UVA Today News Blog

(UPDATED, March 15, 11:48 p.m., to add George Martin to “On the Move” list)

Earlier this month, Virginia Business magazine published its list of the 50 most influential Virginians. It excluded politicians and college presidents — “Of course, these people are influential, but there are so many of them, they would have dominated a list of 50,” the authors explained — so what remained were largely philanthropists, lawyers and titans of industry.

And two college professors.

One is George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller, who direct’s the school’s Center for Regional Analysis.

The other? U.Va.’s own oft-quoted pundit Larry Sabato (pictured), politics professor and director of the U.Va. Center for Politics, one of a handful on the list whose entries were expanded and spotlighted.

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Alumni, Board of Visitors, News, On Grounds, People, politics | Thursday, March 14th | By: Dan @2:24 pm | 2 Comments     

It was one of those throwaway lines that speakers use to ingratiate themselves with their audiences, but it caught my attention:

“I will tell you also, I was here a long time ago as an undergraduate,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday in Old Cabell Hall. “I played lacrosse down on that field over there against you guys, and my first act of diplomacy is literally to forget who won. I have no idea. I don’t know.”

Well, I looked it up. Kerry graduated from Yale University in 1966, and according to historic records posted on the Virginisports.com site, Yale’s lacrosse team indeed visited Charlottesville just once during a presumed four- or five-year career — on April 2, 1966. And ever the diplomat, Kerry conveniently “forgot” that his Bulldogs whipped the Cavaliers, 12-6.

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News, On Grounds, People, politics, Sports | Friday, February 22nd | By: Dan @4:49 pm | 3 Comments     

OK, people, it’s time to step up. This is Thomas Jefferson’s University, home to Larry Sabato and the Center for Politics, and the Miller Center, not to mention thousands of brilliant students. Somebody out there in U.Va.-land ought to be getting a nice fat check very soon.

According to this article in the Journal of Philanthropy, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is promising to split 100 grand among 11 winners of a contest soliciting “short, provocative media submissions designed to spark a national conversation about how we can all come together to strengthen American democracy.” These could come in the form of videos, graphics, animations, public-service announcements and other short digital submissions designed to spark a conversation on the subject. Entries should “tell a story about why government is important to our lives” or ”tell how we might together strengthen American democracy,” according to the Looking@Democracy contest website.

The deadline is April 30.

C’mon, Wahoos, this should be a piece of cake for someone out there. In fact, we will be sorely disappointed if there is not at least one winner from U.Va. Let’s get to work!

News, On Grounds, politics | Tuesday, February 5th | By: Dan @3:55 pm | 2 Comments     

BackStory‘s “American History Guys” are in Washington this weekend for a live show, to begin Saturday at 11 a.m., on “Inaugurations in American History” at the National Museum of American History. The public radio program is being cablecast and webcast by C-SPAN3′s American History TV and also being covered by Voice of America Television News.
But the media coverage does not stop there: CNN has now scheduled three live, nationally broadcast interviews with BackStory’s hosts, Peter Onuf, Ed Ayers and Brian Balogh.

All three BackStory hosts will be interviewed on presidential history and inaugurations by CNN’s Kate Bolduan and John Berman Saturday between 4 and 5 p.m.

Bolduan and Berman will also interview Ayers on the symbolism and use of the Bible during presidential inaugurations, during the 5 o’clock hour on Sunday. And between 7 and 8 p.m. that same evening, the Guys will pick up on the history of presidencies and inaugurations during another live broadcast from the National Mall with CNN hosts John King and Erin Burnett .

Public radio’s contemporary take on American history, “BackStory with the American History Guys” is a national, weekly one-hour show and podcast that is a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. All three hosts have their roots in U.Va.’s Corcoran Department of History; Balogh remains on the faculty, Onuf recently retired, and Ayers has gone on to become president of the University of Richmond.

News, People, politics, Radio, TV | Friday, January 18th | By: Dan @4:31 pm | 1 Comment     

The latest edition of Sabato’s Crystal Ball from U.Va.’s Center for Politics, “Closing the Book on 2012,” popped up in our in-boxes on Dec. 20. As we were exchanging office gifts and chowing down on tasty goodies at the time, we filed it away for later consideration.

It now being “later,” we took a look and found a smorgasbord of observations and comments spawned by November’s elections, sure to delight observers of politics from all over the spectrum.

