You can thank a once-in-a-century pandemic, security fears triggered by the worst raid on the U.S. Capitol since 1814 and a boycott by now-former President Donald Trump for the major differences at Wednesday’s inauguration. “It was sort of one of the visual reminders of how this inauguration was a little different,” said J. Miles Coleman of UVA’s Center for Politics.
Biden used the word 11 times throughout his address. “What was fascinating to me about it was that he started and ended with democracy,” said Bill Antholis, the director and CEO of the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of UVA that specializes in presidential scholarship. He attributed the theme of Biden’s speech to the Capitol riot and the events that preceded it. “I think this was a very different speech than the one that would have been written if Trump had conceded on the morning of Nov. 4,” he said.
The switch in tone between President Trump and President Biden is undeniable. “Biden said he is the president for all Americans – that’s not talk we heard in the last four years,” J. Miles Coleman, a political analyst with UVA’s Center for Politics, said.
(Audio) President Joe Biden signs 17 executive orders in his first hours in office. We dig into what they say, where Biden might succeed and what policies will meet resistance. Among the guests is Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at UVA’s Miller Center.
(Video) Barbara Perry, the Gerald L. Baliles professor and director of presidential studies at UVA’s Miller Center, discusses the spiritual tone in President Biden’s inaugural address.
Micah Mazurek and Gerrit Van Schalkwyk, professors at the University of Virginia and University of Utah, respectively, described two separate studies they conducted that confirmed the positive influence of social media in neurodiverse teenagers’ and adults’ lives.
“Our usual picture of a spiral galaxy is as a flat disk, thinner than a pancake, peacefully rotating around its center,” lead author Xinlun Cheng, a UVA astronomy graduate student, said. “But the reality is more complicated.”
Two UVA scientists have been named to the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Boris Kovatchev and Dr. Robin Felder were inducted into the National Academy of Inventors for their work in health devices and testing that can save countless lives.
A group of UVA researchers are offering resources to help teachers address issues of racial injustice in the classroom. The initiative called “Educating for Democracy” uses the way U.S. history is taught to properly explain current events.
The University of Virginia’s Facilities Management’s historic masons, specializing in historic preservation, have been working on repointing University Chapel.
In 1826, months after Thomas Jefferson died, the Rotunda at the University of Virginia was completed. A memorial just east of the Rotunda was dedicated 194 years later in remembrance of the enslaved laborers who built it. On Tuesday, five names were added.
UVA says it is committed to offering in-person learning while taking precautions. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the University is going ahead with having in-person classes during the spring semester.
UVA is rolling out its spring semester plans, urging students to remain vigilant to prevent the spread of COVID-19. UVA President Jim Ryan said in a recent video that the university learned a lot during the fall semester, and while he feels ready to take on the spring semester, now is the time to act with more caution than ever before as the threat of growing case numbers and new variants of the virus loom.
Laura Morgan Roberts, professor of practice at UVA’s Darden School of Business, says remote work “may challenge people’s ability to compartmentalize”; the home is meant to be your sanctuary and when a worker is forced to code-switch in that environment, it may feel like that freedom is being constrained. As remote work blends the personal and the professional, this may have a negative effect on the well-being of workers who have relied on code-switching to get through their workdays.
(Commentary by Kyle Kondik, political analyst at UVA’s Center for Politics) Given Donald Trump’s ability to dominate the news both before and during his presidency, it is perhaps not surprising that he remains the subject of the most immediately pressing political question in Washington: Should Senate Republicans use the pending impeachment trial in the Senate to forbid the outgoing president from holding public office again?
“We were the canary in the coal mine,” said Jalane Schmidt, a UVA professor who was involved in the 2017 activism. She compared the current political moment to the aftermath of the Civil War, framing the choice for Biden’s administration as either committing to sweeping change akin to Reconstruction or going along with the type of compromise that brought its end.
The Justice investigation into U.S. Sen. Richard Burr's trading activities went quiet for nearly eight months before Burr's statement Tuesday. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said in May that "from the day this story broke, Burr’s case always seemed the most serious, and it was so treated by the press."
Writing reduces stress, affects mental and psychic health, and puts you in a better mood. According to Dr. Timothy D. Wilson, a psychology professor from the University of Virginia, this writing type can lead people to victorious thinking within the optimistic cycle that will only intensify.
Laurie Archbald-Pannone, a geriatric doctor at the University of Virginia, said staying home to take care of a loved one without much other help can be isolating. “What we’ve seen in the COVID era is the need for social distancing, which is an important part of infection preventing and decreasing our risk of COVID spread, but that evolving into social isolation,” she explained.
Death penalty cases have at least an error rate of 4.1%, says Jennifer Gibbons. The director of the University of Virginia’s Innocence Project, Gibbons pointed out that means one in 22 people sentenced to death are innocent. That adds up to at least 100 innocent men and women out of the roughly 2,500 inmates currently on death row across the country. “For every nine people executed in this country, one person on death row has been exonerated,” Gibbons said. “If we want to eliminate the risk of executing innocent people, the only way to do it is to pass this bill.”