UVA and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello announced the winners of the 2020 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals in architecture, citizen leadership, global innovation and law Thursday. Typically, the medals are awarded on Jefferson’s birthday, April 13, at Monticello, but the foundation said they would be given in absentia this year due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Architects Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, co-founders of a New York-based architectural design firm named one of North America’s “Emerging Voices” by the Architectural League of New York, are the 2020 recipients of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture.
The University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello will present their highest honors, the 2020 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals in Architecture, Citizen Leadership, Global Innovation and Law.
Pete Snyder and his wife, Burson, have donated $100,000 in “seed money” to create the nonprofit Virginia 30 Day Fund, which is intended to help businesses meet payroll, preserve health care coverage for workers and avoid layoffs while awaiting the federal aid expected to arrive in about a month. Applications will be evaluated by volunteers with MBAs from UVA’s Darden School of Business, as well as “some of the top business minds from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” Snyder said.
The University of Virginia announced Monday it is providing $3 million to assist contract employees and local residents left furloughed and financially strapped by state-ordered stay-at-home measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kings rookie and former UVA star Kyle Guy is urging people to follow public health orders after losing a loved one to the coronavirus. Guy shared his grief in a moving tribute to his grandfather Saturday on Instagram.
Central Virginia residents are feeling the economic impact of the novel coronavirus as they follow social distancing guidelines, according to results of a new poll from UVA’s Center for Survey Research.
Many parents prefer independence if they’re still able in body and mind. But there are risks for older people if they’re isolated and social distancing. Dr. Laurie Archbald-Pannone, a geriatrician and professor at the University of Virginia, says it’s important to balance social distancing with self-isolation. “Both are critically important right now,” Archbald-Pannone said.
Barbara Hunt Jones, 77, died March 30. She enjoyed a long career with the University of Virginia, first at the Architecture School and then with the Institute for Environmental Negotiation.
“There’s a shift in communication to togetherness, community, a spirit of union,” said Kimberly Whitler, assistant professor at UVA’s Darden School of Business. “What I find interesting are the direct company-to-consumer communications. What they are saying is shifting, and there’s a shift in who is saying it. More and more you’re seeing letters directly from CEOs to consumers – which is not typical – in email, or videos of CEOs talking to consumers.”
“The person comes in. They’re complaining of chest pain. They’re complaining of shortness of breath. They have a cough. I can’t quantify that,” said Ebony Hilton, an anesthesiologist at the UVA Medical Center. She’s also been raising concerns, for example, about the way drive-through testing has expanded. She notes that requires having a car. Hilton says the country can’t afford to overlook race, even during a swiftly moving pandemic.
(Commentary) Per Dr. Taison Bell, an expert in internal medicine, infectious diseases and critical care at UVA Health, the flu and the COVID-19 virus travel in the same method. An infected person sneezes or coughs or in some other way deposits the virus on a surface, usually in a wet droplet of some sort. Then another person happens along and touches the virus-packed wet spot.
In her new book, “Cool Town,” Grace Elizabeth Hale, a professor of history and American studies at the University of Virginia, describes how Athens found itself at Generation X’s artistic vanguard, birthing the glorious notes-on-camp party band the B-52’s, the jangly art-rock juggernaut R.E.M., and scores of other provocative and influential groups – along the way becoming “the model,” as Hale argues, “for the small, deeply local bohemias that together formed ’80s indie culture.”
Trump is certainly using the coronavirus briefings to advance his own re-election cause, said Larry Sabato o UVA’s Center for Politics. “The pandemic is a black hole – everything has to relate to it to get TV time, and Trump is aware of this,” he said. “He thinks that putting himself in this position, in the homes of Americans every day, will produce a rally-around-the-flag effect because he’ll be at the center of this ongoing pandemic.”
(Commentary by Cristina Lopez-Gottardi, assistant professor and research director for the Public and Policy Program at UVA’s Miller Center, and Raul O. Chao, associate professor at UVA’s Darden School of Business) The past few years have been difficult for Latin America, with stagnant economic growth, rising citizen dissatisfaction and ineffective governance. In more recent days, as the threat of COVID-19 infections move around the globe, there is growing alarm that Latin America’s existing troubles could combine to produce an untenable health and political catastrophe in t...
(Commentary by Raymond Scheppach, professor of public policy) Federal government officials are on television almost every day responding to the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s the nation’s governors who are taking aggressive action in the states.
The UVA Medical Center is set to open a new tower of the hospital early to boost capacity amidst the coronavirus pandemic. UVA Health will bring additional beds into the hospital expansion tower over the next six to eight weeks to provide additional resources if needed, according to a UVA Health spokesperson.
UVA School of Data Science researchers who created a pandemic modeling system for the federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency have also been working with the state government to produce a Virginia-specific model that will present the most accurate projection for what we can expect in the commonwealth, State Health Commissioner Dr. M. Norman Oliver said during the briefing.
State Health Commissioner Dr. Norm Oliver said while there are many different models out there, the administration is working with the University of Virginia’s Data Science Institute to craft one that is tailored to Virginia.
Wes Hester, a spokesman for the University of Virginia, said the default grading system for undergraduate schools and most graduate schools where work this semester isn’t done is credit or no credit. He added that students, like at other Virginia colleges, will have the option to receive a letter grade. “We are currently developing a way for students to make that selection in the Student Information System and we’ll be providing details to students directly within the next week,” Hester said.