News Briefs

Casteen speaks on the state of U.Va. April 10
President John T. Casteen III will present the annual State of the University address April 10 at 11:30 a.m. in Old Cabell Hall Auditorium.
Open to the University community, his talk typically features a wide-ranging update on U.Va.’s progress and challenges, including the past year’s achievements, recent legislation and future plans.

Parking changes coming at U-Hall
In anticipation of site preparation for the new basketball arena, Parking & Transportation will close 300 parking spaces in the Massie Road lot across from University Hall in early April.

Vehicles will be redirected to vacant spaces across the street in lots immediately adjacent to University Hall. UTS Green route buses will shift service to the west side of U-Hall, between U-Hall and Klöckner Stadium. Parking permit- holders affected will be notified in the weeks before the changes take effect.

Once arena construction begins, the project will gradually consume all of the spaces in the Massie Road north lot. A 1,200-space parking garage on Ivy Road, slated to open in September, will accommodate the displaced vehicles.

A consultant hired by the University and the city recently completed a traffic plan for the area. The University committed to paying for traffic improvements necessitated by the garage, plus the synchronization of 11 traffic lights at nearby intersections.

“This has been an extraordinary example of how representatives of the city of Charlottesville, the neighborhood, the business community and the University can work together to improve the quality of life we all enjoy,” said Leonard W. Sandridge, U.Va. executive vice president and chief operating officer. “This community is the University’s home and the home of our faculty, students and staff — it is critically important that we and our neighbors work together to address our common challenges.”

Two win Truman scholarships
Third-year students Katie Hamm and Sean Driscoll have been named 2003 Truman Scholars. Hamm, from Stafford, and Driscoll, from Belle Harbor, N.Y., are both majors in the Political and Social Thought Program.

The Truman Foundation each year grants 70 scholarships of $30,000 to promising college juniors nationwide to help them pay for their last year of college. Truman Scholars are selected on the basis of leadership potential, intellectual ability and their likelihood of “making a difference.” The University has had 22 students win the award.

Educational leadership in age of Accountability
The nationwide trend toward accountability in public schools — largely measured by standardized testing — is putting new demands on school principals, according to a new book, “Educational Leadership in an Age of Accountability: The Virginia Experience,” edited by Curry School of Education professors Daniel L. Duke, Pamela D. Tucker and Walter F. Heinecke with University of Missouri professor Margaret Grogan.

The new mission of schools “is now crystal clear — get students to achieve state-dictated passing scores on state-commissioned tests,” said Tucker.

Strong leadership has always been a hallmark of successful schools, but educators now need greater understanding of how young people learn, the research team said. And principals must free teachers to focus on teaching and buffer them from “punitive aspects” of the standards’ mandates.

It is possible, the study concludes, that by removing ambiguity the accountability programs might make educational leadership easier.

Lawton Fitt named Distinguished Alumna
After being named to Fortune’s list of the “50 Most Powerful Women in American Business” in 1999 and after 23 years as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs, Darden alumna Lawton Wehle Fitt has taken a new position to head the Royal Academy of the Arts in London. The breadth of her accomplishments and activities were among the factors in the Women’s Center’s choice of Fitt for its 2003 Distinguished Alumna Award. She will be honored on Grounds April 9 and give a public talk at 1:20 p.m. in the Darden School’s C.C.A. Amphitheatre as part of its Distinguished Speakers Series. A public reception will be held from 3:30-4:30 p.m. that day at Carr’s Hill.

Fitt, who graduated in 1979, says of the new job, “I’ve had to work hard to keep the arts side of my life alive, but it has been important to me in the past and has provided a critical base for this next chapter in my life. Skills are transferable — always keep your eyes open for opportunity and never count yourself out.”

Helping nontraditional students meet their goals
“Programs for nontraditional students represent one of the fastest-growing areas in higher education,” said Brian Pusser, assistant professor of higher education at U.Va. and co-leader of a new study on how nontraditional students attain their educational goals.

