In their first three years of employment, a recent study found half of all nurses leaving their jobs – often because they’re burned out. It’s a difficult job, and hospitals are searching for ways to make the work less stressful. At the University of Virginia, three nurses came up with a way to help their colleagues relax, even for a few minutes during their busy days.
The vast majority of University of Virginia students have answered the call to get vaccinated and can now come back to Grounds. The numbers are in and the results are pretty strong: 85% of students have already submitted their full vaccination records to UVA. That will lead to a pre-pandemic-looking fall semester.
(Commentary by Dr. Tom Pisano, alumnus) A young clinician who uses a wheelchair has found that sharing his experience and showing vulnerability helps many kinds of patients.
The consequences of not having broadband can be staggering, according to Christopher Ali, an associate professor in UVA’s Department of Media Studies. “Broadband influences education, health, economic development … civic engagement, quality of life, and public safety. It’s a game-changer,” he said. “This is the electricity of the 21st century.”
1. University of Virginia. A public research institution, UVA meets 100% of demonstrated need-based aid for all students, both in and out of state. At least 35% of the University’s student population is awarded some level of need-based assistance. UVA’s aid packages can include grants, scholarships, work-study and loans. The University commits to limiting loans to an average of $4,500 to $7,000 per year, per student in an effort to minimize student debt.
Although no L.A. Sparks competed in the WNBA All-Star Game this year, there were two Los Angeles basketball icons on the sidelines. Lisa Leslie and [UVA women’s basketball coach] Tina Thompson co-coached the WNBA All-Stars to a 93-85 victory over the Tokyo-bound U.S. national team on Wednesday.
Award-winning international actor and playwright Priyanka Shetty [a UVA alumna] performs her solo play “#CHARLOTTESVILLE,” hand-picked as one of nine new works to be staged at the coveted 59E59 Theaters’ “East to Edinburgh” Festival in New York City this summer. This is the second of three plays in her Triptych of solos that reveals the harrowing and heart-wrenching experiences of the residents of Charlottesville, Virginia who were present as counter-protestors at the white-supremacist “Unite the Right” rally on August 11th and 12th, 2017.
(By Payton Stredler, rising fourth-year student) We probably all have memories of digging through attic boxes and discovering brittle pieces of paper, chronicling the existence of long-gone family members. Snippets of their stories are embedded in official records– where they were born, how they died. But have we ever thought about how important these forms are, not just to our own family histories but to the way we measure and address public health?
Niya Bates, a graduate student studying the history of enslavement, told the Post, “I’m excited to see our community finally dealing with symbols of white supremacy.” She is working to implement a new state law that requires UVA and four other public colleges in the state to identify and memorialize the individuals who were enslaved on their grounds and to provide scholarships and other reparations to their descendants. “Symbols have power,” Bates said. “This is a good way to start a conversation about meaningful systemic change.”
Among those presenting programs were architecture expert and holder of the Commonwealth Professor’s Chair in architectural history at the University of Virginia Richard Guy Wilson, whose father actually ran the company that made shovels used during construction of Hoover Dam.
“The principle is one person, one vote,” says Kyle Kondik, who analyzes U.S. House politics for the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “If you live in one district and I live in another district,” Kondik explains, “they should have relatively the same population so our votes have the same power.”
Christian McMillen is a historian and associate dean at the University of Virginia and the author of “Discovering Tuberculosis.” “It was a relatively common notion that air – whether it’s altitude, winter air, desert air, or what have you – was a good solution for tuberculosis,” he says. “Sometimes it did help. But there was a kind of mistake in correlation with causation. TB is contagious, so in this case, my guess is that you take five people with TB, and five people without TB, and put them together in a cave, and you’re going to wind up with 10 people who have TB.”
(Podcast) In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning UVA historian Alan Taylor discusses why it is important to acknowledge the violence and terror that scarred the revolutionary years as well as tales of heroism and courage and the triumph of freedom and liberty. “We’ve largely written [violence] out of telling the story of the American Revolution because, frankly, it is very uncomfortable,” said Taylor, the author of “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.”
An annual road trip-inspired reading program has announced this year’s selection for Virginia. The Virginia Center for the Book says “White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia,” by Kiki Petrosino, is the 2021 Route 1 Reads. Petrosino is a professor of poetry at the University of Virginia.
There is another rare side effect from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine; a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome, which is not uncommon after infections. “To me what makes sense, if you are a woman, probably don’t get the J&J vaccine. Maybe get one of the mRNAs, because we havent seen any side effects. These vaccines work so well that they gave us excess protection, more than what we needed,” said Dr. William Petri, an epidemiologist at UVA Health.
Dr. William Petri from UVA Health says if anyone hasn’t already, now is the time to get a COVID vaccine. “These vaccines work so well that they gave us excess protection, more than what we needed,” said Petri.
Even with the rise in infections from the Delta variant of COVID-19 in some areas, UVA Drs. Taison Bell and Bill Petri say if you’re fully vaccinated, you’re well protected. But now, booster shot discussions are picking back up.
(Commentary by Cristina Lopez-Gottardi, assistant professor and research director for public and policy programs at UVA’s Miller Center) Sunday’s protests in cities across Cuba were unprecedented in their scale and in the boldness of Cuban citizens to confront authorities and the repression that has plagued them for six decades. The sweep and scope of this weekend’s protests appear to mark a new and distinct era of broad citizen defiance and disaffection with the island’s 62-year old communist regime.
Across the country, colleges and universities are coming to grips with their racist histories by launching new education programs, creating research committees, removing Confederate iconography, and considering reparations. The University of Virginia was established by Thomas Jefferson, the third American president, who was an enslaver. In 2014, UVA founded the Universities Studying Slavery consortium as part of its commitment to confronting racial injustice.
Food insecurity is a big concern in Charlottesville, especially as the area begins to recover from the pandemic. UVA Health is opening a food pantry in the Battle Building where it will provide fresh produce to families who are without enough food.