Digest — U.Va. News Daily

Photo by Peggy Harrison

First-year students (left-right) Amanda Penabad, Meghan Moore and Diane Cole help with a landscape project at Venable Elementary School on Sept. 6, efforts that were part of U.Va.'s SERVE program.

First-year students SERVE community
Instead of sleeping in on a Saturday morning, more than 100 first-year students got up Sept. 6 and devoted the morning to community service. SERVE, a one-day program organized by students with help from the Office of Orientation and New Student Programs, introduces first-years to the range of community service opportunities in the Charlottesville area. SERVE volunteers went to local schools, libraries and nonprofits, and they ended the day with a cookout and community service fair on Newcomb plaza. (Sept. 11)

High-speed network accelerates research
The details are inscrutable to most observers, but the significance of the National LambdaRail project is clear: The highest-speed computing network will allow member institutions — including the University of Virginia — to enhance their competitiveness in the global research environment. Plans for the network, and a statewide partnership to bring a regional node to Northern Virginia, were announced Sept. 16.
(Sept. 17)

Civil War Web site expands offerings
History buffs can now indulge themselves with thousands of new original documents on life during the Civil War for the men and women of Augusta County, Va., and Franklin County, Pa. The Virginia Center for Digital History has released a new version of its award-winning Web site, “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War.”
(Sept. 18)

School of Medicine part of Middle Atlantic Biodefense Research Initiative
U.Va.’s School of Medicine is one of the participants in the Middle Atlantic Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. One focus: developing vaccines against anthrax and smallpox and emerging infectious diseases such as the West Nile virus. U.Va. researchers will receive a substantial amount of funding for research of anthrax, tularemia, cryptosporidia and the pox virus.
(Sept. 12)