New welcome mat rolled out for graduate students

By Lee Graves

Gov. Mark R. Warner might have been preaching to the choir last week in outlining his “Education for a Lifetime” proposal to educators, students and elected officials in Newcomb Hall, but his message was far from complacent.

Citing a national study done two decades ago titled “A Nation at Risk,” Warner said, “Twenty years later, while progress has been made, we are still at risk. And the urgency of eliminating that risk is greater than it has ever been before.”

Warner’s visit to U.Va. Sept. 5 was the final stop in a three-day effort to launch a plan designed to revise, reform and re-invigorate education in Virginia. Much of the six-point proposal deals with K-12 education, and he acknowledged that many
of the specifics are yet to come. Full story.

Casteen: Focus on student experience
“A rare opportunity to make real change”

By Carol Wood

Just before Spring Break, an assault on a candidate for Student Council president was reported to University Police. That incident set off a chain of events that on Sept. 5 led to the first meeting of the President’s Commission on Diversity and Equity.

President John T. Casteen III delivered his charge to commission members, a diverse group of students, staff, faculty and community members, advising them “neither to fear controversy nor to compromise a single inch” when it comes to equity and fairness for every member of the student body at the University. He asked the group to assess the quality of the student experience in all its aspects. Full story.

Ovarian cancer, ADHD projects among FEST winners

By Fariss Samarrai

Four U.Va. research projects have been awarded grants this year through the Funding Excellence in Science and Technology program, sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies.

This year’s winners include a proposal to develop a drug discovery center at the University; a project studying possible therapies for ovarian cancer; a psycho-physiological procedure for assessing attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders; and a project that is looking at ways to use synthetic biomaterials for eventual therapies for an assortment of medical conditions.

The FEST awards, a program now in its third year, are part of the Virginia 2020 Science and Technology Planning Commission plan. The awards provide a source of seed money for innovative and promising research. President John T. Casteen III established the program as part of the 2020 initiative. Full story.