News

On Saturday, August 27, as Hurricane Irene began to lick the Virginia coast, the employees of Showmasters, Inc., were setting up 470 tables at the Richmond International Raceway. In fact, Showmasters—“the largest continuous running gun show in the state of Virginia,” according to its website—cancelled a show in Fishersville scheduled for the same weekend, so as not to conflict with its Richmond event. Rather than drive further inland toward Staunton, any Charlottesville resident bent on a gun show had to head towards the storm.

Much of the campaign for the Democratic nomination to City Council was spent drawing lines between the candidates who supported the construction of the Meadow Creek Parkway (MCP) and the ones who didn’t; the ones in favor of a new earthen dam at Ragged Mountain and the ones who preferred dredging the South Fork Rivanna […]

Beginning with a 5am meetup, and the first patient on the move roughly two hours later, Martha Jefferson Hospital started the transition to its nearly $300 million new home on Pantops Mountain. Construction of the 176-bed hospital began in June 2008 and concluded roughly three years later. Hazel Jones (pictured), 90, was the last patient […]

When Scottsville resident Barry Long put the finishing touches on two-and-a-half years of work, he was only half-sure it would fit through the door. In his spare time, Long had built two flat-bottomed sailboats in his basement, and now he was prepared to alter the doorframe to get them out. Barry Long documented his boatmaking […]

When I entered elementary school in Tampa, Florida, I flunked my first gifted enrollment test, and had to take it again. Nerves? Socioeconomic status? It wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of my scholastic career; that was likely the day I fell down a hill during cross country practice. But I was invested in my education […]

During a press conference last week, UVA President Teresa Sullivan introduced the school’s newest recruits to the public. Of the 3,450 first year students, 67 percent come from Virginia, 91 percent were in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, and they averaged 1,339 on their SATs.    UVA President Teresa Sullivan “This […]

 Daniel Willingham thinks of his education as typical. His family moved, so Willingham spent time in different school districts. He went to primary school in New York, and completed junior high and high schools in New Jersey. Ironically, Willingham—now a cognitive scientist in UVA’s Department of Psychology—didn’t love the classroom. Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist […]

UVA’s founder believed it was never too late to learn. With enrollment deadlines passed and classes underway, that may not necessarily feel true. However, we can’t help but stare longingly at this year’s course offerings and plot ways to infiltrate a few compelling classes. Here are some that piqued our curiosity.   Peter Onuf’s lecture […]

Do students that meet federal poverty guidelines have less access to advanced studies? The nonprofit news website ProPublica recently released what it calls the “Civil Rights Data Set,” gathered from 2009-2010 school year reports. The data includes numbers on gifted enrollment, free and reduced lunches, and race for every school district with more than 3,000 […]

 The line that formed outside the Southwood Community Center stretched out of sight. Moms, dads, students, teachers and administrators gathered on August 16 to get a piece of the fun at the second annual Back-to-School Festival, an event designed to help Southwood families celebrate and prepare for the start of the school year. This year, […]