The first ever Ladies in the Lab workshop took place on UVa grounds Sunday. Middle and high school girls were invited from local school districts to take part in 15 interactive exhibits run by more than 70 volunteers from several female UVa engineering groups as well as NASA and Capital One.
In Singapore, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital uses nature "as a partner in the healing process." Patients look out over green roofs, an urban garden, a waterfall and fish ponds. Remarkably, the hospital also acts as a community center, drawing outside visitors to its natural beauty. Timothy Beatley of the University of Virginia writes that "this place makes me hopeful because it shows how health care facilities can be designed to include nature," adding that "my gut feeling is that this building does heal."
My wife and I were dumbfounded until we realized he wasn’t focused on the buildings but the students walking about. And darned if they didn’t look more like a crowd he could learn from. It turns out that their selection process has the backing of the dean of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. In a blog post recently, Robert F. Bruner urged future business school candidates to consider the principle of “five friends” when choosing where to get their MBA. Bruner argued that in graduate school, you learn more from the friends around you...
"If aliens beamed onto Earth and read our school textbooks, they wouldn't have a clue about what women contribute to our society," says Rae Blumberg, a sociologist at the University of Virginia. Blumberg has spent years looking at textbooks from all over the world. In almost every country she has studied, women are either completely written out of texts — or they're portrayed in stereotypical, often subservient roles.
University of Virginia law professor Brandon L. Garrett said the results reveal a “mass disaster” inside the criminal justice system, one that it has been unable to self-correct because courts rely on outdated precedents admitting scientifically invalid testimony at trial and, under the legal doctrine of finality, make it difficult for convicts to challenge old evidence.
Students and administrators talked about domestic violence and sexual assault on campus at a conference of the Virginia chapter of the American Association of University Women on Saturday. The subject, which is becoming increasingly divisive, prompted debate over police involvement, college adjudication of sexual assault and the role of alcohol in sexual assault. Recent events have brought domestic violence and sexual assault to the forefront, said Claire Kaplan, director of the Gender Violence and Social Change program at the University of Virginia. Kaplan said the killings of female students...
Voting in the late 18th century was restricted to males and generally based on landownership, and did not extend to slaves who were a fifth of the population, said Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy, a University of Virginia historian and vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Interview with African filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako during his residency at U.Va. last week. The interview and 5-minute video story begins approximately at 22:55, and includes Sissako being interview on The Lawn, teaching classes, walking with faculty and students, and other video material shot at U.Va. There will be a longer version of this posted on VOA's website next week.
For Robert Chapel, the public vestibule has been something more. For nearly 30 years, the producing artistic director of the University of Virginia's Heritage Theatre Festival has used the lobby in the school's drama building as something of a proverbial backyard fence. Chapel has become something of an institution himself since joining Heritage in 1987. Initially, he served as stage director, then managing and stage director, and since 1995, he has been in his present position. This year’s festival, which opens June 25, will be the final season for Chapel as producing artistic d...
Dozens of University of Virginia students met in Madison Bowl Sunday morning before heading out on a hike to celebrate the life of their friend and classmate Hannah Graham. The 19 year-old was found murdered this past October in Albemarle County. Graham's friends and parents are honoring her memory by raising money for an Alternative Spring Break fund in her name.
The Black Student Alliance at the University of Virginia is calling for numerous changes at UVa in a 27-page document containing more than a dozen recommendations for the university in “acknowledging [its] horrific history in regards to its treatment of black people and working diligently to correct these wrongs.”
The Jefferson Area Victim Assistance Coalition hosted a Community Day at the Ntelos Pavilion on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall on Sunday to bring together organizations that are working to prevent violence. Just outside the Pavilion, the non-profit Help Save the Next Girl hosted a live chalking on the Free Speech Wall of a mural depicting Hannah Graham, a University of Virginia student who was abducted from the Downtown Mall and murdered. Artist Jane Vance sketched out the mural as a way to send a message to the community to take action against violence.
Edgar Coker pleaded guilty to a charge of rape in 2007 to avoid going to adult prison. The teenager suffered a 15-month sentence and being listed as a sex offender for six years after an accusation by a then 14-year-old. Coker and his accuser both have IQs in the lowest 5-10% of the US population. This case has actually been solved - by the University of Virginia Law School Innocence Project, which has helped out Serial - and Coker has been removed from the register after his accuser revealed she lied. However, the Koenig touch to another case involving young people - given the listeners won&#...
Opinion/Column: Watching the watchmen: Video is uncovering bad behavior that may have gone unnoticed
Technology in the form of video is rewriting the news about how and when police use excessive or deadly force. The Washington Post devoted several pages on April 12 to an analysis of 54 criminal cases against police officers in fatal shootings across America the past decade, among “the thousands of fatal police shootings that have occurred across the country in that time.” No one knows the exact number. Retired Charlottesville Police Chief John deKoven Bowen reacted strongly to the number. "That surprises me. That bothers me,” said Bowen, the city’s chief of police...
The University of Virginia Board of Visitors will include one non-voting faculty member starting next semester. The board is currently looking for an appointee who will serve a one-year term in an advisory role. Faculty members will be limited to two consecutive terms.
“This Louisiana bill really does what people accused the Indiana law of doing,” leading religious freedom expert and University of Virginia law professor Doug Laycock told msnbc. While Indiana’s law offered up individuals accused of discrimination a legal defense that a judge could then weigh, Laycock explained, this law gives religious individuals absolute protection from state action, without balancing interests of – for instance – whether a gay individual’s right to services outweighs the religious individual’s freedoms.
(By Larry J. Sabato, university professor of politics and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Geoffrey Skelley is associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball) The two factors that might be most vital to Hillary Clinton’s chances—the identity of the eventual Republican nominee and the standing of President Obama—are elements over which she has little influence. It’s the second factor, Obama’s job approval rating, that is especially critical. And the state and...
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito signed an order Wednesday temporarily granting relief to a handful of Pennsylvania religious organizations from a lower court's decision that they must notify insurers of their intention not to provide birth control to employees, or face fines under the Affordable Care Act. But Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, said such orders are hardly rare and the decision may not stick. The order, he noted, only lasts until Monday, by which time the government is supposed to file a response. Additionally, he said in an email, Alit...
Students at Charlottesville High School were learning about the impact distracted driving can have on their lives Thursday. They watched an education video about the many kind of distractions they may have to deal with while behind the wheel.Those distractions can range from loud music to passengers to texting and more. The video is part of the Injury Prevention Program created by the University of Virginia Trauma Center. Dr. Jeffrey Young, the director of the UVa Traum Center, said, "You get bad habits starting at a young age. If you start texting and driving while yo...
Doctors at the University of Virginia Trauma Center want to make sure all drivers pay attention when they're on the roads. Thursday, trauma center staff showed students at Charlottesville High School a video about the dangers and risks to driving while distracted. "If you don't drive texting or talking, then you don't incur those risks, and something still may happen, but at least these are some things that you can control. We want to bring up their awareness of just how dangerous it is," said UVA Trauma Center Director Dr. Jeffery Young.