(Commentary co-written by Michelle D. Young, a UVA professor of educational leadership and policy) Texas continues to lag nationally when it comes to educating our children, especially in reading. Only 28 percent of Texas eighth-graders met the National Assessment of Education Progress proficient standard in 2017, and only 71 percent met the basic standard. This is lower than the national average of 35 percent of students meeting the proficient standard and 75 percent meeting the basic requirement. Texas State Assessments of Academic Readiness data confirms NAEP’s findings. A whopping 20,...
Reach deep into your wallet or purse and consider what you find. Some gum, a cough drop, maybe a few loose cents. That won’t cover a bill that is about to come due. That’s because state officials underestimated the amount it will cost Virginians to run Medicaid this year by $202 million. One-time expenses also played their part, including delayed payments totaling $26 million to the UVA Health System and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters and a billing dispute with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services overcharges from two state geriatric hospitals. Total cost: $58 mi...
“Stars are powered by nuclear reactions that create new chemical elements,” said Thomas Bisbas, a UVA postdoctoral researcher and the lead author on the paper describing these new results. “The very existence of life on Earth is the product of a star that exploded billions of years ago, but we still don’t know how these stars — including our own sun — form.”
A team of U.S. computer scientists is receiving a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to make machine learning more secure. The grant establishes the Center for Trustworthy Machine Learning, which is a consortium of U.S. universities. Researchers will work together toward two goals: understanding the risks inherent to machine learning, and developing the tools, metrics, and methods to manage and mitigate these risks. The grant will be led by researchers at Pennsylvania State University; Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California...
The loss of seasonal job opportunities, which might be the first job for many, can have negative effects later on. Research from economists Christopher Ruhm and Charles Baum from University of Virginia and Middle Tennessee State University found that teenagers who had prior part-time job experience have roughly 7 percent higher earnings later on in life compared to their peers who lacked early work exposure.
Last month, I read about 200 pages of proposals for turnaround consulting services for our low-performing schools. When I completed the review, I mentioned to my colleagues that I could summarize the various vendor proposals in one sentence: “We’ve been turning around the same schools for the past 40 years.” This sentence incorporates a degree of humor; however, two UVA professors released a study that seems to indicate that my statement is not too far from the truth.
Past partnerships include one with the University of Virginia to use text messages to make the financial aid system more transparent for students. The initiative targeted what educators call the “summer melt,” which refers to students—often from poor families or who would be first-generation college students—who get into college, but fail to show up in the fall. Experts attribute the falloff to the complexity of forms and information students need to apply for financial aid, secure housing and enroll in classes. Through texts and offers to connect prospective students with counselors to guide ...
It's true that the modification the Chinese scientist made to the embryos "will prevent HIV infection," said Mazhar Adli, a geneticist at the UVA School of Medicine. The problem is that the deleted gene, called CCR5, "has many more functions than just aiding HIV infection," Adli said – including helping white blood cells function properly.
On a bright Thursday morning in early October, about 25 UVA undergraduate students slide into an untidy crescent of desks in a basement classroom of Old Cabell Hall. A piano and a few dozen music stands are pushed against the walls – all A.D. Carson needs to teach his Writing Rap class is his students, a device to play music (today, it’s his phone), and some speakers.
While this list is not comprehensive, here are 75 colleges (in alphabetical order) that offer free tuition, reduced tuition or "no student loans" financial aid policies for undergraduates. No. 66 on the list is the University of Virginia.
Random Row Brewing Company was filled with a lot of cheering Friday night as the University of Virginia football team put up a fight against Virginia Tech, but in the end, UVA fans like Mark Guzman and Bob Thiele had to come to come to terms with a loss.
The congresswoman-elect for Virginia’s 7th District has named Roscoe Jones Jr. as her chief of staff. Jones is currently legislative director for Sen. Diane Feinstein of California. When Democrat Abigail Spanberger takes office in January, Jones will lead her office, according to a news release announcing Spanberger’s first official hire. Jones is a Texas native who graduated from Stanford University and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia.
The U.S. population is growing older, and we're facing a shortage of primary-care doctors. Pharmacists could be key in helping patients and their doctors stay on the same page. There are a growing number of pharmacists in the U.S., though many work in hospitals, not retail stores. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 312,500 pharmacists in the US in 2016, a number that's projected to grow to 329,900 by 2026. "I think remunerating pharmacists for helping to manage care is a great idea," Carolyn Long Engelhard, a public-health expert and professor at the UVA School of Medicine...
A record number of prospective college students applied early to the University of Virginia, the school said. The deadline for early action applications was Nov. 1. According to the school, 24,950 students applied, a 16 percent increase from the previous year. The number of minority students and the average SAT score of students also increased.
Six new solar projects could be coming to far southwestern Virginia. It’s part of a push to diversify the economy in the region known as Virginia’s coal country. Final negotiations are underway for Richmond-based solar installation company NCI to lead up to six solar electricity projects to be built at a variety of sites there; the Wetlands Estonoa Learning Center and the University of Virginia-Wise Oxbow Center, both in the town of St. Paul in Wise County; the Lonesome Pine Industrial Center in the town of Wise; Norton Green Apartments in the city of Norton; Central High School in Wise C...
The UVA Health System is offering a new treatment for varicose veins that is much easier on patients and offers a much faster recovery time.
Dr. Justin Mutter, a UVA assistant professor of family medicine, is one of only about 5,000 primary care providers in the United States who conduct regular house calls to homebound patients.
UVA, Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville all have pledged support for a program aimed at accelerating the growth of local startups.
Some of the proposed changes would make less of a difference, except on rare occasions. Still, that choice could present interesting challenges for institutions like the University of Virginia, which uses the highest standard in the law — "beyond a reasonable doubt" — to adjudicate cases under its vaunted honor code. That’s because the new rules would also require colleges to use the same standard for all conduct violations that carry the same sanction.
UVA sociologist Tristan Bridges has written about the “myth” of the bachelor pad (made up by Playboy to sell ads!) and is working on a book about the phenomenon of man caves. “Sometimes, to sell people something that they don’t actually want or need or have any context to value, one thing that behavioral economists will do is provide context to people to make sense of it, so they can justify spending more than they would imagine,” he said.