Author: mark-meier

The US Census Bureau estimated that 6.6 percent of Virginians were Hispanic or Latino in 2007, up from 4.7 percent in 2000. However, this year at UVA, Hispanics constitute only 4.2 percent of the undergraduates, 2.1 percent of graduate students, and 1.2 percent of faculty. That last number equals merely 17 Hispanic professors in tenure-track jobs, one-third in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese alone.

Third-year student Amanda Perez has noticed. “A number of Latino students and I have often remarked about the low number of Hispanic/Latino faculty on Grounds,” says Perez. “The lack of professors, not only in the Spanish department, but also in a variety of other disciplines, is very apparent.”

The University agrees. Interim Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement Sharon Hostler and her staff are investigating faculty composition across racial and ethnic groups, starting with Hispanics, and seeking solutions.

Although very diverse themselves, Hispanics confront challenges similar to other minorities who are disproportionately absent from the academy, notes María-Inés Lagos, a Spanish professor and department chair. Maggie Pena Harden, assistant to Hostler, says their families may lack a legacy of higher education and familiarity with its cultural norms, as well as the money to pay for it. Hispanic scholars also may lack social support groups as they advance into graduate school and beyond.

Finally, Hostler adds, “Across all racial and ethnic groups, overlying all of it is a real issue about women.” Although Hispanic women earn more PhDs than Hispanic men, the men overwhelmingly advance further thereafter, as is generally true for other groups. At UVA, 15 male Hispanic professors are on the tenure track versus only two Hispanic women, and off the tenure track, Hispanic male faculty still outnumber Hispanic female faculty 2 to 1.

UVA has responded by supporting current faculty and trying to expand the pipeline for advanced degrees. Fortunately, programs that help attract and retain under-represented minorities and women also help retain and strengthen all professors. UVA offers mentoring and networking programs to improve research, teaching, and social support from the first day through retirement.

“How people enter,” Hostler says, “makes a big difference in how they leave. We’re really trying to understand how to build loyalty and retain the best and the brightest, and listening to the faculty is the most important thing
we do.”

Pena Harden adds, “All of the programs get accolades while people are in them, but the long-term effects are what’s missing now.” Many of the programs, relatively new, lack data on ultimate retention.

Meanwhile, UVA tries to get more Hispanics and others into the position to become professors. That includes expanding outreach to high school students and promoting close-knit community among those who enroll. One exceptionally successful program, the School of Medicine’s Summer Research Internship Program, recruits and pays college students to conduct research. Over half the participants are under-represented minorities, 84 percent of whom continue to graduate school, including UVA’s own MD/PhD program.

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President Obama’s $820 billion economic stimulus package, including its green infrastructure component, cleared the House January 28 and headed to the Senate for debate. Obama’s plan attempts to create jobs quickly through a mix of tax cuts and spending on health care, education and construction on the one hand and, on the other hand, to invest wisely in more energy-efficient buildings, mass transit and renewable energy sources. Hence, local environmentalists and eco-companies hope to see some of their goals finally met, while Charlottesville and Albemarle County prepare to begin some much-needed work, green or less so.

Charlottesville whittled down a list of 80 potential projects to 24 that it could begin within 90 days if $65 million in federal money comes its way, and sustainability was one criterion guiding the decision. The city’s biggest projects revolve around bridge repairs, replacing Smith Pool and overhauling the city’s stormwater and sewage system to improve water quality. Other projects would create trails and update HVAC equipment in schools and municipal buildings, which could potentially save 5 to 30 percent on energy costs.

Meanwhile, Bill Letteri, Albemarle’s director of facilities development, finds green infrastructure a little harder to square with Albemarle’s pressing needs. The county “hopes that some of that stimulus package could be used just to fund basic services because that’s where we’re having trouble,” particularly as job cuts demand more of social services and police. Nonetheless, the county also identified around 40 projects totaling $164 million it could launch within six months. Those projects include many sidewalks and some trails and stormwater drainage systems, plus renovating schools or constructing new municipal buildings and another recycling center. Less green, however, is the possibility of widening Route 29 between the bypass and Hydraulic Road and adding a third lane in each direction from the South Fork Rivanna River to north of Hollymead Drive.

