Recent studies by Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research found that an estimated 20 percent of graduating seniors from urban school districts in places such as greater Boston, suburban Atlanta, Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, abandon their plans to attend college over the summer. Among prospective community college students, the summer melt rate increases to about 40 percent, said former Harvard researcher Ben Castleman, now an assistant professor of education and public policy at the University of Virginia. A lack of financial aid is to blame in about half of those case...
In January, a task force with participants from Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, the Virginia Department of Health and others, published a report about food deserts in the commonwealth. It provides factors about food access for cities and counties across the state, with a focus on eight localities, including Hampton.The study relied on U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Census data and considered factors, such as the number of grocery stores, individuals who receive food assistance and access to public transit.According to the report, Hampton is above the national and stat...
The new biography, “Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” from University of Virginia religious studies professor Charles Marsh, implies that Bonhoeffer may have had a same-sex attraction to his student, friend and later biographer Eberhard Bethge.
A new pop-up salon is opening Wednesday evening in the University of Virginia’s Helms Theatre. And instead of taking a little off the sides, it may make them split. “Shear Madness,” the latest show in Heritage Theatre Festival’s 40th-anniversary season, gives audience members the chance to help solve a hilarious whodunit.
By Philip D. Zelikow, a dean and professor of history at the University of Virginia, who was the counselor of the State Department from 2005 to 2006 and the executive director of the 9/11 commission.Across the Muslim world, this is an age of revolution beyond the experience of any official now living. Hundreds of thousands have died; millions more flee their homes. Now, the crisis in Iraq and Syria threatens to perpetuate chaos between Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities throughout the Middle East.
By Nelson Tebbe and U.Va. law professors Micah Schwartzman and Richard SchraggerFor the first time, the court has interpreted a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (or RFRA), as affording more protection for religion than has ever been provided under the First Amendment. While some have read Hobby Lobby as a narrow statutory ruling, it is much more than that. The court has eviscerated decades of case law and, having done that, invites a new generation of challenges to federal laws, including those designed to protect civil rights.
By Nelson Tebbe and U.Va. law professors Micah Schwartzman and Richard Schragger
The explosion of makerspaces is a response to a growing sense of disconnection from the physical world, suggests Matthew Crawford, author of “Shop Class as Soulcraft” and fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
“How do you create cities that profoundly foster that connection with the outdoors?” asks Tim Beatley, a professor of urban and environmental planning in the school of architecture at the University of Virginia, who has written several books on the subject. “How do you create the sense of living in a garden and a forest?”
"The Federal Circuit is a grand experiment, and you rarely get experiments exactly right on the first shot," said John Duffy, a patent expert and law professor at the University of Virginia. "Thirty-plus years later, it's time to move to version 2.0."
Despite the hoopla, don't expect a slew of businesses to try to carve out health care changes for religious reasons as a result of last week's Supreme Court decision, many legal experts say. "I don't think much is going to happen," said Douglas Laycock, a professor of law and religious studies at the University of Virginia. "The religious side is treating this as a much bigger victory than it was, and the secular left is going crazy and treating it as a much bigger loss than it was."
Of the 275 House primaries featuring incumbents in the current election cycle, 273 incumbents held onto their jobs, according to Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center on Politics.
Among analysts, the race for the Connecticut's governor's seat is considered one to watch, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. And where a seat is in play, money often follows.
Health care law Professor Margaret Foster Riley at the University of Virginia agrees. And she says Johnson's assertion that he is being forced to participate in something illegal may not hold up. "Just because he thinks something is illegal, that doesn't give you standing; that doesn't give you an injury in fact," she said. "And the substance of this case is frankly somewhat bizarre."
“Most of the administrative appointments of legislators are a corollary of the old Jacksonian principle of ‘to the victors go the spoils,’ ” said Larry J. Sabato, professor and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.