations to come.
LIFE
Why I ditched Capitol Hill for Capital One
My first taste of professional politics triggered an intimidating — yet rewarding — eleventh hour change in career paths
Grace Scott | Senior Associate
I volunteered on my first political campaign when I was five years old. Sure, it was for the District Attorney. Sure, my dad was the campaign manager. Even still, from the first time I held lawn signs at a standout and saw the celebratory balloons fall on Election Day, I was instantly hooked. Ever since, I have been invested in both politics and policy alike, striving to make a difference in the world around me.
I have started countless college essays, CIO applications and internship cover letters using the sentences above. My childhood obsession with politics encouraged me to volunteer for political campaigns as a teen and intern for the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University last year. I hoped this lifelong passion would blossom into a successful political career as a policy aide for members of the U.S. Congress. In my first real experience with Washington D.C. politics last summer, however, I discovered that my interest in this career path was quickly diminishing.
My summer internship experience prompted me to take more seriously the role of work-life balance, pay and company culture in building a career. After realizing how important these factors truly are to me, I spontaneously decided to ditch politics altogether for a post-grad business role. Replacing my old dreams of working on Capitol Hill with a fresh start working at Capital One has taught me that my previous ambitions do not confine me. Drastically changing paths, while intimidating, can be worth the risk.
Although I chose a double major in psychology and Political Philosophy, Policy and Law, my passion for these subjects started to feel more like an obligation over the past few years. My psychology courses — and English courses and film courses for that matter — were more interesting than my politics courses. On top of that, throughout my third year, I found myself dropping out of my political extracurriculars to free up time for other clubs.
But despite these warning signs, when it came time to apply to summer internships last spring, politics still seemed like the obvious choice — I had always planned to pursue it professionally. Too impatient to wait for the Capitol
Hill internship recruiting process, which starts in the late spring, I took a government relations role at a D.C. think tank.
Going into the summer, I was eager to meet as many Hill staffers as possible to learn the ins and outs of life in D.C. So, I met with over 30 University alumni working on the Hill throughout the summer and gained insider knowledge. I was convinced that with each new person I met, my interest in working on the Hill would grow — but I was mistaken.
In place of the “West Wing”-esque stories I was anticipating, I spent the summer hearing stories of nightmarish bosses, extremely low pay, unpredictable hours and political animosity galore. Yet, at the end of the day, these staffers all loved it. Their passion for policy made the downsides of their careers worth it.
As they discussed their roles, however, I realized that I lacked this passion. The day-to-day responsibilities of their roles sounded boring to me, not invigorating. Researching a topic for weeks just to write a policy memo on a bill that will likely never pass is not my idea of a good time. And, even more importantly, I reminded myself that as an advocate for small government, I believe most of these issues should be addressed by state and local governments anyways.
Halfway through the summer, I came to the conclusion that I love thinking about politics, but I don’t want to live it. Poof! Just like that, my childhood vision “Grace Scott for U.S. Senate” was gone for good.
Let the new job search commence. From then on, my co-intern joked that I walked into work with a new dream career path every week, always finding some reason or another to count the previous idea out. After considering seemingly every career under the sun besides, like, taxidermy or paleontology, I reluctantly gave in to one of the most obvious options for most Hoos — business. Because almost every one of my friends is in the Commerce school or an economics major, I have avoided business like the plague. I am the designated politics friend, after all. I couldn’t encroach on the world of vest-adorning finance guys and colorful slide decks — it just wasn’t my thing. But then I decided that was
dumb. My friends don’t own an entire career path. Who was I to tell myself I couldn’t do something just because they did? Being a contrarian is immature. Plus, I look good in vests. And how hard could it be to make a visually appealing slide deck anyways?
I typed Capital One into my web browser, for no reason other than it was the first company that popped into my head. I had a few friends that worked there in the past, and I knew they loved Hoos. The first open job I saw was “Business Analyst” with “all majors welcome to apply” written underneath in bold. It didn’t even require a cover letter. I thought to myself “Sure, I’ll throw my resume in the hat, why not.”
During every step of the recruiting process, I doubted my qualification for the role. When I passed the first round, I texted my mom, “They must take everyone to the next round.” After making it past the second round, I thought, “Wow, I really tricked them.” Once I finished my final round interview, I walked in my living room and told my roommates I really messed it up. But lo and behold, I received a job offer from Capital One just a short time later.