More pavement worries the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). Communications Manager Cathryn McCue says a national frenzy of road building could divert resources from specifically green infrastructure “to overly expensive, environmentally damaging, and unnecessarily sprawl-inducing projects” that actually entrench oil-based business as usual. Hence, the SELC lobby campaign “Fix It First” would repair crumbling roads and bridges, such as the Jordan Bridge in the Chesapeake, rather than add highways, and calls for emphasizing bikes, trains, buses, and pedestrians in transportation.

Environment Virginia, an environmental lobbying group, agrees. Its report, “Clean Energy, Bright Future: Rebuilding America Through Green Infrastructure,” argues $150 billion should go toward—among other things—450 bike and pedestrian paths, solar panels on 10 million buildings, and funding the Green Jobs Act, which trains workers for careers in green construction. Environment Virginia is gathering petitions and donations to take its cause to Congress.

In contrast, the Sierra Club already took its cause there. Virginia chapter director, Glen Besa, explains that when the bill was being drafted, “the Sierra Club and a large number of environmental organizations were invited to submit suggestions, and we did.” It offered advice from energy and climate change to labor-intensive maintenance in national parks and forests. Hence, Besa has been generally pleased with the package. As negotiations continue to get the bill through the Senate, the Sierra Club “will be doing our best to get the greenest bill we can with regard to creating jobs.”

Tom Cormons of Appalachian Voices agrees the stimulus package “could be a really great opportunity to shift the nation’s energy infrastructure in the right direction,” generally away from coal, but his organization has focused its fight in Virginia’s General Assembly. Appalachian Voices supports a bill that would cut electricity consumption in Virginia by 19 percent through conservation alone by 2025. After all, Cormons hopes “it’s not just the federal government, but that states step up to the plate and make similar kinds of changes.”

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Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) doesn’t want to fall victim to its own success in this recession. Enrollment in credit programs this past fall set a new record of over 4,800 students, a 17 percent since 2005. Enrollment in noncredit courses jumped 46 percent while the number of those classes increased 36 percent. The spring semester is likely to set records anew as students flock to PVCC in order to stave off or recover from unemployment. Squeezed for space, PVCC will open two new buildings within one year.

Unfortunately, all this growth coincides with another proposed 5 percent cut in state funding as the Commonwealth tries to balance a $2.9 billion deficit.

The state supplies about two-thirds of PVCC’s $15 million budget. It previously cut funding to community colleges 5 percent for 2007 and again for 2008. Each dip has cost PVCC $450,000, as would the current proposal. PVCC offset earlier blows through grants and private fundraising and by deciding not to renovate the old Monticello visitor center once PVCC assumes control of it. The noncredit courses in the Workforce Services division, operated for profit, have also channeled money into the rest of the school.

But PVCC now has little to spare. Worse, President Frank Friedman worries the General Assembly ultimately may cut more than 5 percent, even though community colleges are already the lowest funded and fastest growing piece of Virginia’s higher education.

Hence, Friedman is trimming costs. The school first plans to pare $125,000 from social events, utilities and professional development for faculty. A federal grant also will allow PVCC to free up state money it currently spends on tutoring. PVCC will next stockpile supplies in the end of this fiscal year in order to remove those costs from next year’s budget. But Friedman conceded at the January 14 board meeting, “From there on, it gets to be difficult. It gets to be people.”

PVCC hopes to protect the quality of instruction. It will not increase class sizes and is actually hiring additional full-time faculty in math, English, art, and physics. Nor will PVCC shift money already allocated to the science and technology building under construction or a new ceramics lab. Instead, PVCC will shed several technical degree programs with chronically low enrollment and will likely decrease staffing and operating hours for libraries, admissions, and other support services.

“We have not decided specifics in these areas,” Friedman said, “but that’s where we have to get to next. The bottom line is services for students will be diminished.”

Kathleen Hudson, interim vice president of instruction and student services, puts this recession in context. Budget cuts coincided with increased enrollment in 2002, but enrollment is even higher now, pinching PVCC more. Applications for financial aid are also up, though many students who recently lost jobs appear to have too much income on paper to qualify. Other community colleges fare no better.

“We’re all in the same boat,” she says. And as companies cut their own professional development and people close their wallets, PVCC’s noncredit revenue may also decline.

Friedman and other PVCC staff and students traveled to Richmond January 15 to make the case for preserving as much of their funding as possible. However, Friedman won’t press for more money. A 5 percent cut is the best he hopes for.

