All year long, the Virginia women’s lacrosse team has had to operate knowing there was a target on its back. Today, that target will get much bigger as the ACC Women’s Lacrosse Tournament begins and the No. 7 Cavaliers (12-3) attempt to defend last year’s ACC Championship.

“I think any returning champion is expected to do well, especially when so many starters return,” Virginia coach Julie Myers said. “There is a lot of pressure, but it is also a totally different year. It’s something we want to create as a team again, but we need to make sure we take care of [Maryland] first before we can begin thinking about what happens on Sunday.”

The Cavaliers will face No. 8 Maryland today in the first of two semifinal games. No. 1 seed Duke and the winner of the North Carolina-Virginia Tech play-in game will compete at 3:30 p.m. Virginia will enter the game with the psychological advantage from a 15-8 win over the Terps in Charlottesville March 8.

“It’s nice that we were able to play so well against them the first time,” Myers said. “Hopefully, Maryland is a little bit nervous. But it is many months removed, and Maryland has improved, so we’re going to have our hands full.”

Maryland enters with a three-game winning streak. Even more impressive is that all three wins have come against ranked opponents. But the Terrapins have a streak that they would like to forget about — and possibly reverse. Maryland has lost its last four meetings against Virginia.

Unfortunately for the Terps, they will run into a team that has both a powerful offense and a stingy defense. The Cavaliers are one of the few teams in both the top ten in scoring offense and in goals allowed. Having that much talent on the field has put Virginia in a good position to repeat. Repeating has been on the mind of Amy Appelt, one of the team’s eight seniors.

“We saw how last year’s seniors went out, with ACC and NCAA Championships,” Appelt said. “I think we definitely want to go out the same way.”

Myers maintains that despite the desire to repeat as champions, there is not a change in her team. In fact, Myers is trying to keep her team focused by keeping this tournament a part of the regular season.

“We still have to play Loyola [on May 3rd],” Myers said. “I view the ACC Tournament as being towards the end of the regular season.”

Myers also is keeping her team focused on what it does best. According to the coach, the Cavaliers are making sure they can play their own style rather than needing to adjust to Maryland’s game plan. Myers also emphasized the mental fortitude that will be crucial in the game.

“I don’t think it’s a totally different preparation,” she said. “I think we need to make sure that we are physically and mentally sharp. I think Maryland is going to exert more pressure than they did [earlier], but we should be ready for it after playing in 16 other games.”

Virginia players will look to draw on their experiences of both this season and last season when they play in Baltimore. With the right attitude, the Cavaliers could end up repeating as ACC champions.

With the end of the season in sight, the Virginia softball team is heading down the home stretch — literally.

With only five games remaining on the schedule, the Cavaliers host Sacred Heart today at 3 p.m. The Pioneers come to Charlottesville with a 12-18 record and have won three of their last five games. The Pioneers are led offensively by Tiffany Cross-Monzo, who is hitting .307, and sophomore Caitlin Carroll, who is hitting .301 with four home runs on the season.

Despite early season struggles against non-conference opponents, the Cavaliers have fared well recently against non-ACC foes, going 7-1 since April 13. The Cavaliers’ latest mid-week victim was the Mt. St. Mary’s Mountaineers, who Virginia beat 16-0 and 6-1 Wednesday at The Park.

After the game, sophomore Elea Crockett, who went 7-7 on the day, talked about the importance of winning the mid-week games against non-conference foes.

“It definitely helps to put these two games away and move onto Friday and this weekend,” Crockett said. “We’re finally getting the job done in the middle of the week.”

The Cavaliers also host the Virginia Tech Hokies this weekend in their last series against an ACC foe. Currently standing in fourth place in the ACC with a record of 7-7, Virginia can recapture third place with a series sweep over its in-state rival.

Virginia Tech has a much better overall record than the Cavaliers, at 37-18, but Virginia has the Hokies topped in the ACC. Virginia Tech currently is in the cellar of the ACC with a conference record of 3-11.

“We really, really need to get up for Virginia Tech just because we can still end up decently in the conference,” Virginia coach Cheryl Sprangel said. “And they’re our rival, so it’s fun to get up for our rival. They always get up for us, so we have to make sure we get up for them. It will be a fun weekend.”

