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University of Virginia

Billionaire Investor: Babies ‘Kill’ A Woman’s Focus on the Job (VIDEO)

by College Fix Staff on May 24, 2013

More details emerged in a Washington Post story today about the controversial comments billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones made at an April symposium at the University of Virginia:

Paul Tudor Jones, the hedge fund billionaire, told an audience of University of Virginia students, alumni and others that it is difficult for mothers to be successful traders because connecting with a child is a focus “killer.” As long as women continue having children, he said, the industry is likely to be dominated by men.

“As soon as that baby’s lips touched that girl’s bosom, forget it,” Jones said, motioning to his chest during an April symposium. He was talking about two women who worked with him at a stock brokerage in the late 1970s — two women who married, had children and, according to his account, no longer had the laser focus needed for the intense world of macro trading.

“Every single investment idea . . . every desire to understand what is going to make this go up or go down is going to be overwhelmed by the most beautiful experience . . . which a man will never share, about a mode of connection between that mother and that baby,” Jones said, according to a video of his remarks The Washington Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. “And I’ve just seen it happen over and over.”


Feminists later attacked Jones, saying his comments were insensitive and would discourage women in the workplace.

Was Jones being sexist, or just realistic? What do you think?

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Campus Gun Hoax Fools Media

by College Fix Staff on January 25, 2013

Via The Daily Caller:

A college student sent the small community of Wise, Virginia into a panic Wednesday night by falsely reporting the existence of an active gunman on campus.

The hoax, which affected the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, was then misreported by multiple national news outlets, including CNN and Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.

Read the full story here.

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Universities Offer Courses on Dracula, Dexter and Harry Potter

by Jennifer Kabbany - Associate Editor on January 23, 2013

What do Dracula, Dexter and Harry Potter have in common? Besides being fictional characters and the subject of Hollywood lore, they’re the focus of three different courses this semester at two prominent universities.

No, don’t get your hopes up. They’re not film studies electives.

The Dracula class is offered this spring at the University of Virginia, and it’s a billed as a Slavic literature class. The Harry Potter course – ready for this? It’s an ethics-focused elective this spring at Duke University, which also is home to the psychology-based elective this semester on why mass murderers do what they do, and how that’s portrayed onscreen.

For inquiring minds, the annual tuitions this year at UVA and Duke are $38,018 (out-of-state) and $43,623, respectively.

But what these classes lack in substance they make up for in academic rigor, right? Wrong.

“It’s really fun, you watch a lot of movies,” one student who has taken the Dracula class told the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily student newspaper. “Easiest thing I’ve ever taken in my life. I loved it.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the class is highly difficult to get into, with a large waiting list, the newspaper reports.

Officially, the class offers an “introduction to Slavic folklore with special emphasis on the origins and subsequent manifestations of vampirism,” according to its description. “Western perceptions, misperceptions, and adaptations of Slavic culture are explored and explicated.”

In other words, Easy A.

“At its core, the class is an application of demonology,” a university write up on the class states.

Lovely.

Over at Duke, the Harry Potter elective (actually, its official title is “Ethics and Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles”) delves into the book series “through an ethical lens in an attempt to better understand morality in our muggle world.”

God forbid a mainstream undergrad class referenced the Bible as a moral compass, but use Harry Potter’s adventures – and it’s no problem.

The course description adds that students will compare real-life ethical situations to ones in the book. For example, “how does using Felix Felicis, the lucky potion, to enhance academic or Quidditch performance compare to taking Adderall or steroids in our society?”

Ok, decent question, for a book club.

Duke also offers “Serial Killer Psychology: From Dahmer to Dexter,” in which students get to examine why “seemingly normal people kill so senselessly,” the course description states. First of all, Dexter is not a real person, he’s a character on television. Secondly, whether most nonfiction serial killers are “seemingly normal” is also up for debate.

At any rate, the course promises to teach students “how to interpret the actions of a serial killer and then subsequently apply their newfound knowledge to analyze the public’s portrayal of these murderers through literature, television and film.”

Tuition dollars, hard at work.

Jennifer Kabbany is assistant editor of The College Fix.

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UVa Forces Students to Remove Dorm-Area Christmas Trees (VIDEO)

by Jennifer Kabbany - Associate Editor on December 11, 2012

A parade of University of Virginia students filmed a YouTube video recently that praised a row of twinkling Christmas trees and other holiday fare adorning a row of front porches along the school’s famed Lawn dorms and pitched administrators to let the decorations stay -but alas- campus officials told students to pack it up.