“We realize this is a very real budget problem facing the state,” he explains. “We recognize we need to be part of the solution, and we will.” He does, however, ask the legislature to “keep in mind our value, our mission, and our services, and to restore funding quickly once it’s available, as they have done in the past.”

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“Unemployment insurance claims can now be filed by telephone. Call 1-866-832-2363. It’s easy, trouble-free and so convenient!” says a flyer advertising the Virginia Employment Commission’s (VEC) filing hotline.

I dial. “Due to heavy call volume, wait times will be longer than normal…. To expedite the claim process, you may file your claim online. If you are unable to use the Internet and need to speak to a representative, please try your call again later. Thank you. Good bye.”

Carolyn Kalantari, a lawyer at the Legal Aid Justice Center, heard this message for 15 minutes and gave up. She and her client, who has been out of work since the end of November, had already tried online: Kalantari made him a Gmail account because he needed an e-mail address to create an account to file—finally—a claim for unemployment benefits. That process took her “a surprisingly long time”; the VEC website recommends setting aside 45 minutes. Next, according to Kalantari, “the thing spit out a form that said it couldn’t create the account.”

So they got in the car and drove to the local office. “I explained the guy’s account had closed him out and asked if we could speak to a representative from the VEC,” says Kalantari. She was told nobody there could help. Instead, she was directed toward a bank of phones and given a number: 1-866-832-2363.

Kalantari’s frustration shows. Earlier, maybe one or two clients a year encountered problems simply completing an application for unemployment benefits, and a lone paralegal handled most of the cases. Now, that paralegal plus Kalantari, half a dozen law students, and other lawyers who pitch in cannot keep up with filing plus preparing the actual legal facts of an employee’s dismissal whenever an employer challenges the claim. Kalantari’s even arranging a pro bono panel to train local lawyers to increase the center’s capacity.

Legal Aid’s director, Alex Gulotta, summarizes the dilemma: “You can’t go in person and the phone system’s completely broken. You can go as high as 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines and still see a significant number of people who are computer illiterate or can’t afford an Internet connection. Basically, they’re creating a bifurcated system where the middle class can access the system easily and the most needy cannot.” The filing fiascoes mean his staff has nearly quadrupled the time they spend per unemployment case. Worse, applicants now have to enroll separately—and only online—for Virginia Workforce Connection, a program that matches a worker’s skills to available jobs and is required for receiving benefits. Filing an unemployment claim used to enroll people automatically.

When I called Charlottesville’s VEC office to ask about filing in person, several phone transfers left me with Joyce Fogg, VEC’s spokeswoman in Richmond. She says there should be someone there who could help in person. However, she and VEC know things are backed up. Ironically, the problem apparently stems less from the increased unemployment here and more from layoffs at VEC: Fogg says VEC is looking into hiring hourly wage workers to help. “We encourage people to file online because it’s the most efficient,” she says.

Meanwhile, as of October 31, less than 4 percent of people who did manage to file for benefits had their cases decided within 45 days whenever the former employer balked on paying. Federal regulations require 80 percent to be decided in that time. Kalantari describes a client who won the right to receive benefits “four days short of five months.” While waiting, he got evicted.

Now in order to keep receiving benefits, rarely more than $360 per week in the best scenarios, this man must call weekly to report on his job search. Not a native English speaker, he asked Kalantari to help him navigate the automated questions. They arrived at the end of the queries, at the point when he would state the two places he’d applied.

The recording cut him off.

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With bankers and car executives vying for government bailouts, average people might dash for free money, too. But according to Ashley Studholme, who interns with Albemarle County’s water resources staff, a grant that pays people to plant trees and shrubs along county waterways has only “gained much momentum now, right at the home stretch.”

In June 2006, the county received a $140,000 Water Quality Improvement Grant from the Department of Conservation and Recreation. The grant reimburses landowners half the costs of new plants 200′ from the edge of perennial, intermittent or ephemeral streams in watersheds designated “impaired,” whether by sewage, eroded topsoil, fertilizer, or other pollution. In Albemarle, impaired watersheds center around the Rivanna, Mechums, and Hardware rivers. The grant supports up to 1,210 trees per acre, the thinking being that thick vegetation can almost halve the pollution that ultimately reaches streams. Denser foliage also increases habitat for wildlife, and depending on the location, can increase property values and decrease energy costs by shading homes.