Despite all my initial misgivings, I have accepted a job as a Business Analyst at Capital One
for after graduation. After touring the office last month, I loved everyone I met, I fit right into the culture and I am genuinely excited to get started.
I still have no idea how credit cards work, but I figure I’ll learn that along the way. I don’t know if I’ll love business. If I do, great. If I don’t, at least I’ll be in a place that builds me up rather than tears me down.
Unlike in the world of politics, the work will challenge my brain to solve new problems, rather than debate age-old ones. The hours will allow me to devote time to my family, friends and hobbies — all of which I care about much more than my career trajectory. And the pay — while it’s gauche to talk about — will allow me to save money, giving me a wider variety of opportunities in the future. You can call that selling out. I am perfectly okay with that.
This isn’t a story about how randomly qualified I was or how smart I am or how miraculously well the interview went. It’s the opposite story. I have no business experience, I learned what a case interview was a month before completing mine, and I still can’t name Porter’s Five Forces. Despite how unqualified you think you are or how far behind you feel or how badly you’re
convinced the interview will go, give yourself a chance. If you are unhappy with your current route, take a new path, even if you consider yourself an outsider. Go in with your head held high, give it your best shot and see what happens. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself. Nobody is more surprised that I’m working at Capital One than me.
You are not locked into the career path you thought you wanted when you were 5, 15 or 21 years old. I will be a Business Analyst who majored in psychology and PPL, not economics or commerce. When I inevitably reminisce about college with my future coworkers, I will talk about the articles I wrote in the school newspaper, not my time as president of a business club. And during my lunch break, I will shamelessly psychoanalyze my coworkers while raving about the latest bill passed in Congress. I’m perfectly happy with my post-grad plans. However, if one day, I find myself wanting a change, I’m not too worried about it. I can always pivot again.
GRACE SCOTT is a Life Senior Associate for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at life@cavalierdaily. com.
SARAH ST. JOHN THE CAVALIER DAILY
Perfecting the subtle art of the ‘sexile’
If you’re looking to become the master of “dropping the hint” to your roommate, you’re in the right place
Val Vixen | Sex and Relationships Columnist
Editor’s note: This column was written under a pseudonym to preserve the author’s anonymity.
Picture this — you and your partner have just wandered back to your double-occupancy bedroom after an eventful night on the town. You are both feeling pretty good, and shark week ended yesterday, so the timing couldn’t be better. All signs are pointing to a sleepless night spent experimenting in new positions until your hips are sore from the grind. But opening the door to your bedroom, you encounter the ever-present hiccup to hooking up — your roommate.
This moment requires pure mastery of the most delicate art known to horny college students — “the sexile.” We’ve all had to sexile a roommate, either repeatedly with a significant other or sporadically with the occasional hookup. Alas, the sexile is difficult to master, even for the most experienced of us. Whether we squeamishly ask our roommate to leave the room, or we yield to the sexile-induced guilt and forfeit sex altogether, sexiling never seems to get easier.
I suffered this fate myself a few weekends ago when my long-distance
boyfriend came to visit. After nearly two months of not seeing each other, the need for release — in the most literal sense — was imperative. Outside my room, we started to let our hands wander, and our kisses grew more intense. But when we opened the door, we came face-to-face with my roommate sitting at her vanity, plucking away at her eyebrows.
At that moment, I couldn’t bear the embarrassment of blatantly telling her, “I need the room for sex.” I solemnly looked at my partner and shook my head, letting him know that we would have to hold off.
After denying myself a pleasure-filled night to spare my roommate, I found myself thinking about how college students haven’t established a standard procedure for sexiling. There is no easy way to broach the subject of the sexile with your roommate, nor a universal code word that subs for brashly saying, “Beat it, it’s sexy time!” So, what’s the fix?
The occasional sexile isn’t much of an inconvenience, but it’s still important to show gratitude to an evicted roommate. Using the sexile as an opportunity for mutual benefit can make a world of a difference in how you feel
about sexiling — and being sexiled.
The solution, therefore, requires a mindset shift — thinking about sexiling less as a one-sided favor and more as a healthy exchange with your roommate.
Reciprocity is key here. In the name of fairness, follow up every sexile with a counter-offer. Got the room for a couple hours Thursday night? Then fork it over for the same amount of time Friday night so your roommate can have their own guest over. This exchange will make your roommate more comfortable being sexiled, as they know they will get something from you in return.
