University of Virginia Library

Honor Violation?

I'm afraid this letter will
reveal my naivete of U.Va.
customs, However, in my first
year as a transfer student here,
my Orientation which included
a large dose of the Honor
System, failed to clue me in to
such practices as the one cited
below.

In the Monday Cavalier
Daily, it was announced that
invitations to the Restoration
Ball would be sold at 5:30 on
Wednesday. In my innocence, I
assumed that if I arrived at
5:00 I could make it to the line
in time. Much to my surprise,
upon arrival I found the
invitations already being sold,
and indeed, most were gone.
When queried, a smiling
assistant said, yes, they had
planned to sell the invitations
at 5:30, but due to the crowd,
had started at 4:30. Shocked
out of my ignorance, I realized
that I could have come earlier
had I known that 5:30 actually
meant 4:30.

Since the original time had
been decided on and printed,
the only honest thing to have
done was to have sold the
invitations at that specified
time. I realize that the
Restoration Ball is a money
making endeavor so these
actions were perhaps
pragmatic, but certainly
unethical – but I don't
suppose the Honor Code covers
that.