The University’s Academic Division will operate on a modified schedule on Tuesday, February 11th, 2025, due to inclement winter weather. Classes will not meet in person on Grounds, but we encourage faculty to shift their classes online, if feasible. Please communicate your plans to your students.
Designated Academic Division employees should report to work as scheduled
Non-designated Academic Division employees should remain at home unless requested to report to work by a supervisor. Based on the specific needs of a particular school or unit to maintain essential operations and to respond and restore normal University operations, supervisors may request non-designated employees to work either at home or at alternate work locations. Non-designated Academic Division employees who work from home should continue to work from home and follow their normal schedule.
Supervisors and faculty in the Academic division are asked to provide flexibility for staff members who have other responsibilities at home (such as childcare or eldercare) while continuing to meet the needs of the University. Any employee who is unable to work should contact their manager or supervisor so a reasonable accommodation plan can be made
Students and Academic Division faculty and staff should monitor the Academic Operations Status Board for changes to operations on Grounds.
For information on how to find your emergency event status, see How Can I Find My Designated Status?
Patient care services at UVA Medical Center, Ambulatory Operations, UPG, and UVA Community Health will provide its own message.
UVA Health team members should monitor internal communications and the UVA Health Status Board for changes to patient care and business operations.
University officials will continue to monitor weather conditions and will provide updates about additional schedule modifications or the resumption of normal operations. Please use extra precautions and allow extra time while traveling.
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Kelsey Johnson:
I genuinely believe that at the core of what it means for us to be human is our ability to question. I teach a course called Unsolved Mysteries in the Universe. We get to talk about everything from is there extraterrestrial life to what happens inside black holes to what is the nature of time.
All of these things are fair game in this class.
Hannah Thompson:
We spent half the first day drawing aliens. And then she said, "Well, why do you think it would look like this?" How do you know it’s not invisible? How do you know it’s not minuscule? How do you know you could even perceive it? Our bias towards humans was holding us back from being able to comprehend that life doesn’t have to look just like us.
Jonathan Holland:
It’s those types of questions that she asked that get us to start delving into that deeper sense of curiosity, which is what the class is really about.
Johnson:
It is so important to teach the students that it’s OK to question. Somehow they get in their brains that having a question means you don’t understand something, when really asking these deep, meaningful, provocative questions enable us to advance and make progress.
Holland:
I think it’s important to have a class that focuses on things that we don’t know because if you only have classes that teach you things that we already know, then what is going to inspire students to pursue those aspects of our lives and those aspects of the universe that we don’t know?
Johnson:
One of my top goals for the class is for them to leave with a renewed sense of curiosity about the world. When children are little, they’re so curious and they’re willing to play with anything and they’re not afraid of experimenting. At some point, they lose that and I really try to light that spark.
Holland:
In the grand scheme of things, just because the universe is incomprehensibly large, doesn’t mean that you have to be scared of it. I think it just means that there’s so much out there that is left to be learned, and instead of being scared, we should take steps towards learning that.
Johnson:
Come in and open your mind. And when you think deeply about those depths of space and darkness, and you allow yourself to have this experience, it’ll blow your mind.
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UVA offers one of the world’s most iconic undergraduate experiences. Designed as a machine to foster ingenuity, UVA has stood as a center for critical thought designed not just to create a better kind of university but also to create better leaders and a more informed society. In the last two centuries, generations of UVA students, faculty and alumni have continued to live out these ideas, in service to the common good. In a setting of extraordinary beauty, students from all walks of life and parts of the world gather to exchange ideas, dream boldly and commit themselves to a better society and a better world.