The Hokies are led by senior Megan Evans, who is hitting .335 and leading the ACC with 12 home runs on the season. Junior Kelly Brown also is an important contributor for the Hokies, hitting .301 with 10 doubles on the season. Freshman Angela Tincher anchors the Virginia Tech pitching staff with a 1.00 ERA and a 17-5 record.

Junior Jessica Taylor, whose 5-5 performance Wednesday boosted her batting average to .313, has the ACC Tournament and possibly the postseason Regional Tournament in mind when the Cavaliers face the Hokies this weekend. But Taylor knows the Cavaliers are going to have to play well against cellar-dwelling Virginia Tech to keep postseason dreams alive.

“We need to take games from Virginia Tech to stay in the running,” Taylor said. “In terms of the ACC Tournament and seedings, it’s important. The ACC Tournament is our last chance at Regionals. We have to take it one game at a time, but we do have to come out strong against Tech. There’s no getting around that.”

As is tradition for the last home games of the year, the Cavaliers will honor their seniors Sunday before the third game of the series. Jenn Wynn and Lauren Dennis are not only the co-captains of the team but also the only seniors. Wynn has had a great year for the Cavaliers, hitting .315 and tied with junior Sara Larquier for tops on the squad with seven home runs. Dennis, while not an everyday starter, is an emotional sparkplug for the Cavaliers.

With the ACC Tournament looming on the horizon and in-state ACC rival Virginia Tech in town, the Virginia Cavaliers are looking to sprint across the season’s finish line.

This weekend’s ACC Men’s Lacrosse Tournament will resonate with hopes for revenge. Whether it is Maryland hoping to avenge its 10-2 regular season loss to Virginia, Virginia looking for redemption after a 17-2 shellacking against Duke two weeks ago, or North Carolina looking to get its first conference win of the season, everyone is out for someone else’s head.

For Virginia, this weekend’s tournament held at M & T Bank Stadium in Baltimore could mean the difference between a No. 1 seed and hosting a first round game in the NCAA tournament or a tougher road to Philadelphia for the Final Four. Following the tournament’s two-day schedule, No.2 Duke (13-1) and North Carolina (5-7) go head-to-head in the first semifinal Friday at 6 p.m., while No.3 Virginia (9-2) faces No.9 Maryland (6-5) in the second semifinal of the night at 8:30 p.m.

Although the Cavaliers soundly defeated the Terrapins in their first match up, Virginia had its most balanced offensive day of the season, something the Cavaliers have seen little of recently. The defense, especially senior Michael Culver, also stepped up to the plate, limiting star Maryland attackman Joe Walters to only one goal.

With only four participating lacrosse programs in the ACC, there is a feeling of familiarity among the players and coaches. Besides the annual regular season and possible ACC Tournament matchup, there is always the chance that two teams could meet for a third time in the NCAA Tournament.

For Virginia coach Dom Starsia, this familiarity does not change his game-day approach.

The game plans “are not particularly complicated preparations,” Starsia said. “Not out of any lack of respect for anybody, but simply because we’re so familiar with each other. In our case, almost our three most recent games were ACC games. At this point, [the game plan] is not going to change a great deal in a week’s time.”

While the game plan for Maryland likely will not be tampered with, an entirely new plan of attack will be needed should Virginia win and meet Duke in the championship game. In their first meeting, the Cavaliers were out-hustled and out-played in almost every aspect of the game by the Blue Devils. The lone bright spot was the play of senior midfielder Jack deVilliers who went 12-18 on face-offs. This statistic demonstrates possession, which generally leads to more shot opportunities. With that in mind, the fact that Virginia mustered only four first half shots and did not get on the board until midway through the third quarter is mystifying.

DeVilliers voiced the anxiousness of the team.

“Sometimes you’re just not clicking with the person next to you,” he said, reasoning for the loss. “I think everyone wants to get out there and prove that we’re not the same team that was out there when we played Duke.”

Fortunately for the Cavaliers, a bit of history is on their side.

