Ron Mysliwiec was a Pennsylvania state high school debate champion who competed nationally, so his interest was piqued when his coach told him one day, “I met a girl who can beat you.” It sounded like a challenge. He recalls thinking, “Well, you’ve got to test that one.” When he later met Regina Crea, the New York state champion, that thought grew into: “This is my mission. I’m going to marry this girl.”
The couple (at right), who married in August 1970, in the midst of their studies at the U.Va. School of Law, are sharing their story this Valentine’s Day, along with other alumni couples who found U.Va. Law to be an important stop on the way to lifelong love, on the school’s news website.
A timely note from WTJU general manager Nathan Moore:
U.Va.’s community radio station, WTJU-91.1-FM, is marking World AIDS Day with special programming all week.
World AIDS Day is held on Dec. 1 each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died.
WTJU has been airing two dozen short audio stories from a number of the Charlottesville and U.Va. people who lead the fight against HIV/AIDS and the attendant problem of violence against women.
As part of this week of special programming, Bruce Penner of Radio Tropicale hosted a panel discussion on Wednesday that included Claire Kaplan of U.Va.’s Women’s Center and Peter deMartino of Charlottesville’s AIDS Support Group. The archive of the show will be available until Dec. 14 at WTJU’s Tape Vault.
Today from 4:30 to 5 p.m., WTJU will air a special World AIDS Day program, featuring testimony on the fight against AIDS in rural South Africa as witnessed by a team from the U.Va. Nursing School. The WTJU special will also include a discussion with U.Va. law Professor Deena Hurwitz about her published reports on the crisis of violence against women and American law.
For information about the guests and voices heard on WTJU, or for links to HIV/AIDS resources, click here.
The 28th annual North Grounds Softball Invitational raised $20,000 for a local nonprofit, Children, Youth and Family Services, plus another $3,000 for the U.Va. Law School’s Public Interest Law Association, according to a Law School report.
The tourney was also something of a boon to local hotels and restaurants, drawing 120 teams from 52 law schools to Charlottesville over the weekend.
Home-field advantage worked its magic, too — U.Va. Law’s Gold team (pictured) claimed the championship in the men’s division.
DeMaurice Smith, head of the National Football League Players Association and a 1989 graduate of the U.Va. Law School, returned to North Grounds Thursday and discussed the current conflict between players and owners (video available) in front of a large crowd at the Darden School’s Abbot Auditorium.
When negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement between NFL players and owners broke down in March, Smith and the players moved to decertify the union and filed an injunction in federal district court in Minnesota to stop the lockout imposed by team owners.
In Thursday’s hourlong talk, Smith outlined the players’ position.
Asked whether there would be an NFL season this fall, he answered simply, “I hope so.”
Feeling a little uninspired this Monday morning, I was fishing for material on the UVA Today News Blog’s blog roll. (First impression: We need to do a little purging there.)
Came across some interesting stuff. The Virginia Quarterly Review’s blog has people on the ground in Egypt. The most recent post was from Friday, and mentions Mubrak’s departure from the eyes of a correspondent in Giza. … The blogger “Azorin” at “up close and personal with a UVA student” has been pretty active lately, and seems to have a wide range of interests. … I enjoyed Ashley’s post last week on the Madison House blog about visiting a Crozet-area nonegenarian. … The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership’s blog is pretty active during the General Assembly. … The Sustainable Dining at U.Va. blog recently took a look at food-related TED talks. … The always-interesting Notes from Peabody blog is seeking to reassure applicants who have nothing to do but wait until the April 1 notification deadline. … High school seniors aren’t the only ones fretting about applications. At the Hoo Stories blog, second-year U.Va. students are anxious about applying to the McIntire School of Commerce and the Curry School of Education, and the Transfermer blog is busy with folks from other schools trying to make their way to Charlottesville. … Even Darden students are feeling some stress about job applications, according to the school’s Career Runnings blog. (For more from Darden students, the school has a whole page of student blogs.) … We’ve kept up pretty well with Conversations with Meredith, the blog of Arts & Sciences Dean Meredith Jung-En Woo. … Public Works, the public service blog over at the Law School, is pretty active, and flies in the face of the stereotype of the money-grubbing lawyer.
As mentioned above, it looks like it might be time to do some purging of inactive blogs. Meanwhile, if you have an active U.Va.-related blog that is NOT on our blog roll, click on comment below and send us your URL.
This weekend’s conference championship games, the Jan. 30 Pro Bowl and the Feb. 6 Super Bowl may be the last NFL action anyone will see for awhile, as Smith rates a player lockout as a virtual certainty after the season. The players and owners are locked in a dispute over how to divide professional sport’s largest revenue pie.
My favorite, from Tom Nachbar: “Exams are endurance contests, not memory contests. Prepare accordingly. On a daily basis, you need your first hour of physical exercise and your eighth hour of sleep a lot more than you need your tenth hour of studying.”
If you’ve got about 24 minutes, enjoy the YouTube video of her retirement ceremony. You’ll get a taste of what made her a special member of the law faculty.
The Monday after Final Exercises is reserved for U.Va. athletes who were competing on Sunday. That’s when eight players and two staff members from the men’s lacrosse team and two members of the women’s softball team had their moment in the sun. And clouds. And sun.
If Ward is nominated, endures the shark-infested confirmation process and ends up landing the coveted seat, she won’t even be the first U.Va. L.L.M. elevated to a nation’s highest court this year. Back in January, 1983 graduate Donal O’Donnell took a seat on the Supreme Court of Ireland.
The folks who study and work on North Grounds can tell you: softball is a Big Deal in those parts. Doubtless in more than one of the Law School’s cherry-wood lockers, bats and gloves share space with interview suits.
This past weekend, softball was a force for good in the community. The North Grounds Softball League hosted its 27th annual U.Va. Law Softball tournament, bringing in a record 120 teams from 53 schools (think of the economic impact!). The tourney raised $20,000 for Charlottesville non-profit Children, Youth and Family Services and another $3,000 for U.Va.’s Public Interest Law Association, which funds summer fellowships for students working in public service (a total that was matched with another $3,000 from the Law School Foundation).
To add the cherry on top of the charity sundae, a home team, U.Va. Blue (pictured), won the men’s division. (A team from the Florida Coastal School of Law took home the co-rec title.)
(Read the Daily Progress article on the tournament here.)
UPDATE, April 21: Listen to the UVA Today Radio Show report on this story:
Ron Mysliwiec was a Pennsylvania state high school debate champion who competed nationally, so his interest was piqued when his coach told him one day, “I met a girl who can beat you.” It sounded like a challenge. He recalls thinking, “Well, you’ve got to test that one.” When he later met Regina Crea, the New York state champion, that thought grew into: “This is my mission. I’m going to marry this girl.”
A couple of years ago, law professor Chris Sprigman attracted national media attention for 
The 28th annual North Grounds Softball Invitational raised $20,000 for a local nonprofit, Children, Youth and Family Services, plus another $3,000 for the U.Va. Law School’s Public Interest Law Association, according to 
DeMaurice Smith, head of the National Football League Players Association and a 1989 graduate of the U.Va. Law School, returned to North Grounds Thursday and 
Leah Sears Ward, who received a L.L.M. from the U.Va. School of Law in 1995, 
This past weekend, 