After five tumultuous years that included 14 trips to western Africa, where expectations would rise only to fall again, Joanne Boyle learned that it takes a village, literally, to adopt a child from Senegal. Lawyers, political leaders, family friends from Senegal's capital city (Dakar), a Richmond pastor, athletic director Craig Littlepage and several kindhearted Senegalese locals all played a role in fulfilling a dream the University of Virginia women's basketball coach envisioned for more than 30 years.
(By Frederick P. Hitz, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law and an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School of Law) As the new year opens, and the dust has begun to settle from the release of a report last month by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the CIA’s use of torture in the war on terror, it is time to ask what changes, if any, the report’s revelations will bring about for the agency in the coming years. Quite a few are necessary, but whether they will implemented is, of course, uncertain.
The University of Virginia recently released a study showing that one-third of children who start kindergarten in that state aren't well prepared for it. Today, the Oregon Department of Education released test results showing that fewer than 2 in 10 can name or sound out letters, or perform early mathematics operations.
Rising demand for gold is being met at the cost of some of the most biologically diverse regions in the tropics. It has stimulated new gold mining activities which come with removal of vegetation, construction of roads and railways and mushrooming of unorganised settlements in the eco-sensitive regions. Researchers from the University of Puerto Rico have shown that between 2001 and 2013 around 1680 square km of tropical forest was lost in South America to gold mining.Around 90% of this forest loss occurred in just four areas and a large proportion occurred close to protected areas. I...
Mission Secure Inc. (MSi), a cyber defense technology and solutions provider, and Perrone Robotics Inc. (PRI), a provider of robotic and autonomous ground vehicle solutions, announced a pilot project to demonstrate cyber attacks and protections targeted at ground vehicles. The University of Virginia Department of Systems and Information Engineering is sponsoring the pilot project.
The building was originally built in the 1970's, so the outside still resembles 1970's style architecture but the inside of the building has a completely different feel. The second floor of McLeod hall features a learning studio, several classrooms and two resilience rooms, the first of their kind at the University of Virginia, somewhere students and faculty to be able to de-stress and relax. School officials hope the new learning spaces will encourage more student interaction. School officials say the $10 million project was a collaborative effort among several departments at the Univ...
The University of Virginia is getting ready to roll out a bike-share program to get more people pedaling around the area. UVA is testing out the UBike program with a small group of cyclists. The smart-technology bikes are parked on the racks at 18 locations around the university. Students, staff, and community members will soon be able to buy memberships, reserve a bike by a smartphone app, unlock it, ride off, and return it to another UBike hub.
Two fraternities are standing up to the University of Virginia, saying they won't play by new rules. Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega have harsh words for UVA leaders. Both fraternities released statements on Tuesday, citing reasons why they won't sign on with new guidelines UVA is mandating for Greek organizations.
Police at colleges and universities would be required to report campus sexual assaults to local prosecutors within 48 hours after their investigation begins, under a proposal Virginia lawmakers will consider this year.
Virginia lawmakers, police and families deeply affected by violence against women are standing together to demand change. Tuesday, the families of Morgan Harrington and Alexis Murphy spoke out in support of a proposed bill that they believe could help save the next girl.
Campus police would be required to notify their local commonwealth’s attorney within 48 hours of starting a sexual assault investigation under a bill that’s been introduced at the General Assembly. Several measures have been proposed since November, when Rolling Stone magazine published allegations of rape at the University of Virginia. This bill was first introduced several years ago to make public college campuses safer and help victims obtain essential support.
Maryland’s second-highest court may re-consider an appeal of the case featured in the popular podcast Serial. Adnan Syed, who is serving a life sentence after being convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend in 1999, has filed an application with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals for leave to appeal the Baltimore City Circuit Court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. The University of Virginia-based Innocence Project is trying to get the case reopened.
U.S. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in an interview Monday with NBC that he decided several weeks ago not to run for president in 2016. Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, moved Jeb Bush into the first tier of his Crystal Ball ranking of the 2016 Republican field last week. That tier had previously been empty with Bush in the second tiier with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and two governors, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey.
One way to improve economic mobility in the United States may be to fix the misconceptions that high-achieving, low-income teenagers often have about college.Two years ago, a study found that the vast majority of such students don't apply to competitive colleges. Now, the same researchers have discovered that providing better information to such students can dramatically increase their enrollment rates at more-elite schools.Economics professors Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University and Sarah Turner of University of Virginia surveyed students, asking why they opted not to apply to certain i...
Only 14 states — including Louisiana, California and New York — allow teenagers to serve in public office. But the whole shebang is, apparently, now a national movement. That's thanks in part to the success of 18-year-old Saira Blair, a West Virginia college freshman who became America's youngest state legislator this fall. Many young advocates are on the rise, said Kyle Kondik, editor of a political blog out of the University of Virginia. For jaded voters, teens might have legitimate appeal. "There aren't much fresher faces than 18-year-olds."
E-signatures are considered to be less convincing and trustworthy than traditional hand signatures, scientists say. Documents signed electronically evoke strikingly different - and significantly more negative - psychological reactions than those with traditional hand signatures, scientists have found. Eileen Chou, an assistant professor at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, conducted a series of controlled laboratory experiments to establish a causal relationship between how a document is signed and people’s reactions to the document.
Tanya Moon, a University of Virginia professor of education who specializes in assessment, thinks the testing movement has gone too far, pushing educators to be constantly cognizant of preparing their students for tests. “I believe that everybody should be held accountable for their jobs, but there are lots of things that kids bring into schools that schools can’t do anything about and yet the schools are held accountable,” she said.
U.Va. astronomer Ed Murphy joins Coy with a look back at 2014 and the Top Ten Space and Astronomy stories of the year– and also a quick look ahead at 2015.
When Jeanette Deutermann’s older son began third grade, he started crying and begging not to go to school. He developed stomachaches that a doctor said were stress-related. Deutermann, a stay-at-home mom in Nassau County, Long Island, was mystified. “In kindergarten, first, second grade, he wasn’t a kid who was like, ‘Please let me go to school,’ ” she recalled. “But he didn’t have issues.” Leslie Kendrick, an expert on freedom of expression at the University of Virginia School of Law, says “Meyer claims” about parents&rs...
Samuel Goldwyn Jr., the son of a founding father of Hollywood who pursued his own path in independent film and helped discover several prominent filmmakers and actors, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 88 years old. After studying at the University of Virginia and briefly serving in the U.S. Army, Mr. Goldwyn went into the family business. His producing credits covered a range of genres, from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in 1960 to “Mystic Pizza” in 1988, best remembered as the breakout vehicle for its star, Julia Roberts, then barely out of her teens.