In Virginia’s 2003 National Championship season, the team fell to Maryland 8-7 in the regular season. While the teams didn’t meet in the ACC tournament, Virginia was able to enact revenge with a 14-4 drubbing of the Terrapins in the NCAA Tournament semifinal, propelling it to a 9-7 win over Johns Hopkins in the final. If it takes another loss to get Virginia over the hump against the Blue Devils in Philadelphia, the Cavaliers surely will not mind. After all, just ask the 2003 squad how that turned out.

In a month usually dominated by Major League Baseball and the NBA playoffs, there is one weekend in April when these two sports are pushed into the background in favor of America’s new favorite pastime.

It may be months before the beginning of the NFL season, but millions of sports fans were glued to ESPN last Saturday — as they are on the third Saturday of every April — to see where last season’s NCAA football stars will begin their pro careers.

Virginia fans got to see the selection of seven Cavaliers in this year’s draft, the highest number in school history. Only two schools had more players selected: perennial powerhouses Oklahoma (11) and Florida State (9).

Now wait a second, isn’t this the same Virginia team that went to the MPC Computers Bowl and lost? Isn’t this the same squad that fell to Virginia Tech, Miami and Florida State by an average of 18 points? Something is not right with this picture.

Only one Cavalier went in the draft’s first 94 picks — but that’s only because likely first-rounders Ahmad Brooks and D’Brickashaw Ferguson elected to return to Virginia for their final year. Plus, several more Cavaliers signed contracts with NFL teams early this week. Safety Marquis Weeks was signed by the Seahawks just a few hours after the draft ended Sunday. Linebackers Isiah Ekejuiba and Dennis Haley, along with safety Jermaine Hardy, signed on the dotted line with an NFL squad the next day.

That means there are 11 Cavaliers from this year’s team who professional scouts took a serious interest in, 13 if you include Brooks and Ferguson.

So if Virginia had this much talent on the field, why was the squad not more successful in 2004? Where did the Cavaliers go wrong?

The answer lies in the positions that these draftees played for the Cavaliers. Of the seven players picked, there were two tight ends (Heath Miller and Patrick Estes), two defensive linemen (end Chris Canty and nose tackle Andrew Hoffman), a running back (Alvin Pearman), a linebacker (Darryl Blackstock) and an offensive lineman (guard Elton Brown). There are a few positions that are noticeably absent on this list.

No, I’m not talking about quarterback. That position is not a concern. Although it would be great if Marques Hagans were taller, he is still a talented signal caller at 5-feet-10, and any talk of moving him to another position is foolish.

Think less about throwing and more about catching. Yep, you guessed it: wide receiver.

Virginia’s No. 1 wideout last season was senior Michael McGrew, but he didn’t come up on anybody’s draft board. Even Virginia’s second best tight end was picked in the draft, but McGrew hasn’t been able to attract any interest among NFL teams, even as a free agent. Considering that the Cavaliers run a West Coast offense that predominantly features short passes out of the backfield, the fact that Virginia’s go-to wide receiver isn’t even on the radar screen of an NFL team is not a good sign.

On the defensive side of the ball, both of Virginia’s starting safeties signed contracts Monday. But neither Weeks nor Hardy were signed to play that position in the NFL. Seattle plans to use Weeks as a running back while the Arizona Cardinals intend to play Hardy as a cornerback. While it is not incredibly rare to have a player switch positions upon entry into the NFL, the fact that Weeks’ and Hardy’s skill at the safety position was not considered a valuable commodity by any NFL squad reveals another weak spot for Virginia.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Virginia was hurting in the secondary and the receiving corps this past season. But watching the draft picks and the free agent signings unfold for several Cavaliers makes it clearer than ever that these are areas that need to be addressed.

If anything, the NFL Draft was a reminder to Virginia fans that last year’s team was a talented bunch. Considering that these players were the first to be under the tutelage of Al Groh their entire playing careers at Virginia is a good sign for the future. But Groh and his staff need to do more than just produce future NFL stars — they need to focus on recruiting players who can step up and perform in these positions where the Cavaliers need help the most.

Riding the wave of a six-game winning streak, the Virginia baseball team (30-13, 9-10 ACC) travels to No. 24 Florida State (35-13, 10-8 ACC) this weekend brimming with confidence. The Cavaliers are looking to sustain the momentum they built following last weekend’s sweep of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Davenport Field.