You can also get creative with how you reciprocate, especially if your roommate doesn’t have a partner themselves. My roommate and I now have a deal going where I’ll drive her to all of her classes the next day if I need the room for some extended hanky panky. Alternatively, you can buy your roommate their favorite Ben & Jerry’s pint at Croads, or you can leave them a thoughtful, silly thank-you note. These efforts show appreciation, but they’re also just an excuse to do something nice for your roommate.
Just as reciprocity after a sexile is
common courtesy, so is setting boundaries. You should recognize that hey, maybe exhausting the Kama Sutra, or asking for the room five nights a week, isn’t very considerate to your roommate. You may have to shelve some “sexcapades” for a future weekend, and that isn’t all bad — it gives you something to look forward to.
To truly master the sexile, it is important to only kick out your roommate on occasion. If you only sexile your roommate every once in a while, you’ll have the leverage to ask for privacy when the lust is just too strong to be contained. Using the sexile at a middling frequency offers other benefits, too — it’s mindful of your roommate’s needs, and it’ll encourage you to spend more nonsexual quality time with your partner.
Now, how should you ask your roommate to get out so you can get down? I have a couple suggestions — and I think they’re a little better than a sock on the door.
Take a few moments with your roommate to establish a distinct knock that’ll signal you’re outside with your partner and eager to shake the sheets. My roommate and I have opted for a single-double-single knocking
pattern to sound the alarm. It’s most courteous, though, to give your roommate advance notice so that they are prepared to leave the room. For this, use a method that’s both discrete and playful — like sending an invisible ink text message. When your roommate taps on those scattered dots to reveal a text that reads, “room pls,” they’ll chuckle and understand that it’s time to pack a bag and move out. This method is as silly as it is shameless, and it’s worked beautifully in my experience.
I believe that everyone is entitled to fun, consensual sex. In college, we simply must adapt our sex habits to be mindful of our roommates. A good sexile routine is all about common courtesy and good communication. If you adopt these practices, I think you’ll find yourself cultivating a healthier relationship with your roommate and having more carefree sex with your partner.
So folks, don’t forgo your next d—k appointment out of fear of the sexile. Approach this sacred college ritual with a newfound confidence, because we all deserve to get down and dirty in peace.
Virginia Policy Lab — a hub for student-led policy action
Members of the policy lab research, critique and respond to local and state policy, from affordable housing to literacy programs
Katherine Haden | Features Writer
With a range of academic programs and research focused on public policy, the University boasts numerous ways to prepare students for a future in policymaking. Alumni have gone on to serve in Congress and conduct policy research across the world. But in recent months, a team of undergraduates has worked to create a space for policymaking right here on Grounds, empowering students to identify, research and take action on public policy issues.
Second-year College students Arnav Dharmagadda and Alexandra Worms founded Virginia Policy Lab, a student-led think tank and non-profit organization, in March. Dharmagadda initially approached Worms with the idea for VPL in September of 2023. First-year students at the time, the two students lived in the same dorm and shared an interest in public policy. However, they noticed that policy-related Contracted Independent Organizations stressed advocacy rather than directly working on policy.
“While there are a lot of really cool organizations ... that are adjacent to public policy … there isn’t a dedicated space [for] crafting and implementing public policy,” Dharmagadda said.
“[We] started brainstorming [and] decided to create our own organization to do something like that.”
Dharmagadda and Worms were awarded a grant of $14,566 from the Jefferson Foundation Exploratory Fund to support the creation of VPL. They spent the summer conducting preliminary research for the organization’s first projects and laying the foundation for students to join in their work.
This semester, VPL began accepting members through an application open to all University students. Accepted students have worked in small teams over the course of the semester to research a policy implementation issue, brainstorm solutions, write proposals and meet with local stakeholders to carry out their solutions. Throughout this process, VPL has supported its members by aiding in data collection and providing funding to support their research.
Currently, VPL has 16 members working on four projects. Two of their main projects are centered on affordable housing in Charlottesville and the implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act.
In the housing project, VPL mem-
bers are working with the City of Charlottesville to consolidate local housing data into a dashboard, where Charlottesville residents can view how funding for affordable housing is allocated between neighborhoods and how many new units have been built. Dharmagadda hopes that this dashboard will provide transparency about how the city is using housing funds.
