Change vs. acceptance: the wisdom to know the difference
(03/25/10 4:40am)
"I'm flying high over Tupelo, Miss., with America's hottest band -- and we're all about to die."
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"I'm flying high over Tupelo, Miss., with America's hottest band -- and we're all about to die."
My School of Arts and Sciences curriculum has taken me through quite a few buildings and disciplines across campus, but it has never forced me to explore the other two undergraduate schools. For my second column, I braved the trail to the Robins School of Business. My second-to-last column proved time to unravel the mystery enveloping the Jepson School of Leadership Studies.
The most intriguing aspect of the word "minority" is the polar opposite connotations it can assume, depending on its context. Sometimes being unlike the majority is what lifts us up, yet other times it's what holds us down. For example, being apart from the majority could award you either a glittery gold medal in Vancouver or a searing scarlet letter of discrimination. How do we attach these meanings? Are they possible to change, or is the bigger hurdle whether we want them to?
Cheering college pregame. Emo kid in the dark. 50-year-old loner. Horrifying hound exposing himself. A "Jerry Springer" marathon? No, "Chatroulette," a recent Internet phenomenon that with each click produces a new face, from somewhere around the globe, with whom you can videochat.
"Potential editorial material: WHY WOULD THE REC CENTER CLOSE DUE TO WEATHER? What else do they expect students to do when they can't go to class, drink? Nonsense."
My daughter Meaghan was the star of the weekend as the University of Richmond's junior year Ring Dance took center stage last February. It is a wonderful event born of a longstanding tradition of women's pride at one of America's great educational institutions in one of our country's great southern cities.
After a month at home during winter break and an entire grade returned from studying abroad, it felt strange that as I joined the stream of students crossing campus for the first week of class, faces were an afterthought. My eyes could not rise above their shoes.
New semester, new year, new decade. Thanks to the way we divide and package time, we have three fresh starts, which in our culture have the tendency to beckon reflections, resolutions and ruminations.
When the story first broke that former University of Richmond football coach Mike London would be leaving his alma mater for the University of Virginia, I couldn't help but feel disappointed that a man we proudly claimed as our own would jump ship so quickly. This disappointment, however, was not merely a feeling of betrayal or anger at another FBS/BCS school poaching talent from our proud university. Rather, there was a hint of fatalism surrounding the entire affair, a knowledge that as much as I love this university and as much as men like London have professed to love it as well, Richmond is still seen as a mere stepping stone for those with aspirations for greater fame and fortune.
Imagine this "icebreaker" game: Participants sit in a circle of chairs, and when a characteristic that you possess is shouted, you run to another chair. Whoever is the last one standing loses and must stand in the middle of the circle.
Ever wonder why Europeans think Americans are money-obsessed, snobby and uptight? Well, I think I have finally cracked the case. It's because we are.
With technology and "going green" paradoxically taking over the world, it's surprising that the paper trail hasn't vanished from the University of Richmond. Registering for classes last week for the first time without paper pin cards, showed - as intended - another crucial step in the right direction. But sometimes it's the unintended consequences of a change that demand attention too: Why haven't we gone paperless elsewhere?
Timothy Patterson is not a student in my class. I've never met him; I wouldn't know him if he was sitting next to me at a Spider football game. He never spoke to me personally about Robert Crumb or his work, even though, as students who are in my class can confirm, I've been in my office often during the last several weeks and have been very much available to talk about Crumb, and what my class is about (accurate title: American Misfit: Geek Literature and Culture), and why I feel it is important for professors at institutions of higher learning -- including the University of Richmond -- to include Crumb on their syllabus if they so desire. I would have been willing, even eager, to have that conversation with Patterson, but he apparently felt strongly enough to write publicly about the "values this university claims to hold dear," but not strongly enough to meet privately with the professor who assigned the material.
Halloween. As kids, it was the chance to stockpile more candy than a small country consumes in a year. In college, it's - surprise, surprise - another chance to party, but one of the best, probably second only to Pig Roast. Trading Snickers for Smirnoff, students suit up in their scariest, their silliest, their sluttiest. But is that all? Is that why we love Oct. 31 so much? I hope not.
I may not have had my own bed while at home for Fall Break, but I did have the comfort of knowing that the second floor would remain above the first as I drifted into my REM cycle and back. Now back at the University Forest Apartments, I'm not so sure.
Back-to-back Family Weekend and Fall Break - poor planning but promising possibilities.
Despite taking an entirely Arts and Sciences class schedule, my most thought-provoking lessons this week came from the Business School.
...or why our culture has made it this way
Dear Sorry Senior Self,
It's been almost a month since a driver killed a pedestrian 10 minutes from my house. Alcohol? No. An idiot 16-year-old who just got a license? No.