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(11/05/09 6:20am)
The parents of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Dana Harrington delivered an impassioned plea to area residents yesterday afternoon, asking them to help find their daughter, who disappeared Oct. 17 during a Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena.
(11/03/09 7:12am)
Nationwide delays in the production of H1N1 vaccine have trickled down to the University and the Charlottesville-Albemarle region, where most students and residents are still awaiting vaccination.
(10/29/09 5:33am)
Authorities yesterday released a more detailed timeline of the events leading up to disappearance of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, who was last seen Oct. 17 during a Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena.
(10/22/09 5:19am)
Authorities still do not know what happened to Virginia Tech junior Morgan Dana Harrington, who disappeared Saturday night while attending a Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena, State Police Lt. Joe Rader said in a press conference yesterday afternoon.
(10/20/09 4:50am)
Sustainability and environmental awareness groups on Grounds will host the seventh annual Campus Sustainability Day tomorrow.
(10/19/09 5:28am)
The University, in partnership with five other universities, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will take part in a new study to help determine the effectiveness of the H1N1 vaccine on asthma sufferers.
(10/13/09 4:43am)
One of the University's most famous alumni was buried Sunday. Again.
(10/08/09 6:33am)
The University Health System has received 3,700 doses of H1N1 vaccine, University Medical Center spokesperson Peter Jump said.
(10/01/09 6:56am)
As the November local and gubernatorial elections quickly approach, so is the Virginia voter registration deadline.
(09/29/09 6:37am)
The University officially launched its own iTunes U channel last Tuesday, allowing professors, schools and departments to post their own content directly to Apple's web-based media application.
(09/28/09 5:32am)
State budget cuts during the past year have chiseled away at programs and services at the University, but they also have impacted the surrounding Charlottesville area, where state and non-profit organizations have been forced to adjust to a stormy economic climate.
(09/15/09 4:34am)
As part of an expanding effort to curb the University's environmental impact, Dining Services has begun providing students with reusable to-go boxes, Sustainability Coordinator Kendall Singleton said.
(09/10/09 5:07am)
General Faculty Council, which represents non-tenured track faculty and staff, convened yesterday to discuss funding, payroll and Lead@UVA, the University's new performance management system.
(09/08/09 9:45am)
The life and achievements of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Law School alumnus of 1959, will soon be chronicled by Prof. Emeritus James Young in the Miller Center's Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project.\nThe project will be made up of more than 75 hours of past interviews with the senator, as well as interviews with 170 other political figures and friends of Kennedy, Young said.\nThe interviews were a part of a six-year, $3.5 million initiative to illuminate Kennedy's 46-year senatorial career. Kennedy himself first initiated the project in 2004 and selected the Miller Center to conduct the interviews, Young said, noting that the project evolved to focus on more than just Kennedy's senatorial career.\n"The point [Sen. Kennedy] wanted to get at was to make this instructive in the study of how laws are made and the legislative battles of our time," Young said.\nFurthermore, Young said Kennedy wanted the public to engage in a deeper understanding of how the Senate really works and hoped this project would lead to further study of the legislative body.\nYoung conducted all of the interviews with the senator from 2005 until 2008 - when the late senator was diagnosed with brain cancer - in both Washington, D.C. and the senator's home in Hyannis Port, Mass. Kennedy passed away Aug. 25.\n"We learned about Kennedy as a person, Kennedy as a legislator, Kennedy as a campaigner and Kennedy as a helper of people," Young said.\nHe also said the interviews reveal a different side to Kennedy that the public rarely experienced.\n"I think what you get is a more contemplative Kennedy that you don't see in the Senate, looking back over the history of his time and looking back over his own motivation and beliefs," he said.\nKennedy's role as a legislator contrasted greatly with that of a president, whose executive orders and vetoes, Young said, cannot be mimicked by senators, who must work with others and gain votes to pass a bill.\n"[Sen. Kennedy] understands that he can't command what he would like to see done," Young said. "He has to persuade others to do it; he has to pay attention to their views and their feelings."\nJanet Heininger, senior fellow for the project, said oral histories such as this one provide scholars with a chance to read between the lines and focus on the stories that are often left untold. As such, she said the interviews focus mainly on the gray areas of his life and political career. Heininger also noted, though, that almost everyone she spoke with, regardless of their accordance or disagreement with the senator's political views, remembered Kennedy with affection.\n"They had enormous respect for his ability, his dedication, his perseverance, and his unbelievable hard work," she said.\nBecause interviews are still being conducted, full transcripts from past interviews have yet to be released, Heininger said. These transcripts are subject to full revision by the subjects themselves, who can edit and add detail to their commentaries. Once this process is complete, the full transcripts will be released online, at the Miller Center Library and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston, she said.