The center’s director, politics professor Larry Sabato, lately has been telling everyone who will listen that the current system of early voting is a bad idea, and he and his colleagues, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley, make the point again in fairly strong terms.

“Our nation now takes two months to vote, and two months to count the votes. This is unacceptable,” he writes. “It is unwise for balloting to start so many weeks before Election Day — before the campaign has truly unfolded and many useful revelations about the candidates have unfolded. Millions of voters are writing their review of a four-act play after the second act.”

There are plenty of other cogent observations, so take a look.

(And by the way, they really aren’t “closing the book” on the 2012 election. In fact, Sabato is editing a new one: “Barack Obama and the New America: The 2012 Election and the Changing Face of Politics” is due out in the middle of this month. You can read more and pre-order it here.)

Arts & Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, News, politics | Friday, January 4th | By: Dan @3:47 pm | 1 Comment     

With more or less all precincts reporting (including Florida — finally!), only one remaining burning question remains:

How did the Crystal Ball’s election predictions fare?

We reported last week that the Crystal Ball team — politics professor Larry Sabato and his U.Va. Center for Politics colleagues Geoff Skelley and Kyle Kondik — forecast an Obama victory in the presidential race.

In their post-election self-evaluation, the Crystal Ball staff gave themselves mostly positive marks:

• They missed Virginia and Florida going for Obama, and thus under-forecast the president’s margin in the Electoral College, but correctly forecast the other 48 states.
• They correctly predicted 31 of the 33 Senate races, again erring a little on the GOP side. They had Democrats emerging with 53 seats, but it looks like they will control 55.
• They successfully picked 10 of the 11 gubernatorial races.
• They report about 97 percent accuracy in the 435 House of Representatives races, with Democrats again making a few unforeseen gains.

“All in all, we correctly picked about 96 percent of the combined Electoral College, House, Senate and gubernatorial results this cycle,” the forecasters wrote. “That’s about equal to our biennial average.”

Arts & Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, News, politics | Monday, November 12th | By: Dan @2:14 pm | 1 Comment     

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which he has said in recent weeks has been too murky to make a prediction on the winner of Tuesday’s elections, cleared up enough over the weekend to finally come up with a pick: President Obama will narrowly win re-election.

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Arts & Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, News, politics | Monday, November 5th | By: Dan @4:31 pm | 2 Comments     

Just in case you haven’t yet had your fill of political drama …

A couple of U.Va. alumni are behind the local performance of “Stanley Ann,” a one-woman show that will be staged Thursday, Friday and Saturday at The Bridge PAI in Charlottesville.

The play, penned by 1994 U.Va. graduate Mike Kindle, draws from President Obama’s autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” and other sources to tell the story of Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. The show’s press release lays out her remarkable life: “She married first a Kenyan, and then an Indonesian student at a time when interracial marriage was illegal in many states. She then moved to Indonesia, later sending her son back to the U.S. to be educated. Later she returned herself to study anthropology, and went on to become one of the developers of microfinance, small loans given to village women in the Third World.”

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Alumni, Arts, Community, Curry School, politics | Tuesday, October 23rd | By: Dan @4:19 pm | 2 Comments     

U.Va. law professors and master rhetoricians Robert N. Sayler and Molly Bishop Schadel, authors of “Tongue-Tied America: Reviving the Art of Verbal Persuasion,” have posted their critique of the second presidential debate on their “Tongue-Tied America” blog. Their conclusion: “The second debate, rhetorically speaking, goes to the president.”

For review, here’s what they had to say about the first Obama-Romney matchup, and here’s what they wrote about the veep debate.

Law School, News, People, politics | Wednesday, October 17th | By: Dan @4:22 pm | 0 Comments     

Now that everyone has had three months to digest President Sullivan’s forced resignation and reinstatement, it’s time to come up with some constructive ideas.

Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m., three area state legislators will gather at the U.Va. Law School’s Caplin Pavilion for an open forum on issues of university governance. According to the Facebook post announcing the event, Sen. Creigh Deeds and Dels. David Toscano and Steve Landes will “hear comments and answer questions about potential legislation” arising from June’s events.

Should faculty, students, staff members or anyone else have a voting seat on the Board of Visitors? Who should choose? Or is everything OK as it is? Which matters should the board be permitted to discuss in closed session? If board members have legitimate concerns about the performance of a university official, how should they proceed?

The doors open for the event at 5:30 p.m. If you cannot attend, but would like to submit comments, you can contact Sen. Deeds’ office at 434-296-5491 or district25@senate.virginia.gov or Del. Toscano’s office at 434-220-1660 or david@davidtoscano.com.