Despite TV, radio, and newspaper ads, and even mailing information to property owners near streams, county staff note that most of the money is only now being claimed, about six months before the program ends and unused money has to be returned to the state. About $133,400 is allocated to 25 people for 29 projects—ranging from $150 to $25,000—that would collectively cover more than 10 acres. However, only 15 projects have been completed, which means many must rush to file for reimbursement after next spring’s planting season.

The backyard of one landowner, Kim Swanson, bristles with environmental ingenuity, including a pond to release rainwater through hoses and valves into her garden. Because that backyard terminates at a tributary of Meadow Creek, Swanson thought more plants might protect the fish, frogs, and occasional green heron she’s spotted by filtering heavy metals and motor oil that wash off pavement, such as from the nearby Whole Foods parking lot. Swanson’s project was approved, but she only recently heard about the grant, and so she took information on it to about a dozen neighbors whose property also abuts the same creek. As she suspected, nobody knew of the grant.

Studholme and coworkers write in a joint e-mail that “the county considers water quality protection to be a critical service, and even at a time of staff shortages we are finding ways to make sure that attention is being paid to water quality.” However, extending the buffer program beyond the grant period isn’t likely.

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Off Fifth Street, about 30 new homes and twice as many townhouses in the Brookwood subdivision cling to the slopes overlooking Rock Creek. Earlier this year, dirt and construction debris washed downhill across the Rivanna Trail and into the creek, but Southern Development has apparently addressed the problem.

Brookwood entered the fifth of six construction phases after the city Planning Commission waived restrictions against building on the steep terrain in October 2007. The Commission

cited Southern Development’s massive retaining walls plus improved drainage and the public good of high-density housing on the parcel. Sarah Mittelfehldt, who regularly jogs on the Rivanna Trail just behind Brookwood, recalls what she witnessed soon thereafter.

“The Rivanna Trail was covered in a couple of inches of silt and miscellaneous run-off from the failing silt fences for several weeks,” says Mittelfehldt. “It was to the point where I would have to stop running to cautiously wade through the silt. I ran into construction workers shoveling silt off of the trail a number of times. I also routinely saw large sheets of Tyvek and other miscellaneous debris from the construction sites in the creek. I witnessed construction workers pulling out the large, obvious chunks of materials from the creek, but knowing that construction materials are one of the primary sources of toxic waste, it makes you wonder what is left behind.”

A few silt fences still sagged earlier this month, but according to the city, the main thing Southern Development has left behind is a better protected Rock Creek. “The other part of the development certainly had problems, but they don’t have violations right now,” says Read Brodhead, city zoning administrator. “We go out every two weeks to do a sedimentation and erosion inspection. On the last inspection, there was one issue with a silt fence—they needed to correct some holes—and one with inlet protection, a minor thing. They haven’t had anything serious, not in Phase V.”

The city’s environmental administrator, Kristel Riddervold, confirms that she hadn’t been notified of any problems with increased silt or pollution from trash or fertilizer runoff in Rock Creek. However, she adds, “I wouldn’t necessarily know about it unless someone was reaching out to inform my office.”

Meanwhile, Charlie Armstrong of Southern Development credits a massive rain garden and several Filterras—essentially a cross between a storm drain and potted plant—on the site with trapping and holding potentially erosive, polluted water. Except in the largest storms, when the water bypasses the filters, he explains, storm water seeps through the soil and into pipes underneath and “comes out clean over several days.” And those silt fences, sagging or otherwise, “are temporary for construction. Once we’ve re-seeded, mulched, have grass and trees, those won’t be necessary.” Joggers on the Rivanna Trail might hope so.

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Handed the giant lemon of a recession, Charlottesville’s Planning Commission hopes to squeeze lemonade. Because applications for development review have dwindled since the summer, the Commission gets a chance to tackle the bigger picture.

“Although an economic slowdown is, in general, not a healthy thing for our economy,” says Commissioner Dan Rosensweig, “it has given us an opportunity to retool, to set ourselves up to do more long-range planning.”

The Commission has four strategic goals: rezoning to fulfill the city’s Comprehensive Plan; examining density in residential areas; increasing the value and presence of the Rivanna

River in city life; and ensuring trees eventually shade 40 percent of Charlottesville. Cheri Lewis, another member of the Commission, has asked to add Downtown parking to the agenda.