(09/08/09 8:34am)
As of Monday afternoon, 17 cases of swine flu have been reported this semester among University students, said Student Health Executive Director James Turner. More than 60 cases of the virus were reported during the summer, and experts predict that the disease will continue to spread in the college environment.\nThe disease's incidence at the University so far has been relatively mild, though, especially considering its classification by the World Health Organization as a pandemic, Turner noted. Moreover, only two Health System employees have been infected since Aug. 22, hospital spokesperson Sally Jones said.\nTurner said the disease often produces little more than typical seasonal flu-like symptoms, which include fever, headache, chills, body aches, fatigue, dry cough, sore throat, stuffy nose and - occasionally - nausea or diarrhea.\nStudents who think they might have swine flu should visit Student Health's Web site, Turner said. If the symptoms listed on the site match their own, they should call Student Health to notify employees before coming to the office, he said. Everyone entering the Student Health building must wear a mask and apply hand sanitizer.\nDiagnosis of the disease is based on Center for Disease Control guidelines, Turner said, as opposed to testing. Because the disease has been confirmed as prevalent in the Charlottesville area, Turner said, anyone who presents flu-like symptoms will be treated as though they have swine flu.\nStudents who contract the disease are asked to self-isolate until 24 hours after their fever dissipates, Turner said, expressing concern that students experiencing mild symptoms will still attend class and social events. By doing so, these students could potentially transmit the disease to other students, particularly those who have underlying health conditions that make them more likely to develop severe symptoms from the disease.\n"I think that people don't understand that the idea behind self-isolation is to protect the community," Turner said. "If you're thinking about the world, you can help [those who are most at-risk] by not exposing them to the disease."\nMarge Sidebottom, director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, also emphasized that preventing the spread of the disease is the students' responsibility.\n"[Students] have to recognize that being part of society means taking the right precautions so others don't become ill and don't spread [the disease]," Sidebottom said.\nDining halls have added dispensers of hand-sanitizing lotion, and resident advisers are encouraging residents to wash their hands regularly and practice good overall hygiene, Sidebottom said.\nRoommates of students who have contracted the disease will be moved to other dormitory rooms, and Sidebottom said a program is being created that will allow volunteers to deliver meals to students with swine flu who are self-isolated in their rooms and apartment buildings.\nTurner said a swine flu vaccine is not yet available, but more details about its distribution will be released in late September.
