The Building Goodness Foundation hosted a continental breakfast in honor of International Women’s Day at CitySpace early Friday. Guest speaker Danielle Hopkins, founder of Inclusive Finance Consulting and a lecturer at UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, spoke about her work with women in developing countries.
As Liberation and Freedom Days winds down, and with the future of Confederate statues in Charlottesville and Albemarle County up in the air, one event is taking a look at the historical context behind the monuments. Jalane Schmidt, a professor of race and religion at the University of Virginia, regularly leads walking tours of the city’s Confederate monuments with Andrea Douglas, the executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
Sanders lost the delegate lead as a result of Biden’s Super Tuesday romp last week. If the self-declared democratic socialist doesn’t reclaim his momentum in Michigan, his campaign might not be able to catch up, analysts say. "I would say the onus is clearly on Sanders," said Larry Sabato of the UVA Center for Politics. "He’s got to win Michigan. If he does not win Michigan again, no matter how close it may be, his candidacy goes into the long fade."
Jennifer Lawless, who studies women in politics at the University of Virginia, cited research indicating that some voters have a baseline gender preference. Lawless said women, to the extent that they are stereotyped as more cooperative and empathetic, might see a boost in judicial races from voters who want judges with those qualities. And the “electability” concerns that seem to doom women competing, for example, for president, come into play less in races voters view as lower stakes.
Sanders’ rise struck fear in the Democratic establishment, which worried about the down-ballot impact of a contender who embraces some tenets of the socialist agenda, even if some of the senator’s plans are popular, like universal health care and free education. That worry has ebbed to some degree as Biden surged after Super Tuesday and now leads in the delegate count toward the nomination. “That sound you hear from coast to coast is the exhaling of Democratic Party moderates,” said Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics.
If President Donald Trump wins re-election, Democrats would need to net a fourth seat because the vice president’s party would break a 50-50 tie. “Democrats will need to win the bulk of competitive races, but the seats are there,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia.
There hasn’t been a poll conducted of Ohio voters since last fall, long enough ago that the results page feels like a historical artifact. Emerson reported that 1% of Ohioans supported candidates John Delaney and Steve Bullock? And just who is Joe Sestak and Wayne Messam? “We’re flying a little bit blind right now,” said Kyle Kondik, an Ohio native who works for UVA’s Center for Politics. “There’s not really much fresh polling.”
The 26th iteration of the festival is set to kick off in Charlottesville on March 18. Right now, organizers say they still plan to hold the festival. The festival is developing “parallel” plans for various situations alongside UVA’s Emergency Management Department.
A University of Virginia Board of Visitors committee on Thursday approved the next step for a new residence hall on Brandon Avenue. The dorm, with an estimated $114 million budget, will provide about 350 beds for upper-class students, a dining hall, gathering spaces and about 100 parking spaces, according to a schematic design.
The city will meet weekly with partners at the Virginia Department of Health's Thomas Jefferson Health District, Albemarle County and UVA to prepare for COVID-19 if a case comes to Virginia. Additional and more frequent planning and coordination meetings will occur if needed.
Meredith Strohm Gunter of UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service warned Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in a January memo that data on the sub-state level “will be sacrificed” for privacy, which could lead to “misallocation of funds, poor capacity for planning … and a competitive disadvantage in economic and workforce development.”
First-generation college students at UVA’s Batten School for Public Policy spent Saturday getting the next generation prepared for higher education, teaming with Charlottesville High School for a day of service.
“In the current political environment, it looks tone deaf to have an all-white, all-male ticket,” said UVA professor Jennifer Lawless, an expert on women in politics. “There’s no question that the notion of a female V.P. is used as a strategy, and I think that’s a little bit sexist. It’s sort of like an ‘insert woman here’ kind of conversation.”
John Merchant, the first black person to be elected to the USGA’s executive committee and a former unpaid counsel to Tiger Woods, died Thursday at age 87 after a long illness, his daughter, Susan, said. Merchant was the first black graduate of the UVA School of Law, arriving on campus in 1955, one year after Brown vs. Board of Education.
Despite no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Virginia or the Charlottesville area, UVA is taking precautions in case the illness makes its way to the area. Officials at UVA Health and UVA Student Health have put clinical screening protocols in place to identify at-risk patients.
A more-than-14,000-square-foot office building on Ivy Road will be demolished ahead of redevelopment of the Ivy corridor and will pave way for a proposed hotel and conference center. The item passed the consent agenda of the Buildings and Grounds Committee during Thursday’s UVA Board of Visitors meeting.
Two women who ran for the U.S. presidency in 2016 are headlining an annual summit and festival in Charlottesville. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who ran as a Republican candidate, will speak at the ninth annual Tom Tom Summit & Festival on April 14 at the Paramount Theater.
UVA’s Brandon Avenue upper-class residence hall project has entered the second phase of development. The schematic design of the project’s second phase received approval Thursday from the Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee.
Charlottesville is preparing for a potential outbreak of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, in the commonwealth. While no cases have been confirmed in Virginia, the city says it will be meeting weekly with partners at the Virginia Department of Health's Thomas Jefferson Health District, Albemarle County, and the University of Virginia to ensure preparedness.
Staley set several records as a member of the University of Virginia Cavaliers while earning a degree in rhetoric and communication studies. During her four years with the team, UVA made four NCAA tournament appearances, three Final Four appearances, and one appearance in the national championship. She graduated in 1992 as UVA’s all-time leading scorer (2,135 points), the ACC’s all-time leader in assists (729), and the NCAA all-time leader in steals (454). A two-time National Player of the Year, she also won Most Outstanding Player of the 1991 NCAA Final Four.