For decades, Americans have been in love with the automobile — or so the saying goes. This single idea has been a central premise of transportation policy, pop culture and national history for 50 years. It animates how we think about designing the world around us, and how we talk about dissidents in our midst who dislike cars. But is it accurate? “This ‘love affair’ thesis is like the ultimate story,” said Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia, who warns that we need to revisit how we came to believe this line before we embrace its logical conclu...
The country is going through the most significant period of change since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Across the United States, we are seeing a convergence of economic, technological and demographic forces that is transforming every aspect of our lives. The University of Virginia historian Philip Zelikow has observed that “for only the third time since the founding of the United States we are in the early or transition phase of a new era in American and global history.” He goes on to say that “from the narrower point of view of economic and social history, howe...
Some students living on the University of Virginia Lawn are covering their doors in black tablecloths to show support for their classmate Martese Johnson.Twenty-year-old Johnson's arrest March 18 outside Trinity Irish Pub on the UVA Corner has drawn wide attention because images of him with a bloody face spread quickly on social media.
(By Lisa Russ Spaar, a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Virginia) Eight deer of various sizes are grazing the winter azaleas and fringe of monkey grass just outside the front window. Several young ruminants are right up next to the house, tugging at a tattered rhododendron, occasionally bumping the window screen. Although the dog is flipping out in the hallway below, barking sharply, indignantly, the herd is unfazed.
A team of researchers, including a professor from the University of Virginia, has found that adopted people who were raised by highly educated parents were more likely to develop higher cognitive ability than their siblings who were not put up for adoption.
Sanctimony is hazardous activity, the sort of which leaves faces spattered in yolk. Rolling Stone has discovered this and continues to receive reminders afresh. Charlottesville police provided one last week, releasing detailed findings of an investigation that proved what the world knew and Rolling Stone acknowledged in December: The magazine’s wild Nov. 19 tale of a University of Virginia student raped in 2012 by seven men at a fraternity house was rubbish. Now, at the magazine’s request, the Columbia Journalism School has produced a critique sure to be scathing.
A group of students studying transportation and land use at the University of Virginia has developed a survey to measure the support of a bike share program outside of the University coined "Bike Share-lottesville”.
Henry Muhlbauer may be only 12-years-old, but already he's taking on a full 15-credit course load at the University of Virginia. He plans to graduate as early as 2017 at the age of 14 with braces and a bowtie. The son of an electrical engineer in the U.S. Air Force, Muhlbauer is following in his father's footsteps – he has declared his major in electrical engineering with minors in physics and applied math. But while a kid genius, Muhlbauer's not planning on setting any records just because his mind can whiz through academia. He simply wants to graduate once he'...
About 130 special agents are tasked with enforcing Virginia’s alcohol laws, but they are also given the legal authority to address any crime in the commonwealth. In the wake of the violent arrest of a black University of Virginia student celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this month, lawmakers and school officials are questioning the department’s law enforcement power and judgment.
Two Southwest Virginia students at The University of Virginia in Charlottesville will be among 36 undergraduates selected to pursue 36 grant funded research projects this summer. Tyler Robbins, 20, of Keokee, a third year cognitive science and statistics double major, is researching how birds learn to recognize songs and potential applications to computer models for brain systems.Ty Vanover, 21, of Clintwood, a third year art history major, will research nationalistic art in Budapest created by students who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna during the latter half of the 19th century.
New MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is predictably making plenty of headlines in the early days of his tenure and on a variety of issues, such as pace of play and expanded instant replay. Behind the scenes, Chris Marinak is playing a key role in making those and many other initiatives happen. A former pitcher at the University of Virginia and with degrees in computer engineering and business administration, Marinak is among a select group of MLB staffers who regularly interact with both on-field personnel and club owners, and he’s been widely praised for his ability to communicate with both...
Last week, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana signed into law the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Almost immediately, an uproar ensued, claiming that the law was discriminatory — that it provided a license for businesses to discriminate against gay and lesbian customers. University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock, an expert in free-exercise law, stated the issue well: “The hysteria over this law is so unjustified. It’s not about discriminating against gays in general or across the board. It’s about not being involved in a ceremony that you b...
A group of thirty students from the University of Virginia were among the first Americans to visit Cuba after President Obama announced plans to normalize relations with the island nation. The group from UVA’s Darden School of Business made some surprising discoveries. Professor Greg Fairchild has been to plenty of Third World countries, and arriving at their airports can produce culture shock. “Something I was accustomed to and prepared for is we would land, and they would know we were Americans, and we’d be swarmed with an effort to get money or deliver us or something.&nbs...
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence decried an "avalanche of intolerance" directed at his state Sunday after he signed a law that he says protects the religious freedom of Hoosiers. Critics, however, say it is Pence and Republican lawmakers who are promoting intolerance, with civil rights advocates and business leaders of Apple and Indiana-based organizations such as the NCAA and Angie’s List wary of the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act opening the door for discrimination against gays and lesbians based on religious belief. Further, all three laws contain the "...
Dr. Lynn Sanders, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, told CBS News ahead of the 2000 election that expressing the right to vote improves mental and physical health. In a study she conducted, she found voting eased stress and the other mental health problems that stemmed from economic, political, and social disadvantages. What’s more is that voting and being engaged in the political process can also reduce the risk of future mental health problems, mainly among those with a history of depression. That’s not to say casting a vote automatically lowers canc...
(By Christopher J. Scalia, an associate professor of English at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise)Dismissing the liberal arts seems to have become a litmus test for conservative politicians. This is an unfortunate trend. Conservatives should be among the strongest defenders of the liberal arts, for at least two reasons: one economic, the other philosophical and political.
A Virginia lab could be on the verge of a breakthrough in cancer treatment. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine say they are closing in on a new way to target leukemia cells that could be more effective and less toxic for patients than therapies currently in use. “In order to get away from that class of drugs, we need to develop drugs that very specifically target the proteins that are causative of the disease,” says John Bushweller, the U.Va. professor who is leading the research team.
From examining the genes in the monkey flower, to exploring the Rev. Martin Luther King’s political, social and theological beliefs, to epilepsy therapies, to sustainable tourism, 38 University of Virginia undergraduates will pursue 36 grant-funded research projects this summer. Thirty-five of the proposals received Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards and another student has had his research underwritten by the Stull family of Dallas. This marks the 16th year of the program, which helps further a key component of the U.Va. student experience: hands-on research.
The disparity between the percentage of women students at American colleges and universities and the percentage of women in senior leadership roles at these institutions has been noted many times in recent years. Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia, today's UVa-Wise, was a two-year institution from its start in 1954 until 1976. Its original mission was to serve first-generation students in rural Southwest Virginia, and while the four-year campus -- led today by a woman Chancellor -- has grown to enroll over 2000 students, the focus on this historically underserved popu...
(By George Martin, the University of Virginia’s rector, and President Teresa Sullivan) We are pleased to announce the University of Virginia’s new Affordable Excellence program, which will offer many benefits to Virginia residents who attend U.Va.Affordable Excellence provides a sustainable model for addressing strategic investments in the quality of the U.Va. educational experience, continuing to offer more enrollment opportunities for in-state students at below-cost tuition rates, and reducing the student loan debt burden on low- and middle-income Virginia families.