(09/03/09 9:24am)
Thirty of the first black students to graduate from the University during the 1950s and 1960s will return to Grounds this weekend for events in their honor, said Marcus Martin, interim vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity.\nThe Early Days Celebration will recognize these former students who desegregated the University and "opened new territory for future generations and with courage and dignity, set an example for others to follow," Martin said.\nWalter Ridley, who graduated from the Education School in 1953, was the first black alumnus to receive a degree from the University. Engineering alumnus Robert Bland, who Martin said will be attending the events, was the first undergraduate to graduate in 1959.\nAlso attending are 1967 graduate Vivian Pinn, the second black female to graduate from the Medical School; David Temple, the first black student to desegregate the interfraternity system during the late 1960s and early 1970s; and 1958 graduate John Merchant, the first black to graduate from the Law School, said Carolyn Dillard, news officer for public affairs. These three alumni will join three University students in a panel discussion titled "Looking Back, Moving Forward."\nEnglish Prof. Deborah McDowell, who is also the director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute, will moderate the event Friday at the Harrison Special Collections Library from 9 to 11 a.m.\nMcDowell said it is always significant when alumni return to Grounds, but for these alumni, she said the event holds even greater importance.\n"Their return, at one level, allows the University both to see the distance it has traveled since they were here, but more importantly, the distance that still needs to be traveled particularly insofar as the African-American graduate student population is concerned," she said.\nAfter the panel, the alumni will take part in two tours of Grounds titled "History of Women" and "Slave to Scholar," both of which will be conducted by the University Guide Service. An honorary dinner at Alumni Hall Friday night will culminate their first day back on Grounds.\nSaturday, the alumni will attend a social at Carr's Hill prior to the football game versus William & Mary and will watch the game from the private box of University President John T. Casteen, III, who personally invited each of the former students back to Grounds for the events, Dillard said.\nMerchant, who also established the Walter N. Ridley Scholarship Fund in 1987 in honor of the University's first black graduate, praised the University and event organizers for their work in recognizing black alumni.\n"I think it's to the credit of the University that they are saying 'thank you' to those who came and laid the foundation for more to come," he said.\nHe also emphasized the importance of remembering the obstacles many of the honorees faced.\n"To look back and think that just because things worked out, it wasn't so bad - that's a damn lie," Merchant said. "It was bad. It's easy to forget that it was another world in the '50s and '60s, especially in the state of Virginia"
(08/28/09 1:27am)
Signaling an expansion of the University's efforts to embrace environmentally sustainable practices, Dining Services recently hired Kendall Singleton as its first Sustainability Coordinator.\nSingleton, who started work Aug. 17, will help to enable a higher level of student involvement in sustainable initiatives through new projects, Director of Dining Brent Beringer said. A trial of one of these initiatives, a switch to reusable to-go containers at dining halls, will begin this week, Beringer said.\nSustainability is about the environment and community, Beringer said, "but it's also about teaching students that it's possible to live sustainably, and that it can be cost-effective." Singleton will help Dining Services implement programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, waste generated by Dining Services' on-Grounds locations and the consumption of energy and water, Beringer said. By doing so, Beringer said he hopes this will lessen the University's impact on the environment and encourage students to treat the environment responsibly.\nSingleton graduated from the University in 2007, and as a student, she helped organize Dining Services' attempts at sustainable practices in 2006, she said. She initially discussed sustainability issues with Dining Services during one of its "Dorm Visits," when University representatives go to residence halls to discuss food-related issues with students. Her relationship expanded as she formed an advisory group of students who continued to contact Dining Services staff members to help improve their standards of sustainability, Singleton said.