The Lumina Foundation has awarded the Curry School’s Center for the Study of Higher Education a two-year, $950,000 grant to look at what effects state and federal policies, funding mechanisms and other factors have on nontraditional students’ access to degrees, training and credentials.

Researchers will analyze whether these students have the same opportunities for meeting their educational goals as their traditional peers.

Conference looks at community resilience
Two vulnerable rural communities faced threatening events. A conference on community resilience, to be held at McLeod Hall auditorium April 11, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., will examine how these communities mobilized and maintained coherence during times of crisis.

Presentations will include “The Murder of James Byrd as Community Trauma: Jasper, Texas’s Constructive Response” by Ricardo Ainslie, professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and “Rebuilding Bayview, Virginia: Community Design as Catalyst for Social Change” by Maurice Cox, associate professor of architecture at U.Va. and mayor of Charlottesville.
The conference is sponsored by the School of Medicine’s Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction. For information, call 982-1045, e-mail mind@virginia.edu or visit: http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/csmhi.

Bioethics articles on the Web
Will the experience and lessons gained from past medical war crimes be brought into the new era? Is it possible that we are witnessing the beginning of a transition in American culture, one fraught with implications for bioethics, since the Sept. 11 attacks? These questions are discussed in articles listed on a new Web site launched by U.Va.’s Center for Biomedical Ethics, in collaboration with the American Journal of Bioethics. The resource is online at http://bioethics.net/hottopics/bioter/.

New director of Kluge Center appointed
Dr. Sydney Rice recently joined U.Va. as the medical director of the Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center. Rice received her B.S. from Stanford University and her medical degree from the University of Arizona. She completed residency training in pediatrics, including a year as chief resident, and joined the Arizona faculty. Rice came to U.Va. to earn a master’s degree in health evaluation sciences, which she completed in January as part of fellowship training in developmental pediatrics. Her patient care and clinical research focus is on children and adolescents with acquired head injury.

Health System child-care center expands
The staff members at the Malcolm Cole Child Care Center can empathize with the nursery rhyme character who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

The center’s latest attempt to find more room will result in the conversion of space previously assigned to school-age children into two classrooms. The new classrooms will serve the 2- and 3-year-old groups, which have the highest demand for enrollment, and will allow the center to accommodate 24 new children. Renovation of the space will be completed soon.

The center is also changing its admission policy to favor direct caregivers, including residents, which may help the hospital’s recruitment efforts.

E-mail advice for moms-to-be
If you’re pregnant, you receive advice from many sources — friends, relatives, books, magazines, nosy strangers — some more helpful than others. What if you could get reliable medical advice in a timely, non-threatening e-mail directly from medical experts? The U.Va. Health System’s Women’s Place is offering just that in The Parent Review, which sends customized weekly messages to mothers-to-be from the 20th week of pregnancy through 20 weeks after birth.

For information, contact Diane Sampson, education director for the Women’s Place, at 924-9920 or des4v@vriginia.edu.

Learn ways to work with stress
Our lives are filled with daily stresses: work, family, health, finances, war. Recent research shows that practicing mindfulness can help individuals decrease their stress while enhancing their coping, listening, caring and self-healing skills. This technique has also been shown to help those with health problems gain self-awareness and empowerment in their own health care.

The Department of Family Medicine is offering its next eight-week program of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction March 31-May 19, , on Mondays, 6:30 9 p.m., with an all-day retreat May 10. Sessions will be held at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Conference Room, lower level. The fee is $325, but a sliding scale fee is available. Another program will be held in the fall Sept. 22-Nov. 10.

For information, call Clare Howard at 924-1190 or Allie Rudoph at 924-1622.