Tallahassee is a tough place to play for a visiting team in any sport. The Florida State baseball program has long been among the elite programs in the nation, and the Seminoles have developed a strong fan base. Sitting just across the street from the cavernous Doak Campbell, Florida State’s Dick Howser Stadium is one of the gems of college baseball. It can pack in up to 6,700 rabid Seminoles fans.

“Florida State is a very difficult atmosphere to play in,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “It will be the most hostile environment that we’ve played in during the last couple of years. They’ll have four or five thousand fans there. We need to go down there with the same fearlessness we had last weekend. Pitching well, play defense and timely hitting will be keys.”

O’Connor said he feels no trepidation entering the series, however. His Cavaliers currently stand in the seventh spot in the ACC standings, one game behind N.C. State and one and a half games behind the Seminoles.

“We’re really looking forward to this weekend,” O’Connor said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to get back in the thick of things in the ACC.If we take care of business down there, we can leapfrog a couple spots, and we’ll be in better shape than a lot of people would have imagined a few weeks ago.”

Virginia also will seek to bolster its resume for an at-large NCAA Tournament. The Cavaliers likely will have to win at least four more conference games to be assured of a spot in baseball’s version of the Big Dance. Including this weekend’s series, Virginia has nine more regular season conference games on the schedule.

“I know it’s a cliché, but we’re just taking it one game at a time,” senior right-fielder Matt Street said of the Cavaliers’ NCAA hopes.

Virginia’s offense has achieved a higher level of productivity as of late. Yet, it is the Cavaliers’ pitching that has served as the driving force behind their recent success. Over the past six games, Virginia pitchers have surrendered only 1.83 earned runs per game. Senior right-hander Jeff Kamrath has been a bedrock of the weekend pitching staff, accumulating a 7-3 record with a 2.44 ERA. Freshman left-hander Sean Doolittle has cemented himself in the setup role, averaging 1.32 strike outs per inning pitched and notching a 1.16 ERA. In addition, sophomore closer Casey Lambert continues to build on his Virginia single season saves record, which currently stands at 11.

Street sees parallels between Virginia’s and Florida State’s approach on the diamond.

“They play a very similar style to us,” he said. “They just don’t make mistakes. So we’re just going to have to come out and beat them.”

O’Connor said he wants his team to maintain its aggressive attitude that has aided them in recent weeks.

“You’ve got to go in there and take the fight to them,” O’Connor said. “It’s going to be a difficult environment. You’ve got to go out there with confidence and play the game.”

After finals end, you’re probably going to party for the following week without sleep. After that week of booze, sandy feet and agape ends, my one piece of advice to you is to re-regulate your body clocks. U.Va. students may be the fittest in the nation, but that doesn’t protect those Lacoste shirts from the swelling stomach of sleepless nights.

I questioned writing this column because American science is always brewing excuses for its overweight citizens. Last week, Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker finally took a stand and stated the obvious: Americans are fat because of their trust in science. While there is still no wonder-drug for obesity besides a healthy lifestyle, scientists have found another cause for the augmented American body — sleep deprivation.

If you think eating right and getting enough exercise is enough to avoid a body dominated by juicy adipose, think again. Researchers at Northwestern University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have determined that humans need to pay more attention to their circadian rhythms. The study suggested that staying up past bedtime–along with skipping meals and constant snacking — caused weight gain, fatty livers and high cholesterol levels for an unlucky group of mice whose internal biological clocks were genetically disrupted.

The mice in the study had defective clock genes, which are responsible for controlling daily rhythms in the brain and throughout the body, including sleeping and eating. The clock gene and a half-dozen other proteins run 24-hour oscillating clocks in most cells in the body and in a specific part of the brain that controls appetite and wakefulness. About 3 to 10 percent of the genes in any given tissue turn on and off in circadian rhythm.

Mice typically sleep during the day and then eat a meal at the beginning and at the end of their active nocturnal day, much like breakfast and dinner. Instead, the clock mutant mice skipped their meals, stayed awake far into the usual rest time and snacked often. The insomniac mice also were a little more sluggish, as measured by infrared sensors in their cages. The researchers removed the exercise wheels used to gauge mouse activity because regular spins can help the mice reset their biological clocks.