Members are also working on a project regarding the Virginia Literacy Act of 2022, which was implemented this school year to help improve post-COVID-19 childhood literacy rates. The VPL team is collecting data about how different Virginia counties have implemented the act. Once this data becomes publicly available, VPL hopes their project will allow school districts to learn from each other’s successes and adjust their implementation processes to better serve students.
Adhvika Karthik and Ahryanna McGuirk, VPL members and first-year College students, said they wanted to work on the literacy project because of their experiences tutoring as a fifthgrade math tutor through Madison House and a middle school debate tutor through the Charlottesville Debate
League, respectively. Both said these experiences inspired them to pursue a project through VPL focused on education. Karthik described the feeling of seeing the impact of their work reach beyond Grounds.
“One of the main reasons I joined the policy lab [was that] I want to be able to create actual change within not just Charlottesville but Virginia and be able to see that change actually happening,” Karthik said. “There’s just so many different ways that we can actually create this effect of change with the resources the policy lab is giving us.”
Dharmagadda and Worms highlighted the fact that students are given freedom to pursue their own policy interests in VPL. Worms said they prioritize preserving members’ sense of investment and responsibility for their projects.
“We believed that everyone in the club does have ideas to contribute and that the best way to make sure that ideas and solutions are being created is for everyone to have an equal stake in the projects that we’re working on,” Worms said.
As they look back on this semester, Dharmagadda and Worms reflect
on their inspiration for VPL. Worms said she became drawn to policy work while serving on her county and local school boards in California during high school. For her, policy is a process of problem-solving that challenges her to “work backward,” looking back at where a policy’s implementation could have improved.
“Coming to Virginia, I was just so enthralled by the possibility to do [policy] work in another state so different from where I’m from, and that was how I contributed to the inception of the club,” Worms said. “Something that I’m hoping to continue to do is just working backward … working toward the solution that I want to see.”
Dharmagadda’s passion for public policy also stemmed from personal experiences. He said he became inspired to engage in policy work in college after getting involved in education policy during high school. For him, public policy is a driving force that can be used for the common good.
“I really do think government has such an important role in … correcting for some of the systemic issues that we see,” Dharmagadda said. “And I think public policy is the tool to do that.”
ACROSS
1 West Point sch.
5 True statement
9 Boxing matches
14 Feline line
15 Home to Cincinnati
16 Closing bit of music
17 Plot points?
18 Pop star Chappell
19 Component of a case
20 One of 354 career attempts for Isaac McKneely
23 IG messages
24 Dove’s sound
25 MMA organization for Conor McGregor
28 Bearded Smurf
31 Things to cry over?
36 Daredevil actress
39 Sole protector
40 Youngest Jetson
41 Actress Thurman
42 Take out of the packaging
43 Guns, as an engine
44 Jefferson’s includes “Father of the University of Virginia”
46 “Bye-bye!”
48 Well-kept
49 Magic 8 Ball response
CROSSWORD
Shreyas Agnihotri | Puzzlist
Answers are available on the ditigal version of this puzzle which is published at www.cavalierdaily.com.
50 Snooze
52 Tim Kaine, to Va.
54 Topic of a hit song by Europe … or many a U.Va. student’s December experience depicted literally throughout this puzzle
62 Winky face, for one
63 Gin flavoring
64 Action hero played by Reeves
66 The devil
67 Mix with a spoon
68 Rapper Rocky
69 Fill with fear
70 Deserve
71 Usher song whose title is repeated 80 times in its lyrics
1 U.Va.’s neighbor state school
2 Place at the table
3 Insect near a flame
4 Prize
5 Anticipated
6 ____, skip and jump away
7 Italian goodbye
8 C, in C major 9 Home of the Celtics
10 There are usually 54 in a baseball game
11 The Beehive State
12 The Jonas Brothers, e.g.
13 Spreadsheet command
21 Desolate
22 When time is up?
25 Computer operators
26 N.J. town opposite Manhattan
27 Grade booster on a tricky exam
29 Rain heavily
30 Jordan’s capital
32 “____ She Lovely”
33 “I can barely wait!”
34 Who has hit 5 home runs in an MLB game
35 Battle of the _____
37 Prying
38 Modern initialism for Black dialect
42 Second-person Spanish word
44 Tex-Mex dip
45 Charlottesville time zone
47 Where the majority of couples meet, since 2021
51 Entourage
53 “It’s impossible!”
54 Come clean, with “up”