Two scholarships honor alumni
The Glenn D. Kirwin Sept. 11th Scholarship honors the memory of Glenn D. Kirwin, a 1982 graduate of the College who lost his life while at his office in the World Trade Center during the terrorist attacks. The $5,000 scholarship will be awarded annually to one or more rising second-, third- or fourth-year students whose character and involvement in University life most resembles Kirwan’s, with first preference to applicants who are children of Sept. 11 victims. For information, contact Donna Slough at Alumni Hall or e-mail dks4a@virginia.edu or alumni-scholarships@virginia.edu.

Bryant scholarship deadline April 21
In 2000, Stephen and Sallie Bryant established a memorial scholarship honoring the life of Sean Bryant, a fourth-year student who died in 1996. The scholarship will be awarded on a merit basis to a rising fourth-year student enrolled in the University who has demonstrated a wide array of intellectual interests and pursuits, and compiled a record of significant leadership in service to the University community. The scholarship recipient also will have shown a commitment to speaking for and representing people whose voices are traditionally unheard. The scholarship will be for $1,000. The deadline is April 21.

Symposium to focus on local knowledge in light of gender, race and nation
A conference April 10 will explore the idea of “rethinking local knowledge and constructions of gender, race and nation.” Called “Localizing the Global, Globalizing the Local,” the all-day event will feature anthropologist Clifford Geertz, professor emeritus of the Institute for Advanced Study.

The meeting will mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of Geertz’ influential book, “Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology.” Scholars from U.Va. and other institutions will participate.

The interdisciplinary symposium, to be held in the Rotunda Dome Room, is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Local Knowledge in the Carter G. Woodson Institute. For information, contact Corey D. B. Walker at 924-8891 or cdw6e@virginia.edu.

Policing in a democratic society
Robert Stewart, former head of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Officers, will speak about policing in a democratic society March 31 at 4 p.m. in Room 30 of the Darden School. An outgrowth of the Community/University Police Liaison Committee, the event is designed for citizens and law enforcement officers. A light dinner will be available. For information, call 924-1321.

The silent ‘Faust’ comes to screen with live music
F. W. Murnau’s epic restaging of the Goethe classic, “Faust,” comes to the screen with an original score written and performed by Charlottesville-based jazz artist John D’earth and a specially assembled jazz/chamber ensemble. This long unavailable classic of the silent era will be shown March 30 at 7 p.m. in Newcomb Hall Theater.

D’earth currently conducts the University Jazz Ensemble.

Tickets are $10. See the OFFScreen Web site at http://www.student.virginia.edu/~indie

Re-imagining Ireland in Irish art today
The tensions between tradition and modernity and their capacity to bring about change in Ireland’s sense of identity is the focus of a special exhibit, “Re-Imagining Ireland: Irish Art Today,” which opens at the University Art Museum April 12.

Jointly planned with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in conjunction with its major international conference, “Re-Imagining Ireland” May 7-10, the exhibition will be on view through June 8.

Curated by museum director Jill Hartz and Charlottesville-based sculptor Susan Bacik, the exhibit presents artistically and politically challenging works in a range of media by artists living and working in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, mixed media and video works are drawn primarily from the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, with additional loans from Dublin galleries, artists and private collectors.
See www.re-imagining-ireland.org.

How Lewis and Clark brought back their party
“Bring back your party safe...” ordered Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis in preparation for one of the greatest explorations in U.S. history. Amazingly, he and his co-leader, William Clark, were able to accomplish that. Of the entire Corps of Discovery, only one man died, not of injury or accident, but probably from appendicitis, an outcome that was inevitable in the early 19th century.

The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library has a new Web exhibit that examines the medicine and medical theory Lewis and Clark employed to promote health and recovery. It also examines the trials the explorers faced due to disease, accident and injury. Created by the Historical Collections and Services staff, it may be viewed at http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/lewis_clark/.

In Memoriam
• Billy R. Shifflett, 68, of Earlysville, died March 6. He retired from Facilities Management after 35 years.

• Sharyn B. Johnson, 54, of Charlottesville, died March 10. At the time of her death, she was a patient care assistant.

• James F. Hewitt, 71, of Charlottesville, died March 16. He was a housekeeping worker senior.