Mice with the mutant clock gene ate more than normal mice, and they gained more weight, which was evident within six weeks of birth. The circadian-challenged mice also developed high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugar, low insulin, bloated fat cells, and lipid-engorged liver cells as a result of the unregulated genes.

Project researchers consider the body to be like a symphony. Following this metaphor, the tissues important in metabolism have to be conducted properly. When the clock gene causes each tissue plays to its own beat, a cacophony at the biological level is created that sets up the animal for obesity and metabolic misregulation.

The discovery of the clock gene reinforces the connection between circadian rhythms, sleep, metabolism and hypothalamic regulation. Even partial sleep deprivation can change the blood levels of several appetite-regulatory hormones, including leptin and Ghrelin, an effect likely to increase food intake and obesity in the general population.

We live in a society in which our president is too afraid to take a stand against obesity because he might lose his portly electoral support. America has to face the facts. The government isn’t going to take a stand on obesity as long as it’s dominated by the interests of the porcine population of the red states. We are thus doomed to retain our international image as being passively plump.

I offer a solution to the Bush administration. Instead of taking a direct stand on obesity, take a stand on sleep deprivation. A nice slogan could be “To sleep–perchance to lose weight.” And you wouldn’t even alienate your corpulent constituents!

As afraid as Americans are of it, exercise is one of the few remedies to fix misregulated biological clocks. Without exercise, sleep becomes more difficult as was the case with the mice. When their exercise wheels were removed, they had trouble sleeping and resetting their biological clocks. Sleep and exercise are part of a double-sided coin that must be flipped daily.

I’m not trying to scare you out of your pants. I’m just trying to help you reduce their size. In doing so, you will aid me in finding the increasingly rare pants of size 30 waste. Then again, if you help me find them, they will likely be oversized because of the fashion industry’s continuing ploy for consumer happiness.

Yes, Virginia. We have a problem. The government isn’t going to encourage you to lose weight. You’ll just have to take the word of spindly-yet-sexy science columnists such as myself. Take the first step by taking a snooze. And if this column put you to sleep, then I have succeeded.

Ryan McElveen can be reached at ryanmcelveen@cavalierdaily.com.

Throughout nature, there is clear precedent for the importance of certain physical characteristics in preferential mating. Whether it is a silverback or the coloration on a fish, certain attributes are desirable, presumably for mating efficacy and indication of genetic make-up. It stands to reason that human beings would be similar, despite our romantic notions of intellect and emotion. The investigation of human attraction has revealed a number of mechanisms by which human beings choose mates without direct cognizance of the mechanism itself.

One of these mechanisms is the expression of major histocompatability complex (MHC) alleles and its relevance to attraction and mate selection. The MHC is a group of genes on human chromosome 6 that encode membrane proteins involved in presenting peptide antigens to T cells. This is vitally important to the manner in which a host is able to deal effectively with a pathogen because the more MHC alleles an individual possesses, the greater the diversity and size of the T cell repertoire thus providing a greater chance for immune recognition of a novel pathogen antigen.

The most famous studies are often referred to as the “sweaty T-shirt” studies, performed by Wedekind et al. In these studies, T-shirts worn by men for a sufficient period of time were rated by women on how pleasant the shirt smelled. The results of this study were that women preferred the smell of a man who had different MHC alleles. Thus, if one were to mate based upon this initial attraction by odor, it would seem that the progeny would have a greater chance for a more diverse immune system and thus a better chance of being able to recognize a foreign antigen on a pathogen.

As a corollary to that study, Martha McClintock et al. found that women are attracted to the scent most similar to their father. This would seem contradictory to the conclusion by Wedekind et al. because this would result in a more homogenous immune system. Yet, this selection bias for homogeneity might also ensure the functioning of the immune system, as clearly the immune system of the parents must have functioned to sustain life long enough to reproduce.

Although it is likely advantageous to the effectiveness of an immune system to have many MHC alleles, there is an upper limit to that success. Breeding constantly with the same type of allele, however, could leave one susceptible to a new pathogen not recognized sufficiently well by the homogeneous MHC. This supports the notion of attraction as a form of finding subtle novelty within a framework of known success. It would seem that the most likely attraction and mating that would yield success would be one that has worked in the past combined with a hint of novelty to compensate for new possible environmental stressors on the organism’s health.

