(Commentary by Andrew Kaufman, associate professor and assistant director of UVA’s Center for Teaching Excellence) The perfect storm created by the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd’s tragic death and its aftermath has offered an unusual opportunity to renew our democracy in the place where it can have far-reaching impact: inside our nation’s classrooms.
Cville Education Equity collaborated with Youth-Nex, Madison House and UVA’s Equity Center to offer resources for teachers and families across the Charlottesville area. The website offers anti-racist curriculum for teachers, virtual education help for families and food resources for those experiencing food insecurity.
The training camp bubble for the UVA football team has been working to perfection.The Cavaliers are less than two weeks away from the start of the regular season, and they have not had any positive COVID-19 tests since July 24. Head coach Bronco Mendenhall is having players cross-train at different positions, just in case one group is hit hard, and they need to quickly fill spots, even on the other side of the ball.
In 2018, first-time candidate Gina Ortiz Jones nearly toppled U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, in one of the closest races in the country – losing, as she now says repeatedly, by 926 votes. “TX-23 is one of the top Democratic pick-up opportunities in the nation,” said Kyle Kondik, the expert on House races at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
In a separate 2018 Institute for Family Studies report, “Black men making it in America,” Brad Wilcox, Ronald B. Mincy and Wendy Wang write: More than one in two Black men (57%) have made it into the middle class or higher as adults today, up from 38% in 1960, according to a new analysis of census data. And the share of Black men who are poor has fallen from 41% in 1960 to 18% in 2016. So, a substantial share of Black men in America are realizing the American dream – at least financially – and a clear majority are not poor.
Graduates from higher-ranked universities tend to earn more money. That is well known. What is less understood is why. One theory is that these schools are better at imparting knowledge – employers might reasonably offer higher salaries to new hires they believe are better qualified. An alternative theory is that admission is a form of signaling. Prestigious colleges are selective. Their students may not learn anything particularly useful, but are paid more because simply getting accepted to a leading college gives employers the impression that they are talented. A new paper by Sheet...
(Commentary by Lisa Russ Spaar, English professor, poet and author or editor of more than 10 books of poems and poetry anthologies) The current pandemic has certainly upended and disordered everyone and forced us, willingly or unwillingly, to re-think who we are.
Scientists have studied the impact of high ozone air pollution on the chemical communication between flowers and pollinators, and made a remarkable discovery. The work by researchers from Germany’s Max Planck Institute and the University of Virginia is described in a paper in the Journal of Chemical Ecology.
Albemarle’s Confederate monument also contains a time capsule in a bronze box within the soldier monument, which officially is known as “At Ready.” The University of Virginia’s Special Collections department will temporarily take charge of that capsule, said Trevor Henry, the assistant county executive.
The National Institutes of Health awarded Fairfax-based health technology company Vibrent Health $39 million to develop the technology backbone for the NIH’s All of Us research program, which will gather health information of about 1 million Americans to be used for research studies. The company has partnered with Dartmouth College, the University of Virginia, ICF, Eureka, the University of California and HackerOne to contribute machine learning, technology innovation, research expertise and emerging cybersecurity approaches for the project.
In-person classes are now under way at the University of Virginia, but look quite different than past years. Although the University of North Carolina and James Madison University shifted classes entirely online after experiencing a rise in COVID-19 cases, some UVA students say their first day of in-person classes went well.
Nearly 4,000 students are back on Grounds as in-person classes started on Tuesday. Virtual courses started two weeks ago when the University of Virginia announced it was going to have to delay the start of in-person instruction.
UVA’s Center for Politics will host two panels Wednesday in conjunction with the recent airing of a new documentary series called “Dismantling Democracy.”
Greg Roberts, University of Virginia dean of admission, says the inability to give in-person tours due to COVID-19 precautions has been a challenge with a silver lining. “UVA is a beautiful place. If students visit, they are more likely to apply here,” says Roberts. “How you replicate that is not easy.”
The qualified immunity doctrine has evolved in a series of court decisions, said Rachel Harmon, a professor at UVA’s School of Law and author of the forthcoming book, “The Law of the Police.” “Over the last 10 years, [court decisions have] made it increasingly difficult to overcome qualified immunity,” she said. Now qualified immunity “protects all but plainly incompetent officers or officers who knowingly violate the law,” she said.
Many activities – from concerts to church to doctor visits – can now be experienced from the safe bubble of our vehicles. Experiencing life via automobile has long been a part of America. But the evolution of car culture has had a lot of “twists and turns,” said Peter Norton, an associate professor in UVA’s Department of Engineering and Society.
There’s no doubt that many colleges have become increasingly out of reach for many students. But this year, the precarious financial health of colleges, competition for a smaller number of domestic students, and historically low borrowing rates make for a “buyer’s market” for many college students. Some colleges are getting creative. The University of Virginia is even throwing in a January term course and a course in the first summer session of 2021, at no additional cost.
Dave Johnson is the founder of Icarus Medical, a new biomedical manufacturer located in downtown Charlottesville that manufactures light weight knee and joint braces using 3-D printing technology. With his engineering background from the University of Virginia, he spent five years working and developing a brace that uses adjustable tension with elastic bands to counter the pressure that is usually placed on the knees when they bend.
Archie L. Holmes has been selected as the next executive vice chancellor of academic affairs for the University of Texas System. Holmes has been serving as associate provost at the University of Virginia since 2013. Since 2007, he was a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university.