This week, The Atlantic’s Julie Beck talks with Kappa Delta sorority sisters who attended the University of Virginia in the ’70 and ’80s. They’ve stayed close over the 40 years since graduation by hosting regular dinner parties – and they recently turned some of their favorite recipes into a cookbook. They discuss how the fun of ’70s Greek life morphed into a lifelong support network, and how they make time for play and friendship.
Did you know that the rate of infidelity in American marriage has not increased in 20 years, even though attitudes toward adultery have loosened in the past 40? More facts, in addition to tips for success, are included in the UVA National Marriage Project’s annual report.
Susan Ciufo-Bennett, who led Temple field hockey to 15 wins over her two seasons at the helm of the program, has resigned her position due to mental health and family reasons effective immediately. Michelle Vittese, a three-time All-American at UVA who has served as Ciufo-Bennett’s top assistant the past two seasons, has been elevated to interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
The Korean-American diplomat Julie Chung said goodbye this Tuesday to her position as Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. Her place will now be occupied by the Honduran Ricardo Zúñiga. Zúñiga is the son of a Honduran father and an American mother, his family has always been linked to the political class. He was born in the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, and has a degree in international relations from the University of Virginia.
U.S. President Joe Biden has nominated diplomat Mark Brzezinski to serve as his ambassador to Poland, the White House has announced. Brzezinski received a B.A. from Dartmouth College, a J.D. from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University.
The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library will hold a virtual presentation focusing on managing stress and mental health during the pandemic. Dr. Bethany Teachman, a UVA professor of psychology, will speak on Aug. 10 at 6:30 p.m. for “It Has Been a Tough 17 Months: Managing Stress and Mental Health in a Pandemic.”
(Commentary) Scholar David Walsh, who has studied the history of the American right at the University of Virginia, told Beauchamp, “For most parts of the right, there was this idea that you could still redeem the country – that you could reverse these long-term trends by political organizing, electing conservatives to political office, etc. Today, there is this move away from even the trappings of the American democratic tradition – and I think that is linked to the broader sense that this country can no longer be redeemed.”
“I can see this in maybe a Republican mailer or two, but I don’t think it’s gonna be an overarching issue for the 2020 campaign for Congress,” said J. Miles Coleman, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.
“Cori Bush had to have some impact,” said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at UVA’s Miller Center. “The president and his staff had to wake up every morning thinking about how they were going to placate the left wing of the party. I think that any time the progressive wing pushes back, they take note of it in the White House.”
Jonathan Colmer, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia, said on Twitter that Van Hollen’s bill is “not a mitigation tool,” but “it will help to pay for the investments needed to manage the effects of climate change.”
Melvyn Leffler, professor of history emeritus at the University of Virginia, explains that there are very clear differences in our current rivalry with China. He points out that the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union was clearly a phenomenon that stemmed from a desire to go to war but no will to follow through. Both sides competed for strategic assets around the world and even engaged in proxy wars to stem the spread of Communism or Capitalism respectively. Both sides wished to erase the other’s way of life and the only thing stopping an actual conflict was war exhaustion ...
Local health leaders hope to see vaccine approval for all children later this year, but until then encourage everyone who can get the shot to do their part. “You know because there’s an entire population of people 11 years old and younger who aren’t even eligible for the vaccine yet, so they don’t, they don’t have the choice to have that protection,” University of Virginia pharmacist Justin Vesser said.
As of now, the latest data shows that the Delta variant is causing the recent increase in cases and deaths. UVA Health pharmacist Justin Vesser said the only way out of the pandemic is by rolling up sleeves and working together, even if people are following CDC guidelines.
With many people still hesitant about getting their COVID-19 vaccine, even with the delta variant surging across the country, health experts like Justin Vesser, a manager of ambulatory pharmacy services with UVA Health, says to get it as soon as possible. “[The delta variant] makes you sicker, it makes you more contagious,” Vesser said. “Delta is so virulent and it multiplies so fast that even a fully vaccinated person can have pockets of it in your nasal cavity. You can actually have enough in your bloodstream so you can actually shed enough to cause another person to be infected. That’s real...
Bob Pianta will step down as dean of the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development at the end of the 2021-22 academic year.
Nurses at the University of Virginia Medical Center are making sure their colleagues have a chance to take a mental break during their day. Nancy Farish, Jane Muir and Jeanell Webb-Jones created a toolbox for their colleagues. Each box contains noise-cancelling headphones, virtual reality goggles, and guides to make typical tasks more reflective and thoughtful.
A Q&A with Dr. Maria Luisa S. Sequeira Lopez, Harrison Distinguished Professor in Pediatrics and Biology.
The Milky Way has enjoyed a relatively quiet history in recent eons, but newcomers continue to stream in. Stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere can spot with the naked eye a pair of dwarf galaxies called the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Astronomers long believed the pair to be our steadfast orbiting companions, like moons of the Milky Way. Then a series of Hubble Space Telescope observations between 2006 and 2013 found that they were more like incoming meteorites. Nitya Kallivayalil, an astronomer at the University of Virginia, clocked the clouds as coming in hot at about 330 kilometers ...
Many educators hope to use dialogue to help students bridge differences, especially moral and political ones. How can they best achieve these goals, especially for students who bring strong religious commitments into the classroom? Recent research by Rachel Wahl, a UVA associate professor of education, provides valuable insights into the challenges and surprising successes of dialogue across differences – religious and otherwise – in a higher-education context.
(Podcast) Darryl Brown, a professor at the UVA School of Law, discusses bail, a part of the criminal justice system where deals are often made behind closed doors and which critics say favors the rich.