She will sign autographs before the U.Va. women’s basketball team’s 1 p.m. game against Georgia Tech in the “Kids Zone,” located in the northeast corner of the lower-level concourse at John Paul Jones Arena.
Perdue won gold with the U.S. women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the 2012 London Olympics, becoming the first Virginia female swimmer to medal since Melanie Valerio won gold with the U.S. 4x100m free relay in 1996, and only the third overall. Only four U.Va. swimmers have won Olympic win gold: Perdue, Valerio, Matt McLean and Ed Moses.
National Girls and Women in Sports Day highlights the achievements of female athletes and their issues facing girls and women in sport. The event is co-sponsored by the U.Va. Athletics Department and the U.Va. Women’s Center.
Fans may purchase tickets through the Virginia Athletics Ticket Office online at VirginiaSports.com, by phone and in person. The Athletics Ticket Office is located in Bryant Hall at Scott Stadium and open weekdays from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Telephone purchases can be made by calling 1-800-542-UVA1 (8821) or locally at 434-924-UVA1 (8821).
Single-game ticket prices for all games are $10 for reserved seating, $8 for adult general admission and $6 for youth (18 & under), senior (60 & over) and U.Va. faculty/staff general admission.
Women on college campuses and in living rooms in the mid-1970s were passing around out-of-print, dog-eared copies of her books, especially “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” U.Va. English professor Deborah McDowell was in graduate school when she first read Zora Neale Hurston.
“At that time in institutions of higher learning, no one was reading novels or any other literature by black American women,” said McDowell, who directs the Carter G. Woodson Institute of African-American and African Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. “We are now teaching this, perhaps her most popular book, certainly the most legendary book, in colleges and universities around the world.”
Published in 1937, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” turns 75 this year on Sept. 18. The Woodson Institute is planning a celebration, including a panel discussion about Hurston and her groundbreaking work – save the date and stay tuned for more details. Continue reading…
Twice in one night the fan section from U.Va. went crazy in the College of William & Mary’s Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall. Last weekend, U.Va. brought home not one, but two trophies and $1,000 apiece from the first Nach Ke Dikha dance competition.
The competition, part of a “Voices of South Asia” conference hosted by William & Mary’s South Asian Student Association, pitted six college teams against each other in two categories – Bhangra and Fusion dance – along with three non-competitive exhibition acts. Routines were generally about eight minutes long.
The event coordinators aimed to provide “a unique competition that increases cultural awareness and serves as entertainment for VOSA attendees, the William & Mary and Williamsburg community, and South Asian dance fanatics across the East Coast,” according to the event’s Web page.
Back in late January and early February, the University hosted a series of events commemorating the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. UVA Today’s video arm did some great work in capturing those events and compiling a video highlights package, which has received multiple screenings in recent weeks. Check it out! (Only 4:04.)
Kevin Emerson at the Whitney Museum of American Art
If you happen to be traveling to the Big Apple in the next few days, you may want to check out U.Va. studio art professor and cinematographer Kevin Everson’s films, on exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Artthrough Sunday.
Kiera Matthews of Johnson C. Smith University (Credit: Debra Cohen)
UVA Today’s Anne Bromley reports:
Over the summer, nine undergraduate students conducted hands-on research, participating in the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance, a program devoted to boosting the number of underrepresented minority students in the so-called “STEM” fields – science, technology, engineering and math.
The students in the program, formed by U.Va. in 2007 and funded by the National Science Foundation, come from seven other colleges and universities in Virginia and North Carolina. The program is part of an NSF umbrella program, the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, which sponsors multi-institution programs all over the country.
This year, the University of Virginia collaborated with community partners to offer an unprecedented lineup of events to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In case you missed any of them, or if you want to relive a favorite moment or presentation, the University compiled an iTunesU page with audio files from the events. Currently, there are six events available, with at least one more likely addition still on the way. Enjoy!
