Last week, C-VILLE reported on City Council interviews for two spots on the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA) board, which will face the daunting task of guiding redevelopment of Westhaven and other public housing projects. Rather than opting for familiar faces Kendra Hamilton and Wade Tremblay, Council appointed Bob Stevens and Karen Waters. Stevens currently serves as vice chair of the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals. Waters is a 2003 graduate of The Sorensen Institute Political Leaders Program and is a staff member of the Quality Community Council. In other housing authorities news, CRHA received a $45,850 Family Self-Sufficiency Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on January 24.

Several weeks ago, we published a story about undergrads pushing to create a new major in “global development,” an effort that we characterized as having slim administrative support. But Karen Ryan, interim dean of Arts and Sciences, says that’s not entirely the case. “Students are working actively with faculty and administrators to create this new major,” Ryan says via e-mail. “This is an exciting and innovating proposal and demonstrates the initiative of our students in shaping their education. It’s a truly interdisciplinary program and most relevant to the challenges of the 21st century. Some additional resources will be needed to bring the major on line, of course. It’s also important to remember that curricular programs in the College must be discussed and approved by the faculty and the full process of creating a new academic major is a multiyear endeavor.”

Karen Ryan

Surprise, surprise—a General Assembly bill is politically contentious. After C-VILLE spoke to Republican Delegate Steve Landes last week about a bill he’s sponsoring to make state universities submit annual reports about “academic freedom” to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, we got a call from Ashley Lubenkov of the Free Exchange on Campus Coalition. She wanted us to know that Landes’ bill, HB118, is just lipstick on last year’s pig—a similar bill Landes introduced that used the phrase “intellectual diversity” in place of “academic freedom.” “The reason it hasn’t passed is that it would ultimately limit the free exchange of ideas in the classroom,” says Lubenkov. “It tries to get government oversight in to the ideas that are talked about in the classroom by having some balance of political ideology. A professor talking about global warming might have to give a false balance of research that global warming doesn’t exist.” None of the specifics of the bill mention what is taught in the classroom, however. Landes says UVA doesn’t seem as worried this year and that his bill has the support of the Faculty Senate of Virginia. It’s already passed the House.

And finally in Follow-up, more depressing news for major UVA sports last week. Men’s basketball dropped two ACC games, including another overtime battle at the JPJ, while football fans got more bad news on top of the departure of defensive coordinator Mike London to lead the University of Richmond: The Daily Progress reported that Jeffrey Fitzgerald, the heir apparent to Chris Long on the defensive line, will transfer. If you’re looking for positives, check out women’s hoops: Debbie Ryan’s squad is now 4-1 in ACC play.

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.

Michael Pudhorodsky sent a letter to the Charlottesville media last week asking for the immediate resignation of Rev. Alvin Edwards as a member of the Charlottesville City School Board. While the letter made no mention of the reason, it was apparent to all that it was over the School Board Chairman’s public support of the disgraced former Charlottesville High School chorus teacher Jonathan Spivey, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexual relationships with students. As part of his quest against Edwards, Pudhorodsky vowed to attend all school board meetings—but WINA reported that he was a no-show at the most recent one. If Pudhorodsky had gone (and if he had asked politely), Edwards likely would have given the same response he gave to C-VILLE back in October when we asked why he was backing his former church choir director. “I’m his pastor,” he said.