Early adulthood holds many of life’s achievements — the start of a career, the keys to a new home, the first sparks of romance. For [UVA alumnus] Lloyd F. Stamy Jr., those milestones are long behind him, but the Fox Chapel novelist is nowhere close to resting on his laurels. Stamy, who retired after decades in the institutional investment industry, has published a series of semi-autobiographical novels that touch largely on the passage of time. His latest book, “Strangers No More” (Word Association Publishers, $17.95), explores the way relationships ebb and flow across the course of a lifetime...
Review: In ‘Strangers No More,’ Fox Chapel author’s life blurs with tales of international espionage
(Commentary) Long before she became an urban planner, Ebony Walden saw color-coded differences written into the landscape. As an 8-year-old traveling from her working-class Black and Latino community in Hempstead, N.Y., to whiter, more affluent spaces on Long Island, the future UVA alumna noticed that the homes were larger; the schools and shopping, better; the liquor stores, fewer. Years later, after moving to Richmond, she observed similar disparities but felt empowered to do something about it. The result is Richmond Racial Equity Essays, a multimedia project to create a Richmond “absent of...
(Co-written by Emily Oksen and Kristin O’Donoghue, students at the University of Virginia and interns with the High Atlas Foundation) All individuals and people who share a common identity have a right to be remembered, to protect and preserve their cultural heritage, and to have autonomy over the safeguarding of their collective experience, cultural artifacts, oral and written history.
The Center for Civic Innovation has announced its 2021 Fellowships, recognizing 13 community leaders. According to a release, these leaders address various issues in Charlottesville, such as poverty, equality, access to services and environmental issues. This is the second year CCI has announced fellowships for individuals or teams, aiming to encourage them to create change in their communities.This year’s Fellows include a team of University of Virginia students: Marissa Harris-Turner, Anson Parker, Allison Weiderhold, Michelle Miles, Taylor Frome and BJ Pendleton.
A University of Virginia fourth year student started a program that is making a difference for many. When Chris Obolensky started his journey on Grounds, he noticed public speaking skills were an expectation. He says there were only a few ways to nurture those skills built into the curriculum, especially for underclassmen. This led him to begin the UVA Speaking Center.
If anyone is sceptical about this, watch the Netflix documentary “Surviving Death.” The sixth episode, titled “Reincarnation,” features the research of Professor Jim B. Tucker, director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia.
(Commentary) “Death is the most tangible and most painful of losses. In our reactions to death, we unwittingly coexist with the remnants of our deconstructed, imposed or rushed divisions in our past in our subconscious. Mourning is not just a response to death. Mourning is the psychological response we give to any subduction or change and the compromises we make so that we can adapt between our inner world and reality,” says Dr. Vamik Volkan, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia.
(Commentary) The trillion-dollar infrastructure bill passed by the Senate and now pending in the House that has an overreaching definition of ‘broker’ also contains an overlooked “digital assets” provision. If this bill becomes law, that would be a disaster, said Abraham Sutherland, an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and an adviser to the Proof of Stake Alliance.
The constant flow of email, and expectations around responsiveness to emails, is a large distraction in my daily life. Several strategies I use to combat the distraction include: devoting specific times to email (and not first thing in the morning), blocking specific working times where email is closed and setting boundaries for answering emails past certain hours in the evening. - Ashley Williams, University of Virginia Darden School of Business
Both GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin and former democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe claimed victory after the debate, but Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics, says the answer is simple. “You don’t call a winner unless there was a big goof on one side or the other and there wasn’t,” he added.
Today’s urban-rural divide is decades in the making, the result of New Deal infrastructure projects, interstate highways, and government programs that attracted jobs to metro areas in the Mountain West and South, according to Guian McKee, associate professor in Presidential Studies at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.
(Subscription may be required) At the same time, he cut a cosmopolitan figure in world capitals. “He was young, very fashionably dressed, with boots, and he would typically smoke a large cigar,” said William B. Quandt, a professor emeritus of politics at the University of Virginia who was on the National Security Council under presidents Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
(Subscription may be required) Sylla, unconvinced, was planning to sign up for another test date when Jessie arranged a Zoom chat with Jeannine C. Lalonde, associate dean of admission at UVA. Sylla peppered her with skeptical questions, saying she was sure the university would punish applicants without scores. Lalonde acknowledged her concerns. Then she explained that applying without a score wouldn’t put her at a disadvantage. She walked Sylla through UVA’s review process, describing how admissions officers emphasize an applicant’s transcript, the courses taken and the grades earned, far more...
(Commentary) Emerson Stevens owes his freedom to the efforts of two attorneys affiliated with the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia Law School, Deidre Enright and Jennifer Givens. Enright first started on the case in 2009. In addition to preparing and filing the numerous briefs, they, especially Enright, spent countless hours investigating the case and digging up the new evidence needed to prove his innocence.
mRNA vaccines’ positive safety profile is based on millions of deployed doses and experience shows it can induce an immune response that leads to protection from symptomatic disease, University of Virginia professor of pediatrics Dr Steven Zeichner added.
Seventeen medical professionals sued the state over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, citing religious objections related to abortion. Their attorney, Thomas More Society Special Counsel Christopher Ferrara, argues the mandate violates federal law. But Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, says the government can make a case against religious exemptions for an infectious disease.
Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia Law School states that “no major organized religious group has officially discouraged the [COVID] vaccine and many, like the Catholic Church, have explicitly encouraged them.”
(Commentary co-written by Corey Feist, co-founder of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation and Chief Executive Officer of the University of Virginia Physicians Group) Dr. Breen’s tragic death has shone a light on another epidemic that has long been in the making: The enormous mental and emotional burden placed on America’s physicians. Doctors in the U.S. die by suicide at twice the rate of the general population, with one, on average, losing their life every day. And countless more are suffering in silence.
(Co-written by Kevin Driscoll, assistant professor of media studies) Why is racial inequality perceivably so resistant to transformation? Some say it is because of a failure to acknowledge and confront white privilege.
(Commentary by Douglas Laycock, law professor) For Americans wary of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, like the sweeping requirements President Joe Biden announced Sept. 9, it seems there are plenty of leaders offering ways to get exemptions — especially religious ones. No major organized religious group has officially discouraged the vaccine, and many, like the Catholic Church, have explicitly encouraged them. Yet pastors from New York to California have offered letters to help their parishioners — or sometimes anyone who asks — avoid the shots.