Board of Visitors, Community, Law School, News, politics, President Sullivan | Tuesday, September 25th | By: Dan @2:26 pm | 0 Comments     

U.Va. law professors Molly Bishop Shadel and Robert Sayler, pictured at right, wrote the book on the art on oral argument. Really. Their book, “Tongue-Tied America: Reviving the Art of Verbal Persuasion,” earned them lots of attention about 18 months ago.

Now they’re using the lessons they taught in their book to analyze the run for the White House. In their blog, Tongue-Tied Applied, they’re busy critiquing some of the key addresses from the candidates and their surrogates, plus advertising.

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Law School, News, politics | Thursday, September 6th | By: Dan @11:34 am | 2 Comments     

As anyone who is even remotely acquainted with Larry Sabato — or even has only seen him on TV — would understand, a presidential election year is the high holy season for “America’s favorite political pundit,” also known around these parts as an extremely popular politics professor in the College of Arts & Sciences and the director of the U.Va. Center for Politics.

Sabato spent this week in Tampa at the Republican National Convention, and he will doubtless be in Charlotte next week for the Democrats’ turn in the spotlight.

As always, he is not attending as a silent observer. He’s been cranking out the analysis, both on his Crystal Ball website and via his Twitter feed, where his gift for pith is a natural fit. (“Strongest part of Mitt’s Strong Speech: Weaved in “jobs” top to bottom. Weakest: Tried to do too much, meandered.”)

He’s in his element. Check it out.

Arts & Sciences, People, politics | Friday, August 31st | By: Dan @12:14 pm | 1 Comment     

Check out the new episode of the UVA Today Radio Show, a weekly segment featured as part of “Soundboard,” WTJU‘s hour-long discussion program about news, culture and community issues in the Charlottesville area. UVA Today segments air during the Thursday morning edition of “Soundboard,” between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Shortly afterward, the segments will be posted here and on iTunesU.

Read more about the story featured in this week’s program:

• U.Va. Demographers: Virginia May Be Turning Blue, But Who Shows Up To Vote Is the Wildcard (Michele Claibourn and Dustin Cable)

Air Date: 8/30/2012

Listen to this week’s show

News, politics, Radio | Thursday, August 30th | By: Dan @5:37 pm | 0 Comments     

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama with U.Va. fourth-year student Alysha Tierney

Media Relations student writer Lisa Littman, a fourth-year who will take her U.Va. degree Sunday in English and Spanish, tells us about a classmate:

Alysha Tierney, a fourth-year foreign affairs and history student in the College of Arts & Sciences, was lucky enough to snag a photo with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama when the president began his re-election campaign in Richmond on May 5. She even got a handshake from the president and a hug from the first lady.

Tierney was a bit too awestruck to have an in-depth conversation with the Obamas.

“I was not able to come up with anything intelligent to say other than, ‘Wow, this is amazing,’” she recalled.

With Tierney, however, that’s the exception, not the rule. This fall, she co-founded ‘Hoos for Obama at U.Va. The group hosts voter registration drives and phone banks, and plans to resume these activities in full force when students return in the fall.

The president is the reason Tierney became involved with the Democratic Party, she said. “He’s done so much for students over the past four years – doubling the funding of Pell Grants, cutting out banks as the middle man between me and my federal student loans, and allowing so many students and recent graduates to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26 years old.”

After graduation, she will head to Nashua, N.H., to work as a field organizer with Obama’s re-election campaign.

Arts & Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, People, politics, Student Life | Friday, May 11th | By: Rebecca @4:33 pm | 0 Comments     

The 2012 presidential race is beginning to take shape, with the Republican nomination race becoming much clearer and the Obama-vs.-Romney battle lines already being drawn.

With that in mind, U.Va.’s renowned politics professor, Larry Sabato, is holding a public event tomorrow evening at 6:30 in the Wilson Hall auditorium to talk about the races for the White House and for seats on Capitol Hill. According to an event announcement, “That includes assessments of which way the important swing states in the Electoral College are leaning, which key factors and issues will decide the presidential race and which party has the edge to control the House and the Senate after November.”

The session is free, but advanced registration is required.

If you’re looking for a different take, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson offered his thoughts on the presidential race last week at the Law School.’

Arts & Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, Law School, News, On Grounds, People, politics | Monday, April 9th | By: Dan @4:26 pm | 0 Comments