University President John T. Casteen, III will announce the 2009 recipients of the Thomas Jefferson Award - the University's highest honor - during the Fall Convocation ceremony Oct.
University officials announced Wednesday additional plans for the ongoing restoration of Pavilion X. The University contracted construction company Bensonwood to create a new parapet that will line the roof of the pavilion.
The College will begin moving its offices from Garrett Hall to Monroe Hall today to allow the Batten School to move into the vacant offices in the summer of 2011, Batten School Dean Harry Harding said. Because of this change, the affected College offices will be closed until Oct.
The University recently began to receive research funding through the federal stimulus package, which will ultimately total nearly 10 percent of the year's research funding. The University had received more than $38 million in stimulus research funding as of last week, and though it does not have its final totals yet, Jeff Blank, assistant vice president for research, said it has "probably received another $10 million in the past 10 days." The total in funding for this year and next year will come close to $50 million, distributed through 100 to 110 separate awards, Blank said. He added that the majority of the funds are from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, which is distributing about two-thirds of the funding. The agencies had several different methods to distribute the funds. The NSF and the NIH both established new grant programs, soliciting applications that are subjected to a peer review process before making awards, Blank said. The agencies also have supplemented funding for current research, such as providing funds to continue research for a year in addition to the original time frame, Blank added.
[caption id="attachment_30737" align="alignleft" width="185" caption="The University's Nursing School was chosen as a recipient because of its "high standards," Nursing School Ph.D.
The Office of Emergency Preparedness released an online training module last week that all University employees are expected to complete, in response to an executive order from Virginia Gov.
[caption id="attachment_30734" align="alignleft" width="255" caption="Visitors with strong cravings for cigarettes will be provided nicotine lozenges because of the new smoking regulations.
As the November local and gubernatorial elections quickly approach, so is the Virginia voter registration deadline. The deadline for registering to vote in the Nov.
This semester, the University debuted Bengali language and literature courses to College students for the first time. Bengali is the primary language of Bangladesh and the second most commonly spoken language of India, making it one of the most popular languages in the world. Bengali is "politically a very strong language to get involved with," said Prof.
Student Council formally unveiled Speak Up UVA - an online forum for students to publicly voice their opinions - as part of its outreach initiatives for the year at last night's meeting. Council hopes the Web site, which was created by Chief Technology Officer William Reynolds during his Council campaign this spring, will give rise to more substantial communication between Council and University students than there has been in the past. "It's an outlet for student expression," Director of University Relations Jennifer Bristol said.
The University continues to move forward with changes made to its Patent Foundation, UVAPF, in hopes of increasing revenue and conversion of patents to licensing deals. "The big change is that the University will, in fact, be supporting the annual operating costs of the UVAPF," Vice President of Research Tom Skalak said at a Board of Visitors meeting earlier this month.
[caption id="attachment_30664" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Some students expressed frustration with the library's current search system, VIRGO.
An estimated 55,000 people will attend the U2 concert Thursday night at Scott Stadium. In anticipation of increased traffic, many of the University Transit System bus routes will run on altered service hours. The Central Grounds Shuttle and the Colonnade Shuttle will stop running at 5:30 p.m.. The Northline, Stadium/Hospital Shuttle, and the Inner and Outer U-Loops will end service at 4:30 p.m.
The Civility Project, a collaborative effort between The Papers of George Washington and the Civility Project Committee, is moving forward in its effort to revise George Washington's "Copy of Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation" for use in the 21st century. Washington's document consists of 110 rules of conduct that the first president copied down when he was only 16 years old and by which he lived thereafter.
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. Professors can provide content exclusively to students in a particular class by linking the course's Collab site to iTunes or can choose to make content available to the general public by adding their courses to the University's public site, said Jonelle Kinback, assistant director of web communications in the Office of Public Affairs. Mike McPherson, associate vice president and deputy chief information officer, said the site connects course material with students' lives in a way that few other media sources can. "With the predominance of iPods and iPhones and iPod Touches as music and video players, making course materials available in a format that is very easily downloaded to the player that most people have is a win," he said. A trial version of the channel launched last March, Kinback said, to allow departments and schools to get a feel for how to post content and what content was best suited for the site.
[caption id="attachment_30645" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Merrill Peterson, former head of the history department, wrote and edited more than 37 books during his career.
[caption id="attachment_30643" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Asst. Biomedical Enginnering Prof.
Gov. Tim Kaine recently awarded an $80,000 grant to the University's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service in preparation for the upcoming 2010 national census. The grant will aid demographers' statistical research to update address lists and population estimates for Virginia, the seventh fastest growing state in the United States, said Qian Cai, director of Demographics and Workforce Research at the Weldon Cooper Center. The United States Census Bureau relies on both local and state government outfits and private organizations like the Cooper Center to maintain accurate population information.
Student leaders from various contracted independent organizations across Grounds met to discuss sustainability and its relation to their organizations at the first full meeting of the University Unity Project yesterday. Andrew Greene, sustainability planner for the University Architect's Office, opened the meeting of the Unity Project - the theme for which this year is environmental awareness - by speaking about how the University interacts, both positively and negatively, with the environment. "A good way to create sustainability," he said to a room full of student group representatives, "is to work for a generation that's able to meet its own needs." Later, Unity Project Co-chair Garrett Trent said Green's talk highlighted an important part of what the Unity Project hopes to accomplish. "We hope to be more than just another committee," he said.
[caption id="attachment_30588" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers and alumni, along with some University officials, braved Saturday's rain to break ground.
