By Larry J. Sabato, director of U.Va.'s Center for Politics Straw polls, real polls, debates, caucuses, primaries—that's the public side of presidential campaigns 14 months before Election Day. But behind the scenes, strategists for President Obama and his major Republican opponents are already focused like a laser on the Electoral College. The emerging general election contest gives every sign of being highly competitive, unlike 2008. Of course, things can change ... Voting is predictable for well over half the states, so even 14 months out it's easy to shade in most of the map for Nov...

“Design thinking can do for organic growth and innovation what TQM [total quality management] did for quality – take something we always have cared about and put tools and processes into the hands of managers to make it happen,” Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and Tim Ogilvie, an innovation strategy consultant, write in Designing for Growth.

Even with the anniversary approaching, reading about 9/11 feels like a matter of duty, not desire. ...  The event itself is hard to think about -- just as it was at the time. ... It is a date that names an era. Melvyn P. Leffler’s essay "9/11 in Retrospect," appearing in Foreign Affairs, tries “to place the era in context and assess it as judiciously as possible.” That means from the perspective of an unexcitable centrism, with an eye to calculating the long-term effects on U.S. power. Leffler, a professor of history at the University of Virginia, is co-editor,...

Thuy Doan She took up poker while attending U.Va.

Russell Steven JonesEarned a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering

Edna O. Foster A 1935 alumna of the School of Nursing

Richard Fileno DiGregorio ‎He earned his BS in mechanical engineering from U.Va.

Stephen Gallup He earned a graduate degree from the University of Virginia and is the author of "What About the Boy? A Father's Pledge to His Disabled Son" Virginia Book Notes Richmond Times-Dispatch | Sept. 4  Ai-Xuan Le Holterman A graduate of the School of Medicine Thirty-six years after fleeing Vietnam, doctor finds herself in Peoria Peoria Journal Star | Sept. 3  Katherine Leon A U.Va. alumna UVA Graduate Pushes for Research into SCADS WVIR NBC-29 | Sept. 5

Rowan Moody and Shaun Moshasha A third-year modern studies/English major and fourth-year student respectively

Ahmed Abbasi An assistant professor of information technology Tucson tech: UA team out to expose 'phishers' Arizona Daily Star | Sept. 6 Bob Bruner Dean of the Darden School of Business Learning the game of social media Financial Times | Sept. 5 Benjamin Cohen Assistant professor of science, technology and society and Paul Freedman Associate professor of politics and senior scholar at the Pew Partnership for Civic Change Choosing Food: What would life be like if broccoli grew on trees? "Virginia Insight" on WVTF Public Radio |Sept. 1 Sara Rimm-Kaufman An associate professor in...

... Morse runs U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best Colleges guide, the oldest and best-known publication to rank America’s premier colleges.  The annual release of the rankings, set for Sept. 13 this year, is a marquee event in higher education. Some call it the academic equivalent of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. ... “This is the prime fallacy of U.S. News: They think they’re measuring excellence, but they don’t have measures of excellence,” said Paul Glastris, editor of Washington Monthly, one of several publications that offer alternative...

The Obama administration is holding colleges' feet to the fire when it comes to how they handle reports of sexual violence and harassment. The tougher stance comes after federal officials saw problems at a number of schools that led some victims of sexual violence to feel revictimized by campus policies and procedures. ... At least 25 schools, ranging from Stanford University to the University of Virginia, have already changed some policies in response to the letter, say OCR officials.

The University of Virginia was already overhauling its policy when the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter suggesting changes nationwide.   Susan Davis, Vice President for Student Affairs, says UVA will now require a lesser standard to bring charges against students accused of sexual misconduct.  Since such cases often involve only two people, it’s hard to come up with clear and convincing evidence – the school’s original requirement.  Now, victims need only offer a preponderance of evidence.

Below are the accomplishments of Thomas Jefferson, one of the most important of our founding fathers. It seems in spite of these accomplishments, the Texas School Board voted to virtually eliminate him from the textbooks used by their school system. This is one of the most egregious of the changes they made in textbooks that they will use to "teach" their students. The main problem they found is that Jefferson was a proponent of the separation of church and state.

More than 3,000 women hit the ground running Saturday morning in Albemarle County to raise money for breast cancer research. Saturday morning's run was the 29th Charlottesville Women's Four Miler. Proceeds from the all female race provide free mammograms to women without insurance through the University of Virginia. The money also helps fund breast cancer research projects.

As 3,500 women begin stretching for the 29th annual Charlottesville Women’s Four Miler this morning, organizers are hoping for an all-time high in donations to fight breast cancer. ... The University of Virginia Cancer Center Breast Care Program will be the chief beneficiary of the race for the 19th consecutive year. All of the collections go toward efforts to fight breast cancer, including initiatives to help women detect breast cancer and survive it, as well as research aimed at combating the disease.

Complementary alternative medicine is increasing in popularity in Los Angeles. ... However, according to a new study published in the September issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, both acupuncture and sham acupuncture produced similar results in these patients. Researchers at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville attempted to determine whether true, as compared with sham, acupuncture normalizes pituitary gonadotropin hormones and increases the frequency of ovulation in women with PCOS.

Last week the former Home Secretary David Blunkett called for a new national youth volunteer programme to help tackle what he called a 'growing culture of irresponsibility' amongst young people following the recent riots. A new book by University of Virginia professor of psychology Dr Timothy Wilson has supported this call by highlighting evidence from the US that shows how engaging young people in voluntary work can have a marked impact on incidences of crime and anti social behavior.

Money raised from this weekend's Women's Four Miler will help fund groundbreaking breast cancer research at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Doctors and scientists in the program are trying to revolutionize how breast cancer is treated.

University of Virginia researchers have developed a revolutionary three-dimensional model that allows them to visualize how breast tissue grows in its earliest stages, giving them the closest look ever at the very beginnings of breast cancer.