In The News

UVA officials said Thursday that widespread noncompliance with campus health guidelines is driving an explosion of coronavirus cases at the school. 

“Gen Z has rejected the way religion has sought to shape their forms of gender and sexual identity and expression,” said Matthew Hedstrom, an associate professor at UVA who studies religion in the 19th and 20th centuries. “If the religion of my parents tells me there is a certain ‘right’ way to be a woman, or to be a sexual person, and I reject that one ‘right’ way, then I might very well also reject the religion that promoted it, and seek alternative religious, spiritual, or secular ways of being and belonging.”  

Doubling the pace of shots would require some logistical fancy footwork: arranging for vaccinators and sites, providing reservation systems both by phone and online, and programs to help people overcome vaccine hesitancy, among other things, said Vivian Riefberg, a professor of practice at UVA’s Darden School of Business and a senior adviser with McKinsey & Co. 

Fernando Tatís Jr. was 18 years old, just a low-level prospect from the Dominican Republic trying to work his way up in the San Diego Padres farm system, when he made a financial deal that would impact his entire baseball career. And it wasn’t with the Padres. Tatís signed a contract with Big League Advance, an unusual investment fund that pays minor-league players money up front in exchange for a share of their future MLB earnings. The company’s founder and CEO is UVA alumnus Michael Schwimer. 

Elisabeth Epps, who in 2018 established a revolving community bond fund for those Coloradans who are unable to pay cash bail, has received the University of Virginia School of Law’s award for public service. The Colorado Freedom Fund has raised in excess of $1.3 million and has paid bond for the pretrial release of more than 1,000 people. Epps, a 2011 graduate of UVA law, is one of the three alumni recipients of this year’s Shaping Justice Award for Extraordinary Achievement. 

A nonprofit founder who previously worked in countries including Haiti is the city’s first-ever chief medical officer, the Health Department announced Tuesday. [UVA undergraduate alumna] Dr. Michelle Morse will oversee the agency’s work on ending racial disparities in deaths, among other tasks, according to the department. 

Brad Kim, 21, was waiting to get his second shot. He’s an EMT in Charlottesville, so he’s part of the 1a priority group that includes frontline healthcare workers. Kim’s also a UVA student. “So I’m basically just getting vaccinated because I deal with COVID-positive patients a good amount at least every week,” he said. 

Abraham Castillo, a UVA second-year student, is the president of UndocUVA, a group that provides resources to undocumented students. “As a UVA student, I’ve been given access to outstanding educational opportunities,” he told a Senate subcommittee. “However, at the same time, I know many of my undocumented peers and my peers with DACA are struggling to afford these same resources.” 

(Commentary) During the 2013 campaign, Republican Ken Cuccinelli II tagged McAuliffe with the “Tricky Terry” label – possibly following the suggestion of University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato, who said one tactic Republicans should use against McAuliffe would be to wrap him in “seediness.” 

African American genealogy begins just like any other search for ancestors, said Shelley Murphy of the St. Louis-based  Midwest African American Genealogy Institute. A person should begin with what they know, then they need to think about what they don’t know, and then ask themselves who would know, said Murphy, who is a descendant project researcher at UVA. 

UVA cancer epidemiologist Dr. Li Li recommends that people get their regular scheduled exams. “If you detect cancer early, the prognosis is much better,” he said. 

What happened last March, and again around GameStop, fit into a larger pattern of tech startup behavior. “This is a normal startup thing,” said Lana Swartz, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and author of New Money: How Payment Became Social Media. Essentially, the move is to bring a platform to market, get it to scale, and worry about everything else later. 

Facebook and Google have vigorously fought the proposed legislation in Australia and have publicly threatened to pull out of the country over the effort to compensate news organizations. But Google, whose business model relies on fast and reliable news links, hammered out a deal, whereas Facebook, which depends less on publishers, put up a fight. Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UVA professor of media studies, said the proposed law is an attempt to reinvigorate flailing news organizations, which have seen substantial amounts of advertising revenue siphoned by tech giants like Facebook and Google. “It’s n...

Facebook and Google have vigorously fought the proposed legislation in Australia and have publicly threatened to pull out of the country over the effort to compensate news organizations. But Google, whose business model relies on fast and reliable news links, hammered out a deal, whereas Facebook, which depends less on publishers, put up a fight. Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UVA professor of media studies, said the proposed law is an attempt to reinvigorate flailing news organizations, which have seen substantial amounts of advertising revenue siphoned by tech giants like Facebook and Google. “It’s n...

(Commentary) Fifty years on, the constitution remains a surprisingly optimistic document, distinguished by commitments to redistricting, education, anti-discrimination protections and the environment that – fashioned during the upheaval of the 1960s by an 11-member commission that represented the apotheosis of the often-dour Virginia patriarchy – seemed un-Virginian. “The commission was trying to put that decade behind us and look to a new future for Virginia,” said A.E. Dick Howard, the panel’s executive director as a 30-something professor at the University of Virginia Law School. 

The brazen assault on America’s constitutional process also reflects a nation that has long been fractured at its core by an unrelenting and polarizing factor: race. “This country was founded as a slave owners’ republic,” said Kevin K. Gaines, UVA’s Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice. “There have been powerful movements to attempt to address the entrenched racism in our social and political cultures. Whether you’re talking about the crusading efforts of the abolitionists, a civil war, reconstruction, and the modern civil rights movement, powerful steps have been taken to ...

“Rush built upon an already robust right-wing media and organizational infrastructure and married it to lowbrow entertainment culture, appealing to a deeply politicized audience of angry white men who did not consider themselves political,” writes David Astin Walsh, a UVA postdoctoral fellow and historian of conservatism. “Limbaugh was the fountainhead for an entire generation of radical right-wing GOP politicians who owe their careers to the politics of resentment and white racial rage.” 

Although the area’s vaccine distribution has been admittedly hampered by limited supply, and hiccups at the state and federal levels, the process, spearheaded by the Blue Ridge Health District at the direction of the Virginia Department of Health, “has clearly been lacking,” said  Dr. Ebony Hilton, a UVA associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine. It’s a problem she attributes to a “trickle-down” impact from the flawed federal vaccination response. 

(Commentary by Andrew Kahrl, professor of history and African American studies) From the moment beaches became a popular summertime destination and valuable asset, shoreline towns and beachfront homeowners in the state have fought to keep this common resource to themselves. Recently, state Rep. Roland Lemar introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would eliminate one of the main instruments used by shoreline towns to keep the general public out: exorbitant access and parking fees for nonresidents. Critics charge that towns deliberately use these fees – which render the cost of a day at s...

Two local programs have received recognition for work helping residents of long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Virginia Health System says its Geriatric Engagement and Resource Integration for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Facilities, or GERI-PaL, program was a runner-up in the award. This program worked with long-term care facilities to prevent COVID-19 infections and reduce mortality rates during an outbreak.