Wild Wing Cafe not best at all-you-can-eat

What was originally planned for this column — the last in the weekly run of Chicken Finger Fridays before the column’s finale in The Daily Beacon’s upcoming Welcome Back issue — was a follow-up to the Wal-Mart budget plate. Columnist Cody Swallows planned to look into more expensive options at ...

Rankings create insight into campus life

With another year of rankings from The Princeton Review comes another conversation — among an already growing slew of them — about how UT measures up against other public universities in the nation.
On the grandest scales, the results were good for the university. UT found itself once again among the best ...

University needs to remain affordable

We all know that higher education is in a transition process at best — a financial crisis at worst — but have we ever stopped to wonder who’s to blame?
The argument for many college students comes down to just two participants — the state or the university. Those are the two ...

University study expectations unrealistic

How much do you study? Apparently not as much as the past.
According to a July 4 Boston Globe article, professors Philip Babcock, at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks, at the University of California Riverside, looked at time-use surveys which analyzed how much the average student ...

Freshmen should adhere to simple advice

 As freshmen orientations continue to go on around campus, I would like to take this week out to give incoming freshmen some advice.
Now this type column has been done to death and in various ways, but it’s never been done by me and in a serious manner. And ...

Comprehensive survey’s results problematic

Evaluating the entire university is not as easy as seeing where UT ranks in the NCAA top 25 polls in athletics. It has not been perfected down to a science.
Perhaps the biggest point of contention for people is the validity of the U.S. News and World Report rankings ...

Constant tuition hikes set scary precedent

Well tuition is raised once again.
It is uncanny to think of how cheap higher education used to be. Granted, different economies lead to different figures. (I distinctly remember an “All in the Family” episode where Archie Bunker yearned for the good ole days, wondering why the cost of bread ...

Losing lecturers would make graduating hard

It’s strange to hear university students and administration talk about the possibility of climbing the ranks of the top public universities in the nation when so much right now is going against that mission.
It’s always said that all the university need do is improve those dastardly graduation ...

Losing Italian, Russian would hurt UT

Boy, that date of June 2011 — when the university’s federal stimulus funding runs out — just gets closer and closer, doesn’t it? And it’s not looking good.
UT faces a $54 million budget reduction then, including a $37 million reduction for instruction. That’s a lot of money ...

Kernell’s hack of Palin e-mail immoral

Former UT student David Kernell was found guilty on April 30 of a felony and a misdemeanor, two of four counts charged against him, for the hacking of Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account in September 2008. Over the span of about 21 months, he transformed into an unlikely political ...

KFC makes nation’s most beloved sandwich

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Double Down.
No sandwich has ever turned this nation on its head like the Double Down has in its short lifespan. The Double Down had its coming-out party on April 12, and last week you couldn’t watch anything ...

Baseball stands out as America’s best sport

To celebrate the first week of the Major League Baseball season, I’m going to step up to the staff-column plate and try to prove to a university full of football and basketball fans that baseball is actually the best sport of all time.
What are the first things that ...

Chatroulette inspiring to human spirit

Robby O’Daniel
Chief Copy Editor

It started when cavemen somewhere in the middle of what is now rural Kansas, a long time ago, started hitting each other in the head with clubs. It signified an ancient, yet beloved, custom of communication.
Then one of the cavemen — we’ll call ...

Nation should focus more on baseball, Gaga

I know this is a stunning statement that no one in the history of editorial columns has ever said before, but it must be uttered: This nation has warped priorities.
As a student at the University of Tennessee, it is impossible not to hear what the masses are muttering about ...