(By Andrew D. Kaufman, lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literature) It is fitting that the Winter Olympics, one of the world's fiercest competitions, is taking place amid the breathtaking beauty of the Caucasus. For centuries, Russia's greatest writers have been inspired by this volatile region full not only of immense natural beauty, but of human misery. No matter how or why these writers came to the area, they found a land full of possibility and pain, rich in beauty, yet rife with violence: in short, a concentrated microcosm of the contradictions of life itself.
(Editorial;) But Kent B. Germany, history instructor at the University of Virginia asserts that, “In the end, the War on Poverty did not end poverty and did not retard the economic isolation of inner-city ghettos.” He says that “scholars see that the easy-to-reach poor were reached more often and benefited more fully than those considered the ‘hard-core’ poor.”
Olson also filed an injunction asking the judge to give the plaintiffs the “preliminary and immediate right” to marry until the U.S. Supreme Court decides the issue. A.E. Dick Howard, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, said he would be surprised if the judge issued the injunction because the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a similar measure in December after an appeal by the state of Utah. Bans on same-sex marriage were found unconstitutional in Utah and Oklahoma, but both are being appealed. “The stay raises the question whether those couples in Utah are now in a ki...
While noting that “since 1946, just 5 percent of incumbent senators seeking re-election have lost in their party primary,” Sabato’s Crystal Ball (issued by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics) said last week that Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., is likely to fend off tea party challenger Milton Wolf.
Beyond deciding whether Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hangs on to his seat, the upcoming Kentucky race for Senate is shaping up as key in determining which party controls the chamber for the final two years of Barack Obama’s presidency. If McConnell loses, “the Democrats narrowly hold the Senate,” predicted Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
University of Virginia’s Rob Cross and his colleagues show that positive energy is an especially contagious and crucial emotion for spreading excellence in social networks. … Cross and his colleagues found that successful and innovative organizations have networks that are swarming with interconnected energizers.
According to presenter Jennifer A. Harvey, M.D., FACR, professor of radiology at University of Virginia, dense breast tissue can be common among women, but not all occurrences of dense breast tissue link directly to a high risk for cancer. Rather, the elevated risk potentially can vary by age, race, geography and other factors such as eating and smoking habits. With assessment of breast density and the risk for breast cancer becoming an international area for study, it is important for all parties involved to understand the relationship between density and cancer, said Harvey.
A nonprofit group that promotes entrepreneurship in Charlottesville launched its new online publication Monday. HackCville is a so-called “clubhouse” for entrepreneurs and creators based in a space along the University of Virginia corner. Now the student group has created HackCville Media to showcase different sides of the community, including the music and art scene.
What happens to us after we die? The Immortality Project, a research project which studies this question and offers essay prizes to those who advance the themes of immortality through their work, recently awarded its third $3,000 award to Dr. Jesse Bering for his essay entitled “Life after death: The idea of life after death lives on in near-death experiences and messages from beyond the grave. What’s the evidence?” Bering’s study, which was published in the Nov. 13, 2013 issue of Aeon Magazine, deals with experimental attempts at finding evidence that Ian Stevenson, a ...
"A maiden Senate speech used to be important, a chance for all senators to size up a freshman," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Now, it’s good mainly for a talking point on the stump, a way for a senator to say, this issue really matters to me."
The University of Virginia has received a $4 million challenge grant to create a new scholarship program. The university announced the grant from alumnus John Griffin on Monday in a news release. The grant is conditional upon a match from other donors.
Larry Sabato, a political-science professor at the University of Virginia, thinks Portman is protecting his Senate seat. "Ohio's expensive," he said "and I think he is concerned about a serious primary challenge as well as a tough general election."
It usually turns more than a few heads when a top high school recruit commits to a struggling program. There are many reasons, including the school’s proximity to home, a relationship with a recruiter, the system the staff runs or maybe a new coach. Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia have not had a lot of success recently – absent from bowls the past two years and going a combined 9-27 last season – but enter Wednesday’s national Signing Day having landed some of the schools’ best recruiting classes ever.
David A. Martin, who served as principal deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security in the first two years of the administration, said the amount of flexibility Obama has would probably not satisfy most advocates. “One of the anti-deportation efforts is called, ‘Not one more,’ but it’s politically counterproductive; it’s not feasible,” said Martin, now a professor at the University of Virginia. “Not every deportation is unfeasible. Not every deportation breaks up a family.”
(Editorial) Let’s say that a teenager from California moves to Virginia with his family and graduates a year later from a local high school. Under Virginia law, he would be eligible for heavily subsidized in-state tuition rates as a freshman at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech or any other public college or university in the commonwealth. Now take a student of the same age brought to Virginia as a child by his undocumented parents. He graduates from elementary, middle and high school; his parents pay taxes; and, thanks to a dispensation granted by the federal government, he may ...
Loudoun County has joined Fairfax and Prince William counties as one of the three most populous in Virginia, according to an annual state population estimate released last week by University of Virginia researchers.
I talked with the Director for Applied Research of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a Washington-based advocacy organization, about the results of the groundbreaking study released Jan. 27 entitled "Is Kindergarten the New First Grade? The Changing Nature of Kindergarten in the Age of Accountability." The paper, authored by Daphna Bassok, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, and Anna Rorem, a policy associate at the university's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, is the first to offer evidence tha...
Poor and minority children are more likely to feel the impact of evolving kindergarten curricula than their peers from other groups, according to a national, evidence-based study showing that America's first formal year of school now is on par academically with 1st grades of 16 years ago. And that impact may or may not be a positive one, University of Virginia researchers wrote in the landmark paper "Is Kindergarten the New First Grade? The Changing Nature of Kindergarten in the Age of Accountability," which was published Jan. 27.
The days when kindergarten focused on playing and finger painting may be waning, as early-learning classrooms devote significantly more attention to preparing students to read, according to a new University of Virginia study.
New Dorp Beach resident Rose Russo, 89, never watched the Super Bowl before. But this year she will be tuned in, says the great-grandmother, who was more than happy on Friday when Huguenot resident Oday Aboushi, a New York Jets offensive lineman, helped rebuild her Hurricane Sandy damaged home.