(UPDATED JAN. 28, 11:20 A.M.) Many medical researchers today work with HeLa cell lines. Most probably don’t know that “HeLa” is short for Henrietta Lacks, the woman who was the source of the line, the oldest such cell line in research. Nor do they know of her story.
Lacks was an African-American woman and cervical cancer patient who in 1951, without her consent, became a medical research subject, and ultimately the source of the stem-cell line still in use today. Her family, while proud of her contributions to science, are also deeply resentful of how her body was used for science without her consent.
The discussion was moderated by U.Va. bioethicist James Childress, University Professor and John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics in the College of Arts & Sciences. The panelists included Charlottesville Vice Mayor Holly Edwards, a parish nurse in the Westhaven community; Karen Waters of the Charlottesville Quality Community Council; Dr. Jeanita Richardson; and Patrick Tolan, a Curry School of Education professor and director of Youth-Nex, the U.Ca. Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.
Remember the old bumper-sticker slogan that said something to the effect of, “Looking forward to the day when schools have all the money they need and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to build a bomber”?
That came to mind when I got an e-mail from Laurie Shaffer, who provides interpretive services for deaf and hard of hearing students at the University.
She and Kate O’Varanese, coordinator of services for the deaf and hard of hearing, are seeking funding for a project to improve interpretive services for hearing-impaired students around Virginia.
The funding source? The Pepsi Refresh Project, which will award $250,000 to the two projects receiving the most votes before Dec. 1.
They’re calling on the University to get behind their effort and start voting. As is reputed to happen in a certain large Midwestern city near a Great Lake, you can vote more than once — in fact, you can vote twice a day, every day. (Note that the first time you vote, you come to a voter registration screen. You have to fill out that info before you are returned to the voting page to actually cast your ballot.)
The filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s documentary “Freedom Riders” will not be shown on PBS until May 16, but the promotional campaign has already started.
“American Experience,” the PBS series that commissioned the film, will announce Thursday the 2011 Student Freedom Ride, which will retrace the 1961 civil rights bus rides that are the subject of the film. During the protests, some 430 black and white men and women, mostly students, traveled to the South to challenge segregation, meeting the violence they encountered with their own nonviolent tactics, and eventually spurring the Kennedy administration to action.
A Web site, pbs.org/freedomriders, started this week, soliciting applications from college students for 40 expenses-paid seats on the trip, May 6 to 16, which will begin with a public event in Washington and travel through seven Southern states. The trip will overlap with a reunion of original Freedom Riders noting the 50th anniversary of their ride.
The Black Coaches Association posted a story on its website noting that there is a piece of history associated with the Eastern Michigan football team’s visit to Scott Stadium on Saturday.
According to the BCA, “Although no official NCAA record currently exists, the 2010 Eastern Michigan vs. Virginia football game is believed to be the first football game on the Division I level with the opposing coaches and athletic directors being African-Americans,” excluding historically black colleges and universities.
Virginia’s team is coached by Mike London (above right); the athletics director is Craig Littlepage (left). EMU is coached by Ron English; its athletic director is Derrick Gragg.
Check out the new episode of the UVA Today Radio Show, a weekly five minute segment on WTJU radio. Look for new editions of the show every Wednesday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU. Afterward, all of the segments will be posted oniTunesU.
Read more about the stories featured in this week’s program:
U.S. Olympic medalist Lauren Perdue, a U.Va. swimming star, will be this year’s honoree as U.Va. celebrates National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Sunday.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell 
This year, the University of Virginia collaborated with community partners to offer an unprecedented lineup of events to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In case you missed any of them, or if you want to relive a favorite moment or presentation, the University compiled 
(UPDATED JAN. 28, 11:20 A.M.) Many medical researchers today work with HeLa cell lines. Most probably don’t know that “HeLa” is short for Henrietta Lacks, the woman who was the source of the line, the oldest such cell line in research. Nor do they know of her story.
The U.Va. Alumni Association is inviting alumni back to the University on March 25 and 26 for a conference, 