The Cavalier Daily, the university’s student newspaper, reports that students took down the festive decor this week after threats from school officials, who cited safety hazards and strict housing regulations as the reason for their demands.

The Christmas trees, stockings, wreaths, Christmas cards and other decorations were put up in front of dormroom doors and archways after Thanksgiving, and several students in the YouTube video said they went out of their way to walk along the row of decorations, saying it made them feel happy and festive.

The dorms in question are part of the university’s famed “Lawn rooms.”  The university’s website states “it is considered an honor … to live in one of the prestigious Lawn rooms. Located in Mr. Jefferson’s original buildings, these rooms are truly in the center of the university.”

With that, there’s a strict set of guidelines regarding Lawn dorms, overseen by the school’s Housing and Residence Life department. According to The Cavalier Daily, the department’s officials were concerned the trees and their twinkling lights posed a “safety hazard” and also broke the rules regarding what’s allowed to be posted outside the rooms.

The paper reported students “took the trees down earlier this week after housing threatened to charge residents for the trees’ removal if the residents didn’t remove them first.”

Students were upset about being forced to take down their trees, as well as the fact that campus housing officials didn’t even give students a chance to plead their case; meanwhile, a housing official said students could erect trees in an alcove elsewhere on campus, the Cavalier reports.

The trees, before their removal, had been placed along the Lawn’s “Bachelor’s Row,” which represents a wide array of religious affiliations, including Christians, agnostics and Jews, Lawn resident and senior Brad Whitwell told The Cavalier Daily.

Student responses to the trees’ removal have been largely negative, the student newspaper reports, with one student telling the Cavalier: “It’s just killing the vibe of Christmas.”

The YouTube video students posted prior to the Christmas tree eviction was titled “Bachelor’s Row Holiday Spirit.” As the video begins, the camera pans along the row of twinkling decorations as Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas” rolls in the background.

The video then cuts to a series of student interviews in which they defend the display as they stand before it.

“The holiday cheer … is wonderful,” one student clad in a suit and tie gushed in the video. “To hear they’re in danger is absolutely horrifying.”

Quipped another: “They are absolutely fabulous. It brightens up the whole Lawn. As a UVa student who walks around here at night, it totally makes my day. It should absolutely stay.”

Click here to read The Cavalier Daily’s full article.

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Watch the video:

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UVA Students Host Anti-Thanksgiving Potluck

by College Fix Staff on November 19, 2012

Thanksgiving is based on notions of peace, friendship, and the spirit of giving, but of course college students and professors often look at it as the perfect time to bash settlers and bemoan perceived colonial imperialism.

The latest example of that comes from the University of Virginia, where its American Indian Student Union wanted to remind people through an “anti-Thanksgiving potluck” just how evil the White Man really was, is … uh, we’re not sure what the correct tense is on that one.

The NBC news affiliate reports that:

“UVA’s American Indian Student Union … says people have a skewed idea of the history of native tribes and their association with Thanksgiving.

The anti-Thanksgiving potluck will be a chance to discuss Thanksgiving from a Native American perspective.

… In addition to the anti-Thanksgiving potluck, the student organization will also be hosting a screening of “The Only Good Indian.” … The movie looks at the past practices of Native Americans being forced to adopt white American society.

The group says it doesn’t want to make anyone feel guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving; its goal is just to help people see the holiday from a different perspective.”

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Board Leader Who Tried To Oust Sullivan Had Objected To Lady Gaga Class

by College Fix Staff on August 10, 2012

Helen Dragas–the University of Virginia board leader who led the unsuccessful charge to fire President Teresa Sullivan–once objected to the creation of a class on lady Gaga, according to Inside Higher Ed. When the provost defended the class, Dragas responded that although the content of such a class may be interesting, it was hard to justify on the financial end of things:

The university’s provost wrote back to describe the course as one focused on writing and culture. Dragas replied: “I appreciate that the course content can be defended,” but she added that the course and the discussion of it “probably aren’t helping us justify funding requests.” She added that “opinions will, of course, vary on curricular content and direction, but there must be some internal arbiter of what is appropriate.”

In opposing the class, Dragas cited research cited research done by the Heritage Foundation:

Guess how many top-tier universities offer a course on Lady Gaga? Four! The University of Virginia, the University of South Carolina, Wake Forest University, and Arizona State University all now offer semester-long explorations of Lady Gaga’s apparently profound influence—since 2007—on music, fashion, and the LGBT lifestyle. Yet none of these universities requires students to take a course in U.S. history before graduation. Professors and faculty at top-ranked institutions are giving preference to frivolous classes at the expense of true education.

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