The education scholar and University of Virginia professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr. showed me just how upside-down this approach is. Hirsch argued that all truly great “critical thinkers” start out by mastering a substantial body of knowledge. Beginning with his 1987 bestseller Cultural Literacy and in other books over the next two decades, Hirsch made it clear that my sons’ teachers—most of them, at least—had abandoned common sense in favor of education fads that were backed by no evidence and that actually did damage, particularly to minority children coming from disad...
Former President Harry S. Truman described it as a “monstrosity in timekeeping”. In 2007, crime rates dropped by as much as seven percent in the days following the implementation of DST, according to an analysis done by Jennifer L. Doleac of the University of Virginia and Nicholas J. Sanders of the College of William & Mary. With Daylight Saving Time ending, “you gain precious moments”, but don’t use them watching an extra late night show and chowing down on junk, suggest the experts.
It’s a more than $1.5 million race and counting — but for Virginia politicos much more than that is riding on the fight to win the 21st District Senate seat. “It’s a very narrow battlefield,” Geoffrey Skelley, of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said of the larger campaign both parties are waging to claim control of the state Senate.
Voter turnout for state legislative elections is generally around 30 percent or less. In addition, many candidates are running unopposed. That can make it hard for voters to get excited about the election. "You're picking the people who are deciding your laws," said Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "But in terms of issues and things to generate enthusiasm or anger, I mean, it's tough to say that there's going to be meaningful, obvious change due to this election."
In May, the University of Virginia announced the creation of a scholarship award honoring the life of the slain second-year student Hannah Graham. The award arrived as a partnership between Hannah's parents, Sue and John Graham, and UVa. It requires the recipient to engage in two semesters at UVa along with eight weeks of field work in a French-speaking developing country. The award is turning tragedy into triumph, by supporting interests of other students who share Graham's interests, students like UVa second-year Claire Romaine.
At the 50-yard line of the high school football field, a battle is brewing over the meaning of the First Amendment. The extreme views on both sides of the culture wars don’t help, says Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville. “There are plenty of people who would like to suppress all religious speech … and confine it to churches. And there are plenty of people who think we should have prayer at every government meeting,” he says. “We would do a lot better if both sides would agree to protect their own liberties ...
Alon Confino, professor of history at the University of Virginia and Ben-Gurion University in Israel, and author of “A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination From Persecution To Genocide.”
Edward Hess, a professor at the Darden School and author of Learn or Die, believes that in a smart machine age, our intelligence can help us advance but our ego can sink us.
Brian Hogg, senior historic preservation planner at UVA, thought they had discovered almost everything there was to know about the Rotunda, but learned the structure still has much to yield.
The Small Special Collections library is taking on one of the school’s biggest tasks when it comes to preserving historical documents.
Sports Illustrated recently profiled UVA's Malcom Brogdon. “In my family, graduating and getting your bachelor’s is just the beginning,” Brogdon says.
Now, one might think that the more walkable your area is, the healthier and happier the population would be. But a new study argues that healthy doesn’t always equal happy. Conducted by the University of Virginia and published in Applied Psychology, the study found people who live in walkable cities are generally healthier than those who live in cities dominated by cars — but they aren’t any happier. This flies in the face of studies that show exercise can ward off depression, as well as the notion that the more active you are, the happier you are.
(By James D.W. Zehmer, Restoration Project Supervisor at the University of Virginia) The Rotunda, centerpiece of Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village and symbol of the University of Virginia, has been subjected to intervals of construction, renovation, rebuilding, restoration and repair since the institution began offering classes on March 7, 1825. Interspersed through the periods of repair and maintenance are six major interventions. First, of course, was the original construction period (1823-27), resulting in Jefferson’s vision of a half-scale interpretation o...
This weekend, most Americans are gaining an hour of sleep by turning back their clocks as daylight saving time ends. But, a newly published Cornell study finds, they could stand to lose much more in the time exchange. Examining crime rates from 2005-08, Nicholas Sanders, assistant professor in the Cornell University Department of Policy Analysis and Management, co-authored a study with Jennifer Doleac, an assistant professor in the University of Virginia Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. They found robbery rates are lower during DST. Standard Time brings a seven percent increase i...
A sign reading "This business serves everyone" is placed in the window of Bernadette's Barbershop in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, March 31, 2015. The store is one of several who display a sticker stating "This business serves everyone." Indiana's Republican Governor Mike Pence, responding to national outrage over the state's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, said on Tuesday he will "fix" it to make clear businesses cannot use the law to deny services to same-sex couples. "Both same-sex couples, and religious believers committed to traditional...
A Twitter-fueled furor erupted on Thursday after the Renaissance Society of America said that the database firm ProQuest had canceled the group’s subscription to a key collection of texts. Bethany Nowviskie, director of the Digital Library Federation and a research associate professor of digital humanities at the University of Virginia, said she hoped the controversy would lead to a focused discussion on private companies’ role in academe. "It’s a clear reminder that the private companies to which we have ceded control of our shared cultural heritage do not hav...
John Kasich decided to be more aggressive during this week’s third Republican presidential debate — just as it seemed most of the rest of the candidates decided to be the grown-ups in the room. Unless you count the fighting between the candidates and CNBC moderators. “[Mr. Kasich] got more attention,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He increased both name ID and his favorability score, but if you’re asking whether he’s in the top tier, the answer is no.”
Are the news media reporting the campaign, or making and breaking the campaign? That is a key question coming out of the third Republican presidential debate, a faceoff in which one moderator from CNBC, which televised the debate, likened a GOP campaign to a comic book and several candidates and analysts protested that the journalists are becoming too much of a player in the story. Campaign officials were annoyed with too many questions probing candidates’ quirks and personalities. An analysis from Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a website of the University of Virginia’s Center ...
The "renaissance of marriage" in America will depend not only on renewing conservative values but also economic and social policies that support the poor, W. Bradford Wilcox said at the World Congress of Families Thursday. The University of Virginia associate professor of sociology is nationally respected for his research on marriage and relationships and as the director of the National Marriage Project.
"For a long time, we were worried about the unjust and uneven distribution of greenery in cities—and it is still true in more disadvantaged neighborhoods," says Timothy Beatley, an urban planning professor at the University of Virginia. "What's new about the discussion is the very recognition that those investments in nature could ultimately serve to displace people from them."