Preparations to renovate Millington Hall have already begun but will be terminated if Gov. Jim Gilmore's proposal to rescind $160 million in approved capital projects funding passes the General Assembly.

Gilmore announced his plans to withdraw the funds in his Dec. 20 budget proposal in an effort to salvage his "no car tax" initiative, which is in need of funds because state revenues are below projections needed to finance the rebate. The 2000 legislature, however, had previously approved $20 million in funds for renovation at the College.

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It could almost have passed for a typical Friday night for college students. Hanging out at a friend's house outside Washington, D.C., while her parents weren't home. Beers were drunk; cards were played. But when junior Pete Maybarduk called to order the 20 students who had traveled from Williamsburg to protest the inauguration of George W. Bush to order, it was all business.

In this group, protesting hardly involved a ragtag bunch of disorganized kids chant-ing. Maybarduk read off a list of possible activities and groups to meet with the coolness of an activist who had seen it all before. The students could protest with various groups, including environmentalists and anarchist "black blocs."

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This campus manages to be a top tier university by luck more than planning. The College somehow attracts some of the top professors in the country despite the fact that more than half of the schools in its peer group pays its faculty more. Even the raise posed in Governor Gilmore's newest budget only put our faculty salaries in the 49th percentile.

A high-caliber institution needs to attract top professors to maintain its academic reputation, but Gilmore has abandoned the College. Based on the Gilmore theory of education, good institutions should be rewarded with more money. Our professors are doing an exemplary job, and they should be compensated for that.

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There's a myth out there that in 1938, a dour Georgia O'Keeffe came to the College decked out in drab clothes and grudgingly received an honorary degree, refusing even to speak at the ceremony. Ann Madonia, the Curator of Collections at the Muscarelle Museum of Art, and the museum's staff would like to shed some light on that dusty legend.

"When I started to research this exhibit, I just found so much information that was wrong," she said.

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While Sony Pictures Classics might be overly optimistic about their Best Picture Oscar hopes for Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," it is still a terrific movie. The film, which is based on a novel published about a hundred years ago, is set in the early 19th century, when the Wuxia knights-errant, similar to Japanese samurai, ruled the land.

Chow Yun Fat plays the hero, Li Mu Bai. His counterpart, and star-crossed love interest, is Yu Shu Lien, radiantly incarnated by Malaysian-born Hong Kong actress Michelle Yeoh.

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After a loss to the University of North Carolina in its season opener last week, the women's gymnastics team took third at the George Washington Invitational Sunday. With a score of 188.875, the Tribe beat out the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Cornell University and Radford University, but fell short of North Carolina State University's 192.350 and George Washington University's 191.900.

Freshman Jamie Weinfeldt turned in a solid performance, earning the title of East Coast Athletic Conference Rookie of the Week, as well as the Tribe's highest score in the all-around competition. The 37.750 placed her in fifth at the meet. For the second competition in a row Weinfeldt also led her teammates on bars with a 9.625.

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