Streaking is Fun!!

Introduction
The history behind streaking sort of legendary, we don't know when it began really. But the method that you are supposed to do is, you're supposed to start at the Rotunda and take off all you're clothes at the steps of the Rotunda and you're supposed to run down the lawn completely naked. No shoes, no anything, no matter what the weather and go down to the statue at the end of the lawn, a statue of Homer. And climb up Homer, kiss his butt, come back run up the lawn completely naked, run up the steps and then look into a key hole in the front door of the Rotunda which has a huge statue of Thomas Jefferson and then after you've done that you've completed your streaking and you can come down and put your clothes back on. Out of the population I'd say over their four years probably half usually end up streaking at some point and those half usually are very fervent about the number of times they've been streaking. For example I've streaked probably about ten times both drunken and sober. Most people do it drunken I'd say.

Campus Life and Social Life
You have things like calling the campus the grounds and you have someone coming into their first year of study, not being called a freshman and instead being called a first year, and then second year, third year, fourth year, etc. Jefferson put the two phrases into implementation because grounds for Jefferson basically meant that learning would be limitless. A campus he thought was a defining space where you have isolation where you have campus and you don't have a campus. Grounds go on forever and you can always learn on grounds. First year, second year, third year, fourth year, these are all terms that Jefferson put in because no one could really be a senior and learning, that every year you would just take on another year, so Jefferson didn't want to feel like learning was something that ever ended. Something that he himself subscribed to for years and years up until his death. Academics
We have a lot of very prestigious professors here at UVA and they teach very large classes. 500 person classes. Two sections of those sometimes during the first semester, the fall semester. They are very open for you to get to know them by going to their office hours. The university likes to keep with the Jeffersonian tradition of professors and students interacting. That's the whole purpose of the lawn and the way its setup with students living in between the pavilion where the professors live. And so even the lawn students meet with their professors all the time and the professors in the pavilion will sometimes have parties and receptions for them. And so the university actually sets up this program called take your professor out to lunch where they will actually pay for a $20 meal between you and your professor, which you can utilize twice a semester. So it's something they try to encourage. I think it benefits the undergraduate experience.
The Echols Scholar program is an honors program without the honors curriculum here at the university where the top 9% of the incoming class is basically given the privilege to not have area requirements which every student has at the university as well as given the chance to live with other Echols Scholars, as well as having priority registration, that they can register for classes even before fourth years can, just because they're Echols Scholars. And its a huge tool for the university to attract students who might want to look towards the Ivy League schools or some of the more prestigious liberal arts schools or private schools. And it’s something that's helped in garnering great students for the university.

Student Body
The party scene is definitely something that's strong at the University, but not overly prevalent that you know if you don't do it you're a loser. Essentially the university has about 30% Greek of fraternities and sororities. We have about 60 organizations that consider themselves Greek that you can get involved in. Whether they be social fraternities and sororities, honors fraternities, service fraternities. Multicultural fraternities things along those lines. And then beyond that we have clubs and organizations which is very strong at the university because of this overarching value of student governance, which allows for students to run the organizations that they are in. And so by doing that and not having the faculty contact students get more involved in what they do. And so they go out and they party and they have their own functions all the time. We have a stadium that holds about 65,000 people. Other sports around grounds have cult following especially lacrosse. 2 years ago or men's lacrosse won the national championship. Last year our women's team won the national championship. This year UVA is ranked in the top 2 or 3 lacrosse teams in the country. So lacrosse has a huge following. Its stadium holds about 6,000. I think pretty much every game sells out. I've been to a few of those and they are just a hell of a lot fun. Recently Kaplan named Virginia the hottest place for fitness of all the universities in the U.S. Every time you go to a gym around grounds its completely full with people. We just have amazing faculties, Pulitzer prize winning authors of all sorts of literature. One of the biggest or most popular members of the faculty is actually Rita Dove who is the nobel laureate for the United States a few years back. Edgar Allan Poe was a student here in one of our first classes. William Faulkner was actually a professor here in the late 50's early 60’s. And so we have a history of some big wigs coming through the university. The Mcintyre School of Commerce is one of the nation’s best undergraduate business programs. Top 20. And you can have a range of I think 6 or 7 different majors which are great step going into the business world. All of my friends who are in the commerce school, we call it the comm school get great jobs whether it be goldman sachs, merril lynch, price Waterhouse cooper. Pretty much anything and everything the comm school can prepare you for.

In Closing...
Charlottesville is definitely a great place to have the University of Virginia because it is such a beautiful area. The Appalachian area of Charlottesville and Albermale actually compare to the Tuscan hills of Italy. It's absolutely beautiful. You really experience Charlottesville a lot. You can go hiking, you can go rafting, we have waterholes you can go swimming in, you can wine tasting in, you can go skiing all within 30-40 mins from here. As well as Charlottesville being a cultural center.