Already, the Commission has made progress. It revised the Rezoning Petition Review Sheet, Rosensweig notes, to better help developers that are “considering how they can make their applications mitigate any potential impacts of their development.” The city is also researching splitting the single definition of a bed and breakfast into three classifications by size. That, Rosensweig says, “will put limits on the number of guest rooms and on some of the activities taking place in the establishment, while at the same time opening up the possibility of locating small B&Bs—as small as one room—in less intensive zoning districts.”

Residential density is also on Lewis’ mind when it causes “inappropriate infill development in neighborhoods.” Without a limit on the floor area ratio, or footprint of a home relative to the size of its lot, the Commission cannot easily prevent developers from “shoehorning too much into a neighborhood,” she explains. “There’s the threat of tear-downs for monster mansions,” which the Commission hopes to address.

Meanwhile, for the Rivanna, Lewis says the Commission will consider “more recreational uses of the river—not paddleboats or anything” but maybe more canoeing or fishing. She adds the commission is exploring significant waterfront redevelopment opportunities along High Street.

While Charlottesville’s mini-festival marketplace future may be hazy, developers Downtown clearly want more parking. There’s talk of a third municipal garage, although Lewis hopes the Commission will review two-hour parking Downtown and consider metering or other ways “to get people into garages and out of the neighborhoods” in the first place. The Commission also should recall its urban forest goals whenever it approves removing an existing tree.

Finally, Lewis looks on the bright side for developers. Despite the slowdown, Charlottesville is “experiencing lots of thoughtful development” because people appreciate its walkable lifestyle. Developers may even benefit from falling costs and may “get more help from the city staff” because the slowdown has freed some of its time and the city may appreciate—instead of circumscribe—development. “This isn’t a free pass,” she cautions, “but a sense that, hey, as a jurisdiction, we’re glad to have some development going on.”

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The City of Charlottesville and some citizens want electricity from renewable sources, but their options have dwindled. Pepco Energy Services, currently the lone provider of primarily renewable power in Virginia, is abandoning the market because of a law that goes into effect on January 1 to re-regulate the electrical industry. Dominion Virginia Power, meanwhile, is still waiting to fill the green void.

Ten years ago, the Commonwealth allowed electric utilities to compete with each other. Pepco lured 1,200 of Dominion’s 2.2 million customers by offering slightly pricier energy generated either predominantly or entirely from renewable sources. According to Pepco, about a dozen Charlottesvillians bought green power. That group made Charlottesville, per household, almost twice as green-energy-intense as the rest of the state.

Hence, Joe Lawson, a Pepco customer since 2005, called it “very disappointing” and “frustrating to lose choice” when he and other locals learned this month that their renewable-energy contracts would not be renewed. The Re-Regulation Act of 2007 will end a customer’s choices unless Dominion fails to offer residences a 100 percent renewable energy option or a customer’s demand exceeds five megawatts (enough to power 1,250 homes or, at maximum electricity consumption, five Charlottesville High Schools.)

In written objections, Pepco Energy Services called Dominion’s proposed green offer “a pale imitation of green electricity choice” because Dominion consumers would essentially support all Dominion’s nonrenewable production even if they additionally bought green credits. Pepco’s Kim Price nonetheless believes the State Corporation Commission overseeing utilities will eventually back Dominion: If this first plan is rejected, Dominion will submit another.

“In light of the uncertainty,” she said, “we will not re-enter the Virginia residential market. It’s unfortunate.”

Dominion, according to spokesman David Botkins, has been “anxiously awaiting” since May the green light on its green plans. “We’ve been hearing from customers for a while that they wanted a green or renewable power option.” Dominion had capacity to produce 400 megawatts of power from sources like wood chips and wind at the end of 2007; it intends soon to have 1,300 megawatts green out of 27,000 megawatts total. Dominion’s green tariff means customers buy electricity from renewable producers elsewhere if they exceed Dominion’s capacity.

Oral arguments in the case ended November 12, and Lawson will try Dominion’s green option “as soon as it is available.” The city may, too. Mayor David Norris emphasized, “We certainly have every intention once it becomes available” of getting renewable electricity, and City Council went on record to support wind farms and “creation of aggregate consumer demand” for renewable energy.

Ironically, municipal buildings probably exceed the five megawatt threshold to shop for green power after re-regulation, and Pepco’s retreat further won’t affect the city because both Norris and city Facilities Maintenance Manager Lance Stewart say the city did not already have an option for green power.

Whatever happens, the city will consume less electricity, green or otherwise: Conservation has cut consumption at 31 buildings by 14 percent since last year.

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