U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), who have worked together to sponsor wide-ranging legislation, spoke Thursday morning during the Democracy Dialogues event. Thursday's event was titled "Democracy Dialogues: Self-government in the age of disunion" and included an introduction from University of Virginia President Jim Ryan.
Two U.S. senators from across the political aisle are discussing issues of polarization and the importance of bipartisanship. Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Shelley Moore Capito took part in the UVA Miller Center’s second Democracy Dialogues event Thursday. Both senators stressed the importance of working together to get things done on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Other employers are already offering a $15 an hour minimum wage in Virginia, such as the University of Virginia and Sentara Healthcare. On Jan. 1, 2020, UVA raised its minimum wage to $15 for University employees and most full-time contractors, covering approximately 96% of its 28,000 employees. The University estimated the increase cost roughly $4 million. The University froze hiring in April 2020 due to the pandemic, and its number of employees has remained relatively flat over the past year. “UVA was able to follow through on our commitment to the living wage of $15 per hour, so that was fu...
The University of Virginia held an online community event Thursday evening to kick off its effort to address affordable housing. The goal is to support the development of between 1,000 to 1,500 affordable housing units in and around Charlottesville over the next 10 years. The plan is to build those units using land that is owned by UVA or the UVA Foundation.
With a portfolio of property, University of Virginia officials have joined area agencies and governments looking to provide affordable housing to residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. University officials are hoping to help housing advocates in any way they can and said they will spend the next few months finding out exactly how that may be.
One of those who paved the way for Amanda Gorman and so many other emerging poets is Rita Dove, who in 1993 became, at age 40, the youngest U.S. Poet Laureate and the first Black poet to hold that position. This August, Dove, who also teaches poetry at UVA, will publish a new collection, “Playlist for the Apocalypse.”
According to the calendar, the UVA men’s lacrosse team had hosted Army a little more than two weeks before Mike Szlamowicz was interviewed for this article. For Szlamowicz, it felt more like over a year. The discrepancy makes sense when you realize the extra workload Szlamowicz – the director of video service, live events and ACC Network at UVA – and his team are tasked with in 2021. The extreme has become routine.
Terrell Jana was a freshman at UVA taking part in what felt like the longest scrimmage of his life. It was Aug. 10, 2017, and while the West Vancouver, British Columbia, receiver had spent the past two years in Virginia finishing off his high school career, he was about to see a side of his new home that he couldn’t have fully anticipated.
For decades, [UVA alumna] Kathryn Peace D’Angelo and Valerie I. Harrison engaged in conversations about race and racism. However, when D’Angelo and her husband, who are white, adopted Gabriel, a biracial child, her conversations with Harrison, who is black, were no longer theoretical and academic. The stakes grew from the two friends trying to understand each other’s perspectives to a mother navigating, with input from her friend, how to equip a child with the tools that will best serve him as he grows up in a white family. These friendly dialogues about guarding a child’s confidence and nurtu...
In 1920, astronomers Harlow Shapley and [UVA alumnus] Heber Curtis came together to take part in the Great Debate about the scale of the Universe. But what ultimately, was astronomy’s Great Debate about, and how did it change the way we look at the Universe?
After Jacqueline Novogratz earned an economics degree from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Stanford University, it was hardly surprising that she would take up a career on Wall Street. Less expected was that she would leave that career path three years later, in 1986, to help launch Duterimbere, a microfinance institution in Rwanda.
“It’s very easy for adults to get caught up in their own jobs and funding and getting published. And Bob was really focused on what actually works for the kids who need the support the most,” said Bart Epstein, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Education who leads the nonprofit EdTech Evidence Exchange.
There is a long legacy of anti-Asian racism in the U.S. that is often intertwined with misogyny, experts said. One of the earliest acts of anti-Asian sentiment was the 1871 Chinese massacre in Los Angeles that killed 19 Chinese immigrants, said Sylvia Chong, associate professor of American studies at the University of Virginia. The Page Act of 1875 denied Chinese women entry into the U.S. due to “lewd and immoral purposes” because “they were seen as a sort of a threat to immigration, but also, they were characterized as not being virtuous,” said Shilpa Davé, associate dean and assistant profes...
The irony, of course, is that it’s difficult for voters to push back against antidemocratic actions because Republicans have built-in advantages in so many legislatures. Minority rule “helps them maintain their hold on power, even as majorities oppose their policy position,” Jefferson said. But even if legislators were not insulated from backlash, UVA political scientist Anne Meng said there is not much evidence that politicians who drift into antidemocratic rhetoric or measures are punished electorally.
California’s current delegation is skewed toward Democrats, who hold 42 of the state’s 53 seats. That would make the Democrats more likely to be the party that loses a seat, Wang said. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote that the commission could look at underpopulated districts in Democratic-dominated Los Angeles County, for example.
“It could have been worse for the Democrats and even better for the Republicans,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics. “One of the biggest surprises yesterday was that Texas only gained two seats in Florida only gained one.”
There’s a hidden danger for Republicans if they overplay their hand in redrawing district lines, warns Kyle Kondik of UVA’s Center for Politics. “If they go too far — if they get too aggressive, they might draw maps that are good for them in 2022 but start to erode for them in 2024 and beyond,” Kondik said.
A growing body of evidence suggests that single doses lead to a weaker immune response, and may not provide as much protection against variants of the virus. Dr. Bill Petri, a UVA infectious disease specialist, said recently published research indicates that a single dose can still prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations. But it drops the effectiveness of the vaccines by as much as 25%, and isn’t as successful at preventing transmission of the virus.
On Wednesday, the Virginia Department of Health answered common questions about the vaccines and reviewed data to prove their safety and effectiveness. “Those who are fully vaccinated, so that means it's been at least two weeks from your second dose, were 90% less likely to get infected,” said Dr. Taison Bell, a UVA infectious disease expert.
“The Biden administration is taking a go-slow approach to many things of strong interest and concern for American Jews,” said James Loeffler, director of Jewish studies at the University of Virginia. “I think that that has frustrated Jewish progressives who want bigger, faster change. I think it’s also frustrated conservatives, who expected to see more telltale signs of radical change and were looking for ways to differentiate and say, ‘Oh, the Biden administration doesn’t take antisemitism seriously, or it doesn’t take Israel seriously.’ Centrist liberals are kind of calmed and content.”