Category: UVA

Author Kath Weston, an Anthropology PhD from Stanford University, grew up in a working-class family and attended college with the help of financial aid, took her first bus trip alone when she was 16, and that unforgettable trip showed her that traveling on the bus was much more than just a way to get somewhere.

Before joining the University of Virginia faculty this fall, she spent more than five years crisscrossing the nation on buses, chronicling the lives of Americans who travel via the least expensive mass transportation option. She refers to her new book, Traveling Light: On the Road with America’s Poor, as a journey full of unexpected richness. Her new book describes her fellow passengers’ colorful humanity and tackles issues of class, race and dubious access to America’s opportunities.

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog

In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Fariss Samarrai, Senior News Officer for the Office of Public Affairs, we will look at a team of UVa researchers who have discovered a switching mechanism in the eye that plays a key role in regulating the sleep/wake cycles in mammals.

Biologists at the University of Virginia have discovered a switching mechanism in the eye that plays a key role in regulating the sleep/wake cycles in mammals. The new finding demonstrates that light receptor cells in the eye are central to setting the rhythms of the brain’s primary timekeeper, the suprachiasmatic nuclei, which regulates activity and rest cycles. The finding appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Susan Doyle, a research scientist at U.Va. and the study’s lead investigator said, “The finding is significant because it changes our understanding of how light input from the eye can affect activity and sleep patterns.”

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog

Over the Summer, the Commonwealth of Virginia released new guidelines for Instructional Technology Resource Teachers. The new document updates the 2005 version, “revisits the original intent of the ITRT program; examines results, as documented through three studies; and offers recommendations.”

In this show, Steve talks with two ITRTs who are old friends of the show: Tina Coffey from Salem City Schools, and Sean Sharp, from Floyd County Schools. They share their reactions to the new guidelines and provide insight into the changing and difficult-to-capture nature of their positions.

In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Fariss Samarrai, Senior News Officer for the Office of Public Affairs, we will discuss the work of Brad Cox, professor of physics and a principal investigator with the University of Virginia’s High Energy Physics Group and his teams involvement with the new Large Hadron Collider near Geneva Switzerland.

In a recent show we discussed UVa researcher team’s attempt to verify or refute the existence of the Higgs Boson. On September 10, 2008, an international team of scientists circulated the first beam of protons at nearly the speed of light around the 17-mile Large Hadron Collider on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. The $3.2 billion LHC, under construction for 15 years, is now the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog

Our guest for this show is Jeff Nugent, Associate Director at the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) . The VCE, founded in 2001, is charged with supporting 3,000 faculty members at VCU and now plays a key role in VCU’s VCU 2020: Vision for Excellence strategic plan.

In this show, Jeff and the boys talk about the CTE and its programs, consider ways to build and sustain community around technology projects and programs, and weigh in on heady matters such as the adoption curve and cognitive issues surrounding the learning of new tools.

A few links from the conversation:

• VCU’s Center for Teaching Excellence
• Jeff Nugent’s bio page at the CTE