This is a clear example of selection within the human population giving credence to the idea that people, in the most basic respect are no different from any other animal choosing a potential mate; they seek mates based upon their genetic makeup. Certainly this has been confounded by emotion, the attachment of significance and meaning to certain acts, and altered forms of stability, but it would seem that human beings are still selecting mates based upon the most basic selection principles, and perhaps not upon the level of intellect or other such considerations with the same magnitude as we may like to think.

Michael McDuffie can be reached at michaelmcduffie@cavalierdaily.com.

Albert Einstein once said, “After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated, they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.” The age-old question of whether science and religion are compatible is one on which scientists, philosophers and theologians often have been divided.

But is there evidence that all religions share commonalities that can be justified in purely mathematical and scientific terms? Doris Wilsdorf, the University Professor of Applied Science and the first female professor at the University, has studied the subject in depth for over 40 years. For several years, Wilsdorf has integrated her personal experiences into a course for first-year students designed to enhance critical thinking skills. This semester, she is teaching her University Seminar on Science and Religion for the last time.

College student Galina Boyarinova was one of the hundreds of students over the decades who came in contact with Wilsdorf through the seminar. Boyarinova said she was especially impressed by how Wilsdorf incorporated scientific theories and concepts into the basic tenets of all major world religions.

When Professor Wilsdorf first arrived at the male-dominated University, she was made to feel unwelcome. Even through the many struggles, however, Wilsdorf stood firm.

“When I came here in 1963, having already served some time as tenured full professor in the Engineering School of the University of Pennsylvania, U.Va. was strictly a men’s school and students attended class in coats and ties. I then was the only female full Professor anywhere except perhaps in the School of Nursing, and I was subjected to gross gender discrimination in the College and from the higher Administration,” she said.

On one emotionally difficult day during her early years at the University, Wilsdorf decided to make a change in her life.

“I realized that the unceasing undeserved enmity and harassment had to have a reason and I resolved to search for it by learning more deeply about philosophy and in particular about religion. I started with reading the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s holiest book. As I concentrated on it, it suddenly fell like scales from my eyes that the essence of the Bhagavad Gita is also the essence of Jesus’ teachings, and I finally understood what the Kingdom of God is,” she said.

Her interest in religion and philosophy developed, as did her personal experiences in scientific thought with regard to religion.

“It did not take long that I felt greatly benefited by my new understanding of life’s meaning and what we as humans are meant to do with our lives. Also, increasingly over the years I came to see that science and religion are the two basic components of our earthly lives that are complementary, not contradictory,” she said.

The realization prompted Wilsdorf to go beyond what was expected of a Materials Science professor for undergraduates and graduate students.

“I concluded that I should share my better insight with students and began to seize opportunities to teach science and religion,” she said.

Among the topics she has studied and taught are the major religions, the creation of the universe, philosophical materialism, consciousness, the existence of a soul, creationism, evolution, human free will, near-death experiences and reincarnation. In explaining these in the realm of science, Wilsdorf seeks to foster appreciation and understanding of the world’s major religions. In addition, she looks for the commonalities among all religions and focuses on what unites us all. Guest lecturers who have expertise in some of these have sparked debates among students.

The parallels of Nirvana, The Kingdom of God, Enlightenment, Paradise and Moksha are evident as different names for higher states of consciousness, Wilsdorf said. Even though these are all concepts from different religions, they are all paths leading to truth that require “giving up self will and developing selflessness,” she said. In this way, Wilsdorf establishes the grounds for unifying science and religion.

Using the mathematical “Theory of Theories,” Wilsdorf has shown that reincarnation can indeed exist by multiplying the probabilities of the unusual aspects of particular cases together, convincing her students that there is a point when “coincidence” cannot describe thousands of scientific cases and studies. Using the Schrödinger equation, she explains the existence of nature in terms of “wave functions” and how the nature of the universe as we see it is not how it exists in its true form. And according to quantum mechanics, she said, there are always any number of possible outcomes to a situation.

“Even though these commonly differ only minutely, cumulatively they leave ample scope for God to govern the universe without resorting to miracles,” Wilsdorf said.