\nBeringer said this type of input from students remains vital to the department's agenda and goals. "There's no point in us telling students what to do," Beringer said. "It needs to come from them."\nIn the short term, Singleton said she will expand on past initiatives, such as the compost project for food waste at the Observatory Hill Dining Hall, which began last November, and also launch new projects, like the reusable to-go boxes. In the long run, Singleton will emphasize using local food to create "healthy, ongoing relationships with farmers."\nNew signs and brochures in dining halls lay out this approach toward sustainable dining, Singleton said. When purchasing produce, Dining Services staff focus primarily on whether it is grown locally. Next, staff consider whether it is in season, organic, humanely raised and fairly traded, Singleton said.\nOn the job less than two weeks, Singleton said logistics have been the most difficult hurdle to overcome thus far. Future plans for composting at Runk and Newcomb Dining Halls, she explained, involve issues with transporting composted waste, where to store the waste and how to comply with environmental regulations.\n"There really are an infinite number of variables," Singleton said.\nDespite these planning challenges, however, Singleton cited growing awareness of sustainability issues as a main reason why programs like composting and reusable to-go boxes have come to fruition.\n"[Sustainability] has caught on like a wildfire," Singleton said. "Nobody at U.Va is ignorant of its efforts, and we're capitalizing on this momentum to make bigger changes"
(04/23/09 5:48am)
A virtual reality simulation with broad implications for future environmental research at the University, the “U.Va. Bay Game,” debuted yesterday before a group of students and faculty in the Harrison Institute Auditorium.The Bay Game simulates the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and allows for participants to make decisions as virtual farmers, fishermen, citizens or policymakers, Vice President for Research Tom Skalak said. Players of the University-developed computer game can monitor how their choices affect the ecosystem, as the software tabulates actions and determines how they affect critical environmental and economic indicators like dissolved oxygen and profits of farmers and fishermen, Skalak said.Skalak initiated the effort to create the game, recruiting Systems Engineering Prof. Gerry Learmonth to head the game’s technical development. Learmonth and his team of five graduate students worked with professors and students from the College, as well as the Architecture, Commerce, Engineering, Law, Medical and Nursing Schools. These contributors will continue to play an active role in the game’s later use and evolution, Learmonth added.Learmonth described the bay’s health as “the response to the collection of millions of people making personal decisions.” The creation of the game was therefore quite complex, involving a network of variables that needed to interlock into a complete picture.Skalak emphasized that no other research institution has developed a tool of this breadth and scale. The project’s potential lies not only in the possibility of it being applied to other estuaries and environments around the world, but also to financial markets, where a web of interacting investors often mimics an actual ecosystem.Learmonth said his team used a framework and software that a private consultant, who had done this modeling on the Everglades, already developed. The team then worked to integrate this model with the Chesapeake Bay, coordinating the thousands of economic and environmental factors that impact the system.Jeffrey Plank, associate vice president for research, said the game is a “distinctive laboratory for testing policy.” Plank, who also helped coordinate the interdisciplinary effort to create the game, said he hopes it will one day benefit policymakers, allowing them to test environmental policies before they are put in place. Michael Purvis, a systems engineering graduate student and member of Learmonth’s team, said the project’s appeal lies mainly in its future applications.“This is something that is owed significant effort because of its potential contribution to environmental science and the fact that it could serve as a model in regions around the world,” Purvis said.The software, though functional, is still in its initial stages of development, Skalak said. Students, both graduate and undergraduate, will work with faculty to continue to add additional layers of detail and accuracy, improving the game’s practicality and usefulness, Skalak said. The game will be available online to classes next semester, Learmonth said.“We hope that there will be a next version that may involve thousands of U.Va students, providing more reality and visibility that will drive public policy,” Skalak added.
