Headlines @ U.Va.

College applicants playing it safe
The shaky economy has college applicants warily eyeing “hot” majors and looking for fields of study with more stable, predictable futures, The New York Times recently reported. “They're looking for more of a blue chip or something that's going to run them through the turmoils and the ups and downs of the markets,” Dean of Admission John A. Blackburn told the Times.
— New York Times, Oct. 29

How old is old?
A test of attitudes toward older Americans, developed by a team that includes U.Va. assistant psychology professor Brian Nosek, found a high degree of bias against the elderly. Perhaps most unusual was the finding that even older Americans held negative attitudes toward their peers. “Presumably, old people are helping their positive orientation to themselves by distancing themselves from the category ‘old,’” Nosek told the Boston Globe.
— Boston Globe, Oct. 28

Julian Bond looks back
Is the era of great social movements dead? U.Va. history professor and NAACP national chairman Julian Bond, speaking recently to a group of Milwaukee educators, suggested that grass-roots movements are suffering from a fatalistic apathy. “Heroes need more than a passive audience if their heroism is to flourish. Black Americans really didn't march to freedom. We worked our way to civil rights through the difficult business of organizing. Through registering voters one by one, organizing a community block-by-block, creating a black-led, interracial movement in which 100 parts made up the successful whole.”
– Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Oct. 26

Religious conservatives make better dads
Sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox garnered national attention recently with his research findings that Catholic and evangelical Protestant men were more likely to be attentive, involved fathers than “mainline” Protestants and adherents of other religions. “I think what we are seeing is evidence that there are lots of evangelical and Catholic fathers who are truly changing their lives to try to spend more time with their children. The evidence is that they are doing this because they believe God wants them to.”
— Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 26

Rita Dove: Poetry has appeal in troubled times
From Atlanta comes news that a poetry reading sold out an 1,100-seat auditorium at Georgia Tech. Granted, the reading featured “superstar” poets, including U.Va.’s own Rita Dove. But Dove told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that more than notoriety was at work. “It goes in cycles,” she said. “When the external world becomes too much for people, they turn instinctively for solace elsewhere.”
– Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct. 26