Boyarinova, who was in Professor Wilsdorf’s class last fall, has formed an opinion of her own based on what she learned in the course.

“Concepts in physics at the atomic level have given room for science and religion to coexist,” Boyarinova said.

She pointed out the theories of physics, especially the Quantum Theory, which have led to her conclusion.

By studying the ideas from the DNA of earth’s earliest organism to the laws that govern our universe and planetary movement, Wilsdorf has questioned the materialist’s views on “chance,” as have her students. Rather than taking religious texts word for word, she said, by looking at the religions in the grand scheme of things, science and religion are truly compatible.

“Seemingly, ‘creationism’ simply derives from the conviction that the Bible is ‘God’s word’ and therefore must be literally true and infallible. However, critical thinking also tells us that this conviction emerges not from logical arguments but from strong cultural, political and historical ‘conditioning’ that lacks a logical basis,” she said. The attitude of looking beyond the literal meaning of religious texts has been the backbone of Wilsdorf’s argument to unify both science and religion using critical thinking. Beyond the literal readings of various holy texts, she said, is where the major world religions share fundamental beliefs.

In the class, Wilsdorf presents such evidence from physics, biology, geology and other areas in science to either support or reject both religious and scientific notions.

“Based on critical thinking, the typical biologist’s view that evolution happened simply by ‘chance’ without the activity of a creative spirit, does not fare much better than creationism.While it is in fine agreement with the evidence, in fact critical thinking reveals it to be a specific belief that is no more backed by logic than is creationism,” she said.

While not taking sides in any argument, she leaves the ultimate decision of what to believe in the hands of her students, hoping to strengthen their religious convictions no matter what religion they belong to.

As new scientific discoveries have been made in the past few decades and continue to be made, people are forced to take a stance on the subject of whether science and religion can be used to explain one another.

Professor Wilsdorf — who plans to continue her successful scientific career after retirement in a service to the Navy using her invention of a newer, more efficient electric motor — stressed the importance of critical thinking as an aspect of everyday life.

“Don’t believe something because your grandmother told you so,” she always said to her students.

Although she began her career at U.Va. amidst many struggles, Wilsdorf ends her academic career successfully. Her inventions, merits and reputation speak for themselves.

“I have always enjoyed teaching and the opportunity to interact with eager, talented students with whom I shared a deep devotion to Mr. Jefferson’s University, no matter whether the pre-conceived notions of some led them to try and rid U.Va. of a stray woman professor,” she said.

She inspires her students to think for themselves as she shares her stories of world travels and her life experiences over the years. But for many of them, these teachings are a gift that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Boyarinova is one such student.

“Professor Wilsdorf has made an effort to conquer the last frontier and incorporate religion into the Jeffersonian ideals of enlightenment,” she said. “Although Professor Wilsdorf is leaving the University, her legacy and her ideas will continue to influence not only her own Physics Department, but the University as a whole.”

Graduate students at the University continued to face a series of issues this year, ranging from the familiar struggles with funding to the new dilemma of placing TA evaluations online for students to see.

While many University students said they were glad to gain access to course evaluations when choosing classes, other members of the University community said they are not pleased with the availability of TA evaluations — especially of first-time TAs — online.

Graduate Student Council President Tom Bryan said he believes one problem with the use of these course evaluations is that the evaluations are not adapted to assess the work that TAs are expected to do.

“Most TAs are operating under the supervision of a professor, so the fact that the evaluation system was using the same questions [that are used for professors] to evaluate TAs could mean that TAs would get praised or blamed for things they didn’t really have control over,” Bryan said.

Politics Prof. James Ceaser said course evaluations are valuable because they are used by professors to help graduate students and to assess their teaching so areas of possible improvement can be identified. Ceaser said he believes the problem arises when a graduate student with little teaching experience has his or her reputation put on the line when comments that are meant to be constructive are available to the public eye.

“I don’t think any graduate student upon coming to U.Va. ever bargained to have his or her evaluations made public,” Ceaser said. “What is the pedagogical interest in doing so? They are supposed to be to help us help them as teachers, not to put them out on a plank so that they can be embarrassed before undergraduates.”