(04/21/09 5:34am)
Earth Day, a national event promoting sustainability and environmental friendliness, has been extended to an entire week at the University, said third-year College student Bukky Awosogba, director of current events for the University Programs Council.Earth Week began Thursday and will continue through next Sunday afternoon. Extending the event allows for greater emphasis on Earth Week’s purpose: to draw attention to the University’s growing sustainability needs, Awosogba said.“People argue that we ought to practice Earth Day every day,” Awosogba said. “By expanding it to a week, we can better facilitate that.”The festivities kicked off with a “Sustainability Barbeque” at Runk Dining Hall Thursday. Awosogba said the event presented information about sustainable dining and helped show students how they can make environmentally friendly choices about what they eat. The events continued yesterday, as the Miller Center for Public Affairs hosted a forum titled “Driving Toward Sustainability,” which featured transportation policy analyst Deborah Gordon. The Medical and Architecture Schools also jointly sponsored a climate change and health symposium at Alumni Hall.Facilities Management will host the Earth Day Extravaganza tomorrow between Minor and Garrett Halls from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Third-year College student Rachel Baker, a student employee with Facilities Management, said she hopes this event will give students a “general sense of how to conserve energy and resources.” Students can participate in the Dumpster Dive, during which event coordinators will go through a dumpster outside a first-year student dormitory and measure the amount of material that could have been recycled. The Tapwater Challenge also is among the day’s activities, as students will attempt to distinguish bottled water, filtered tap water and regular tap water in a taste test.Water quality will be discussed tomorrow as well. The U.Va Bay Game, a computer model of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed developed by University researchers, debuts tomorrow in the Harrison Auditorium at 4 p.m. Jeffrey Plank, associate vice president for research, said he hopes students who attend the demonstration will better understand the bay’s environmental problems and how their actions impact the bay’s health. “What we hope to communicate is the interconnectedness of human behavior and natural systems,” Plank said.The documentary “King Corn” also aims to make clear the connection between human actions and the environment. A screening of the film, which shows three best friends from college investigating the origin of their food, will take place Wednesday at 7 p.m., followed by a discussion panel with Environmental Sciences Prof. Steve Macko, who appears in the film.The week will begin to wind down with Jeffrey Sachs, author of “The End of Poverty,” who will speak at the Commerce School at 9 a.m. Friday. The Office of the Vice President for Research also will host a Student Sustainability Symposium in the Rotunda at noon. Later that afternoon, Students for Environmental Activism will host a workshop about green living and environmental activism in the Tuttle Dormitory Lounge at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Critical Mass Bike Ride, the week’s final event, starts at the Rotunda at 12:30 p.m. and continues to Tonsler Park at Cherry Avenue for a luncheon and flea market.Armando de Leon, sustainability programs manager for Facilities Management, said he anticipates that Earth Week might improve students’ understanding about environmental issues. “I hope [students] will learn that they are a vital part of making sure that what’s been entrusted to us as part of the environment and Earth will be passed on to the next generation better than we received it,” de Leon said.
(04/17/09 5:38am)
Researchers from several University schools recently developed a wireless sensory network technology designed to help doctors and researchers monitor the gait of patients and determine their risk for falls.Regina Carlson, director of development at the University’s Institute on Aging, said the sensor can be worn around the wrist and transmits real-time data on a patient’s gait via the internet. It allows whoever receives the data to track the patient’s gait and detect any problems that could lead to falls. The sensor is also equipped with a panic button that lets patients notify emergency services or their caregivers if they need medical assistance.Researchers from the College, Medical, Engineering and Nursing Schools contributed to the device’s development. “This project is a great example of how we can take an interdisciplinary approach and can come up with new technology because we’re taking the latest research across these different disciplines,” Carlson said.According to the Center for Disease Control, one in three adults aged 65 and older falls each year and of those who fall, 20 to 30 percent suffer injuries that inhibit their ability to live independently. Carlson said the device will significantly enhance the capacity of senior citizens to function on their own, which studies show is essential to long-term health and well-being. “One of the critical things with healthy aging is that people can live better when they live at home longer rather than moving to nursing homes,” Carlson said.John Lach, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, spearheaded the technical efforts to create the device throughout the past five years. Lach said he hoped the device could function as a “wearable wireless motion capture system,” something that could easily translate across a wide array of disciplines. The main applications thus far, however, have been in the field of health care. Along with monitoring gait, the device is being tested with diseases such as Parkinson’s, in which a motion capture device such as this could measure the intensity of a patient’s tremors and help determine the severity of the condition, Lach said. Lach plans to work in tandem with AFrame Digital, a Virginia-based company that will set up wireless networks in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to collect and transmit data from the sensory devices. AFrame President and CEO Cindy Crump said the data can also be transmitted to a doctor’s cell phone or other mobile devices through AFrame’s pre-established wireless infrastructure.“This is a very critical area,” Crump said. “We’re very excited about working with Lach and his team.”