In The News

The University of Virginia Cavaliers and Virginia Tech Hokies are facing off on Tuesday night in men’s basketball with much more on the line than usual. For the first time ever, both teams are ranked in the top 10 in the nation - Virginia is No. 4 in the most recent Associated Press poll while Virginia Tech is No. 9. In the USA TODAY Sports coaches poll, UVA is No. 1 while Tech is No. 7.

Attorney general hopeful William Barr is set Tuesday to appear for confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee — again. Barr is still more likely than not to be confirmed, said Russell Riley, a presidential scholar at UVA’s Miller Center. 

The McLean, Virginia-based federally funded research and development center recently reopened the SE Fellowship program, a yearlong professional development curriculum designed to offer federal employees an education on how to design and manage complex technology systems. The MITRE program, partnered with the University of Virginia’s Department of Engineering Systems and Environment and the Darden Graduate School of Business, accepts six to 12 fellows to examine the applications of systems thinking, engineering systems for complex multi-stakeholder use, model-oriented and evidence-based system...

(Commentary by Catherine Bradshaw, professor and the senior associate dean for research and faculty development at the Curry School of Education and Human Development) Five years ago, the Obama administration made the critical connection between school safety and equity with its “Dear Colleague” guiding principles underscoring racial disparities in school discipline and outlining how schools can become safer by bridging those gaps. Last month, the Federal School Safety Commission released a recommendation to revoke this guidance. 

Local entrepreneurs and startups have until Jan. 24 to submit applications for the University of Virginia’s summer incubator program. The i.Lab at UVA is open to for-profit and nonprofit startups in the Charlottesville-Albemarle community, regardless of any UVA affiliation. 

JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of The North American Menopause Society and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia, said evidence continues to emerge that therapies other than pills, such as through-the-skin (transdermal) HRT, offers less risk of blood clots. 

With about three-dozen Democrats either in the race or saying they are considering it, 2020’s Democratic primary field could rival the GOP’s sprawling 17-candidate field in 2016. It could break the Democratic record set in 1976, when 13 candidates ran serious bids for the nomination, according to Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics, who sees some parallels to today’s situation.

(Commentary by Cale Jaffe, assistant professor of law and director of UVA’s Environmental and Regulatory Law Clinic) The Supreme Court will decide in 2019 whether a Virginia law that bans uranium mining is preempted by the Atomic Energy Act, the U.S. law governing the processing and enrichment of nuclear material. The case, Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren, will require the court to interpret laws governing nuclear fuel production. But its most significant, long-term impact might be the glimpse it provides into the court’s view of the proper balance between federal regulatory power and th...

Both Grayson and Jennifer Lawless, a UVA professor of politics, see Harris as a compelling and charismatic candidate who should be well-positioned in the emerging Democratic field. But both analysts emphasized that with that field expected to be huge and diverse -- as Democrats see a chance to run against an embattled president many of them detest -- prediction is difficult. "The question is, is she -- and is her message -- going to break through when you have a group of 10 or 12 or 15 people running for office," Lawless said.

Teaching self-compassion to children who have a history of trauma is particularly important — and particularly challenging. Dr. Patricia Jennings, associate professor at the University of Virginia and author of the new book, “The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom,” said that these children “often feel very bad about themselves, and their ability to feel compassion for themselves may be impaired. They don’t even know how to accept compassion from other people yet.”  In these situations, caring teachers can literally rewire some of the neural pathways associated with attachment. 

Back in the fall, I reported on a white paper from the nonprofit College Success that argued that student engagement matters more than selectivity in determining both success and happiness. That brings us to the recent Atlantic article, which references both the most thorough and famous study done on the relationship between where you go to college and success and a new National Bureau of Economic Research paper co-authored by three economists, including UVA’s Amalia Miller.

A treatment studied at the University of Virginia Health System is replacing scalpels with sound waves in hopes of helping patients with Parkinson’s disease.

The Emergency Communications Center for Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the University of Virginia began a texting program in December for people who cannot make a 911 phone call for help.

These days, West Virginia and Virginia couldn’t be more civil to one another. At least where university libraries are concerned. WVU’s library system linked with the University of Virginia, George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University, William & Mary and Virginia Tech for a broad, information-sharing project known as “Digital Virginias.”

Another positive sign for b-schools is that Amazon is opening two new headquarters, in New York City and Arlington in Virginia, close to a clutch of schools from which the company hires. The ecommerce giant already employs the largest number of MBAs from a bevy of schools including MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and the company says it will create 50,000 jobs across the two new HQs. The University of Virginia: Darden’s new Rosslyn campus is near to Amazon’s Arlington HQ. 

If Virginia’s westernmost counties are going to develop a new economy, they need a much bigger UVA-Wise.

Jennifer Lawless, a UVA politics professor, said she believed Trump and Republicans would lose the game of chicken as furloughed workers, travelers, tourists and others "experience the consequences of political dysfunction firsthand. … The shutdown is real. The wall is hypothetical.”

Jeffrey Spike, an affiliate faculty member at the UVA School of Medicine’s Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities, served as an ethics consultant for the hospital treating the New York woman and spoke with her parents about whether they wanted to terminate the pregnancy. They decided against it, and the woman gave birth to a premature but healthy boy in March 1996, who was raised by his maternal grandmother.

Lisa Woolfork, a UVA English professor, said Stewart’s announcement should not be misinterpreted. After all, 63 percent of white men and 49 percent of white women voted for him when he ran for governor. Woolfork, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Charlottesville, also said Stewart’s politics still seem prevalent in how state leaders are responding to the Confederate monument issue. “Stewart’s racism and aggressive neo-Confederate views are tangibly present here in Charlottesville,” she said.

On Jan. 2, the last day of the 115th Congress — and the last day the Ethics Committee would have jurisdiction over Garrett — the panel released what would be its one and only report of its findings in its investigation. Larry Sabato, of UVA’s Center for Politics, said the move was an extraordinary one for the committee and could only mean the members were troubled enough by their findings to want some sort of accounting released to the public and to Congress.