Of the other concerns graduate students dealt with this year, the recurring issue of funding was at the top of the list.

Ethan Sribnick, president of the Graduate Student Labor Union, said he believes the greatest stride graduate students made this year was in helping to protect funding for out-of-state graduate students.

Bryan said University graduate students rallied with University officials on the issue of out-of-state graduate student funding, and Gov. Warner ultimately submitted a budget amendment to allow general funds to go toward out-of-state graduate students.

Despite this victory, Sribnick said the biggest challenge currently facing graduate students is financial support as the availability of graduate funding must increase for the University to maintain its status as a top research institution.

Bryan added that he believes the matter has been brought to the attention of the University’s administration successfully in the past year and that the community has realized the need for improvement in the area of general graduate funding.

The much-debated Virginia higher education restructuring legislation also was a topic on which many members of the graduate student community focused.

Sribnick said while the GLU was originally opposed to the legislation and still holds some concerns, he is interested in seeing if the new relationship between the Commonwealth and the University will change anything for graduate students in terms of funding.

Bryan said he believes the restructuring legislation has potential to improve the University.

“If the University can’t get money to pay its faculty at competitive levels and maintain libraries and other facilities, we can’t even begin to discuss graduate education, so I think it’s a good sign that it passed and it’s put U.Va. in a position to improve its standing,” Bryan said.

In addition to addressing professional and financial concerns, Bryan also said the Graduate Council has been working to increase interactions between different departments in the graduate schools and improve the overall social structure.

“Traditionally, this school has been very undergraduate-focused and the graduate programs have just kind of grown up around that,” Bryan said. “Just now, from what I’m hearing, the administration is taking steps to try and make U.Va. more welcoming for graduate students.”

The new Student Council president officially has taken over, as Jeaqueatta Upton was sworn into office at Tuesday’s Council meeting to begin working on her goals of improving police communication, cell phone plans and printing systems, among others.

“I’m really looking forward to this upcoming year and letting students know that StudCo is here,” Upton said. “We have a fantastic executive board that works to improve the lives of students here.”

Upton said she looks forward to pursuing both new goals and expanding on the goals of executives from the past year, including working on off-Grounds housing.

“We’ll continue to make sure that’s fair and also to push back housing agreement dates, something I think will be very helpful,” Upton said.

When her term officially begins next fall, Upton said she is planning several new initiatives. She said she wants to establish stronger ties with the Charlottesville Police as well as reform the library printing system for students.

“I’d like to decrease the price for printing or look at a quota system in libraries,” Upton said.

She added that she also has large-scale goals such as bringing the 2008 presidential debate to Charlottesville.

Additionally, Upton said Council will look into making a University-wide cell phone plan.

“A lot of students don’t use phones in their room,” Upton said. “We’re looking into a cell phone plan instead of land lines.”

Upton said Sullivan implemented impressive programs that will continue to thrive.

“His establishment of the Off-Grounds Housing Office has been really instrumental in establishing Council’s relationship with the Blue Ridge Apartment Council,” Upton said. “I think that the Off-Grounds Housing Office is going to do great things and getting information out to students and fair pricing.”

Upton said while she is excited about her new position, she will miss outgoing executive board members.

“I’m going to miss outgoing exec a lot, because they worked very hard this year and did a lot of things for students,” she said. “They were a great installation. I want to take their goals and expand on them for next year.”

At Council’s last meeting of the academic year, outgoing Council President Noah Sullivan told fellow Council members he has been pleased with Council’s performance over the last year.

Sullivan said Council has had success with housing, improving diversity and easing students into the charter process.

Sullivan added that the appropriations process was a crucial development because the measures put in place this year allowed Council to have a more active role.

“We put so much energy into doing great things, because you only have so much time to operate,” Sullivan said. “No one knows what is going on and the work that we’re doing. It’s very difficult to get students to pay much attention. That’s not our job. Our job is to make sure we’re serving their interests.”

Sullivan said he hopes Council will continue to keep student interest its main priority.

“I would hope that their priorities are to do the great things and that the second priority is to get the information out there,” Sullivan said. “Sometimes representatives base platforms on getting the students aware of what Council is doing. We have a lot of things that we can be proud of, and I would hope that they would continue going on with that basic purpose.”