(Subscription required) UVA President James E. Ryan on Friday announced that students from families with an annual income of less than $80,000 will be able to attend tuition-free. Students whose families make less than $30,000 will have room and board covered as well.
On Tuesday, a daylong summit at the University of Virginia gathered education leaders, policymakers and researchers to discuss teacher retention in Virginia. The summit was hosted by the Office of the Secretary of Education.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is running for re-election to the U.S. Congress, representing Texas’ 18th District. Lee was first elected to the House in 1994 and has been described by the Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia as the second-most effective Democratic member of Congress.
Virginia’s 5th, 2nd and 7th congressional districts have been garnering national attention this year due to their competitiveness, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of UVA’s “Sabato’s Crystal Ball.” “They have focused on Virginia in large part, I think, because the state has a lot of competitive House races this year,” he said. “I also believe they are trying to hit some races where there haven’t been public polls otherwise.”
“With the populist movement, the idea began to develop that presidents should have a relationship with the people,” says Sidney Milkis of UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. That idea encouraged presidents both to campaign for themselves and to get out on the road to support other politicians with whom they agreed.
“From the U.S. perspective, these immunities protect our diplomats from exposure to foreign judicial systems and ensure that our president and secretary of state can travel abroad without worrying about facing politically motivated criminal or civil cases,” University of Virginia associate law professor Ashley Deeks wrote last year.
Another study, this one sponsored by The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, stated, “In our sample, only 23 percent of the individuals who got married over the course of the study had had sex solely with the person they married. That minority of men and women reported higher marital quality than those who had had sex with other partners prior to marriage. We further found that the more sexual partners a woman had had before marriage, the less happy she reported her marriage to be.”
James E. Ryan, the new president of the University of Virginia, pledged to waive tuition for students in families whose combined income is less than $80,000 a year during his inauguration.
UVA students got a firsthand lesson on how historians are preserving history at James Madison's Montpelier. On Monday, the School of Architecture hosted a roundtable discussion featuring archaeologists from two presidential estates. It was the first of many in hopes of educating students on how new technology can play a role in uncovering history.
Nearly 70,000 voters statewide cast their ballots on Saturday and Sunday, compared to about 27,000 voters at this point during the 2014 midterm election. “Overall it seems like voter turnout is going to be higher than usual,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA’s Center for Politics. “It’s not surprising to me that the turnout is high because I think the interest is high as well.”
The UVA football team has recorded back-to-back upset wins at Duke and against No. 16 Miami and the ’Hoos control their own destiny in the ACC's Coastal Division. Virginia has a record of 5-2 and is one win away from becoming eligible for a bowl game.
"Democrats have lots of opportunities in the House, but not really the Senate," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of a nonpartisan political newsletter at the UVA Center for Politics. "The House and the Senate always seemed likely to produce somewhat differing outcomes, which complicates a 'blue wave' narrative."
The simple fact of having a Republican in the White House — any Republican — makes this the “best Democratic House environment since 2008,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political analysis newsletter published by UVA. “The president sort of sets the table for the midterm elections and he’s a polarizing president whose approval rating is negative, so that helps open the door for Democrats,” Kondik said. “If Trump were at 55 percent approval nationally, Republican prospects in the House would be better.”
At this point, most analysts are still projecting a shift of up to two dozen or so seats in the House of Representatives to the Democrats, thereby giving them control of that house. Barely. Typical of this is the highly regarded UVA political scientist Larry Sabato’s latest comment in which he wrote: “A race-by-race analysis of Democratic House targets shows the party is close to winning the majority, but they do not have it put away, in our judgement, with Election Day less than three weeks away.”
After months of Trump rallies and millions raised and spent, the fundamentals have not changed: Democrats are counting on a fired-up base still seething over the 2016 election to push their candidates over the edge. Republicans note that Democrats are playing defense, with 10 incumbents fighting to survive in states Trump won big. "All things considered, not that much has changed," said Larry Sabato, director of UVA's Center for Politics. "This is one of the worst maps, if not the worst map, that Democrats have ever faced since the beginning of popular elections."
In Ohio, at least two U.S. House seats are very much in play, and although Democrats are raising money in Ohio — six Democratic challengers out-raised Republican incumbents last quarter — the districts as drawn are fairly safe for incumbents, said Kyle Kondik of the UVA Center for Politics. “The Ohio House map is designed to elect 12 Republicans and four Democrats,” he said. That’s the current split, “and that’s probably what you should expect at this stage.”
“Although clinical criteria such as family or personal history of cancer can be helpful in narrowing down patients who might be at risk for colon or uterine cancer in Lynch syndrome, our study and others have found this less helpful in upper tract urothelial cancer,” study co-author Helen Cathro, head of UVA’s Division of Renal Pathology, said. “This is why we are suggesting that relatively inexpensive immunohistochemical testing be performed on these tumors, which can be followed up with molecular testing if positive.”
James E. Ryan was inaugurated as University of Virginia's ninth president on the Lawn Friday evening. He was welcomed by UVA students and staff with singing, poetry, and positive words from speakers. One of those speakers was Governor Ralph Northam who wished Ryan luck. Another speaker was past Harvard president Drew Faust, whom Ryan worked under while he was a dean at the university.
In an inaugural address that acknowledged the University’s past while striding into the future, UVA President Jim Ryan reaffirmed UVA’s commitment to financial aid and promised to set the school on a firm moral foundation.
(Video) UVA President Jim Ryan is ushering in his inauguration on Saturday by building bridges in the UVA community.