Biden’s Education Department has an opportunity to partner with state officials to address the needs of their students and educators, particularly when it comes to the widening achievement gaps created by the pandemic, UVA law professor Kimberly Jenkins Robinson said. “My hope is that President Biden will establish his own footprint in education and civil rights that would be forward looking and that will speak to the moment that we’re in.”
Aynne Kokas, a UVA assistant professor of media studies, felt that Zoom is “allowing for local censorship to take precedence over academic freedom.” She believes that any lesson can “turn sensitive to the Chinese government” and conducting classes on the platform would put the Chinese students in a “risky situation” as the lessons might involve “discussing a period of Chinese history that is perfectly fine to talk about in a U.S. classroom, but might be a very profoundly difficult thing for a student in China.”
Celebrated Urdu critic Shamsur Rehman Faruqi, who began his literary journey by waiting for many an editor’s rejection slip and discovered his early success printed on a grocer’s paper bag, succumbed to complications from coronavirus on Friday. He was 85. His elder daughter, Mehr Afshan Farooqi, a UVA associate professor of South Asian literatures, said that he was always “deeply engrossed in reading. He had a book open while eating dinner or drinking tea.”
Influential in Black photography circles, the Kamoinge collective is little-known beyond. “Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop,” now at the Whitney Museum after originating at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, is the first museum show focused on the group since the 1970s. “The exhibition introduces African-American artists who were ignored until recently,” said John Edwin Mason, a UVA historian who contributed to the catalog. “They were showing what could be done as individuals, but also as a collectivity. They came of age in the age of Black nationalism, Black self-as...
Cheryl Goolsby, a UVA medical assistant, says staying put this winter is key to ending the coronavirus pandemic. “People should stay home because we have COVID out here and the only way we can get this taken care of is if people stay put,” Goolsby said.
If you’re the kind of person who delights in creating a spreadsheet on Jan. 1 to plot out the coming year, slow your roll. You can still plan small things to look forward to, said Bethany Teachman, a UVA psychology professor.
Civil rights activist Julian Bond died in 2010, but his lessons endure. Bond, who served in the Georgia House of Representatives and State Senate, also co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, chaired the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for more than a decade, and taught the history of the civil rights movement at UVA. “Julian Bond’s Time to Teach” compiles his original lecture notes into a motivational guide for modern activists in the age of Black Lives Matter.
Carolyn Long Engelhard, a UVA health policy professor, said many hospitals may not comply. “They’re awaiting the Biden administration who might come in and overturn this ruling,” Engelhard said.
It was not enough for Bonnie Gordon to be a tenured University of Virginia music professor, author of several books, mother of three and a violist in a jazz and a rock band – she had to make a difference in her community, as well.
A new strain of the coronavirus found in the United Kingdom has gained the attention of health officials here in the United States. The new strain means lots of new questions. Arguably the biggest is: will the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines be effective against it? Dr. Costi Sifri, an infectious disease expert with UVA Health, says it may be. “From a scientific standpoint, the ability to have those platforms to essentially plug-and-play with new emerging pathogens is quite exciting,” he said.
Dr. Bryan Lewis of UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute said he believes the CDC findings paint a grimmer picture of the pandemic than what is officially known. “What we’re looking at now is a vast underestimate in terms of the total number of people we’ve lost,” Lewis said. “I think that the impact of this has not been fully appreciated.”
The high court has pending petitions asking it to revisit its standard for determining if a religious accommodation is an undue burden. But even if it takes up the issue and raises the bar for what’s considered too burdensome, that may not be enough to significantly change the legal calculus for workers trying to avoid vaccination based on religious reasons. “The employer has a strong need to protect his workers and his customers, and to assure his customers that his place of business is safe,” said Douglas Laycock, a UVA law professor who’s written extensively about religious freedom.
Employee monitoring of remote workers could increase when things return to normal, said Roshni Raveendhran, a UVA assistant professor of business administration. Employee monitoring software can do things like track productivity, block websites and monitor activity and track keystrokes.
UVA’s COVID-19 dashboard recognizes the challenge that exists with active and recovered cases, attempting to estimate these numbers, as the researchers behind the dashboard believe it is a “more important metric to track than confirmed cases.”
“It seems that California did a good job flattening the curve in April,” said Jennifer Jane Roe, director of UVA’s Center for Design and Health. “That suggests, at least in respect to urban design, people were complying with public health guidelines. But with this exponential rise in Covid, it’s a behavioral problem, as well as a policy one, and it’s also possible that the strain has become more virulent.”
Lawmakers say they plan to propose legislative fixes next month to speed unemployment claims in Virginia, which ranks last in the country for quickly processing applications that require staff review. “All of the legislation … is aimed at helping things go more smoothly, with the goal of starting to get the wheels moving for you but also preparing Virginia to weather a storm like this in the future,” said Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, a UVA labor economist.
“Yes, there is no question that the relief money is essential for any number of individuals and businesses that have been hit hard by the impacts on the virus on the economy,” Eric Leeper, economist and Paul Goodloe McIntire Professor of Economics at UVA, said. “But there are serious problems with the way Congress goes about legislating this kind of relief.”
“The mRNA vaccine is a brand-new approach to vaccination and is way more effective than the traditional ways of making vaccines,” said Dr. Bill Petri, an infectious diseases professor at the University of Virginia.
The coronavirus pandemic stopped many from stepping into a doctor’s office for necessary care or a checkup. However, a UVA Health physician is urging those who hesitated to seek medical care in 2020 to make it a priority for 2021. “It is time to cautiously and appropriately seek care in 2021,” said Dr. Andrew Wolf, professor of medicine.
As the COVID-19 vaccines continue to roll out for doctors, nurses and first responders, Dr. Bill Petri, a UVA infectious disease professor, says this will help the community reach herd immunity.