President Jim Ryan gave an overview of the priorities for 2020-2021 year, which include increased funding and changes to the University landscape based on recommendations from the Naming and Memorials Committee.
The pandemic has cost the University over $125 million in revenue, and the University has undergone an 8 percent budget cut in all central service units.
Because of the mask-wearing guidance in place for all in-person instruction — students and faculty are required to wear masks at all times— Rosner feels that classrooms are a relatively safe setting.
In the Friday town hall, President Ryan said that there is “no doubt” that recruitment contributed to the rise in cases and willful violations of public health guidelines — as did “innocent mistakes.”
According to President Ryan, the University Police Department and Ambassadors were enlisted to monitor activity at Greek houses, the Corner and on Grounds.
In accordance with BOV-019, the Board must provide students and the public with a projected range of the planned increase and an explanation for the need of the increase.
The Naming and Memorials Committee will serve as a reconfiguration of the University's Committee on Names.
Dean Roberts said that 42 percent of this year’s applicants opted to submit their application without the traditionally required test scores.
These investments come months after a group of Black student activists submitted a list of demands to the University’s racial equity task force amid nationwide protests last summer, which among other measures, called on the University to endow the Woodson Institute and expand it to occupy all of Minor Hall.
The Board of Visitors plans to vote on schematic designs for both the construction of a School of Data Science at the Emmet/Ivy Corridor as well as a renovation to Smith Hall.
73.7 percent of respondents to the Student Council survey said their family anticipates or may anticipate difficulties paying tuition for the 2021-22 school year. 64 percent said that the pandemic forced them to significantly change spending in important areas of their lives. In follow up responses, many respondents reported food insecurity.
Generally, Groves said that he thinks students have observed the University’s health and safety guidelines — including mask-wearing, limiting travel and adhering to gathering restrictions — this semester.
Although there have been 1,056 total student cases, no University students have been hospitalized for COVID-19. Prevalence testing, symptomatic testing and wastewater testing will continue throughout the spring semester.
United Campus Workers of Virginia at U.Va. — a union open to anyone who receives a paycheck from the University — is seeking to organize hospital workers due to reasons such as “top-down approaches to management, inadequate staffing and subpar wages.”
Students will not return to Grounds until the spring semester start date of Feb. 1 due to this year’s extended Winter Break.
Stephen D. Mull, vice provost for Global Affairs, said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily that part of being a global university is hosting international students.
The University is not requiring applicants for the Class of 2025 to submit standardized testing as part of their application this year.
All students enrolled for the fall 2020 term can request up to $6,195 for costs they’ve incurred in any shape or form due to the pandemic.
In the email, Ryan encouraged students to vote in a year “marked by a repeated feeling of uncertainty."
President Ryan acknowledged that students have faced feelings of isolation and stress over the course of the semester and that the University is working to bring more students into classrooms in the spring.
