Students at the University of Virginia voted overwhelmingly to bring back expulsion as a penalty for honor code violations. However, the new multi-sanction system allows for various levels of punishment, including “amends” and “leaves of absence.” Photo by Patrick Neil.
By Giulia Silverstein
One year after overwhelmingly voting to end the honor system policy that immediately expels students who are found guilty of lying, cheating, or stealing, UVA students voted March 2 to once again allow the University Honor Committee to throw out those who break the rules. According to Virginia magazine, the vote is “part of a wide-ranging reworking of the Honor constitution,” which now includes multiple sanctions, coinciding with the severity of infractions, “something successive generations of Honor reformers have championed for more than 50 years.”
The 181-year-old single-sanction honor system is almost as old as the university itself. It was established in 1842 after the shooting and killing of a professor who was trying to resolve a conflict between students. At first, faculty members oversaw all student behavior, but after the murder, a basic single-sanction honor system was adopted to shift the projection of student disdain away from the faculty.
The single-sanction system has been widely criticized. The severe punishment dissuaded the reporting of minor infractions, and condemnable activities, such as sexual assault, often went unchecked. Those who were successfully convicted could also experience disastrous effects. In 2022, The Cavalier Daily published an opinion piece by an anonymous former student who was expelled in 2007 for plagiarism.
“I know firsthand that expulsion comes at a great cost,” wrote the former student. “It is isolating. It ravages the health of accused students and their family members. It can have devastating economic consequences, especially for students with limited financial resources. And it creates a stigma that accused and guilty students are pariahs—individuals without the potential to learn from mistakes, correct miscommunications or ultimately contribute again to the University or society.”
She reports inadequate due process, and that there was little opportunity to prove her innocence. The stress of her trial produced extensive mental and physical side effects, including hair and weight loss, and suicidal thoughts.
Students tried for years to either soften the punishment or implement a multi-sanction system. Several proposals had been made, but none received approval until the spring of 2022. More than 80 percent of the student body voted for a sanction reform referendum that replaced the widely feared threat of expulsion with a two-semester leave of absence.
With the first change in the honor system’s history instituted, the Honor Committee, chaired by fourth-year student Gabrielle Bray, set its sights on finally switching over to a multi-sanction system.
The committee published an opinion piece in The Cavalier Daily, urging students to vote “yes” on a multi-sanction system. “We all want a system that is fair and restorative, with sanctions that reflect the severity of an Honor offense and the circumstances of the student in question,” wrote the committee.
During the fall 2022 semester, student and faculty representatives from across the university, including VISAS, The Raven Society, and the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, united in what the Honor Committee labeled the Honor Constitutional Convention. In selecting representatives, Bray wanted to ensure that “voices that weren’t traditionally heard were in the room for conversations like these.”
Four proposals were presented to the committee post-convention. However, it ultimately decided on a multi-sanction system of its own. The committee submitted its proposal to the University Board of Elections, relinquishing control of UVA honor to the student body.
In February, the editorial board of The Cavalier Daily endorsed four candidates—Hamza Aziz, Nishita Ghante, Laura Howard, and Rachel Liesegang—to represent the College of Arts and Sciences on Honor Council, and Alexander Church to represent the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Each candidate fervently supported the proposed multi-sanction system and “incorporated transparency and rehabilitation into their platforms.”
An overwhelming 88.7 percent of the voting students (there was a 24 percent voter turnout) were in favor of the referendum. The new honor circumstances enable personalized trials in which students will be holistically evaluated. The Honor Committee cites “amends, education, leaves of absence, and expulsion” as possible sanctions. Although students voted to reinstate possible expulsion, only the most extreme cases will result in dismissal.
Bray thanked students for supporting the referendum in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “I’m grateful to the convention delegates, the policies and procedures team, the support officers, the committee and [the executive committee] for all the work that went into this constitution and this moment. I cannot wait to see how this strengthens our community of trust.”
The bouquet is one of the most fussed-over details of any wedding, but it’s also the thing that often gets forgotten or—worse yet!—tossed at the end of the night. Self-professed “flower fanatic” Karly Murphy of Kmpressed offers a solution: Press them!
The artist began pressing plants in 2015 after working in weddings and events with Nature Composed, and suggests it’s a great way to hold on to your bouquet long after the sparkler exit.
As long as you get the flowers to her within four days of the event, the process is pretty straightforward: “I carefully press the flowers until perfectly dry before designing the artwork to represent and immortalize the bouquet,” Murphy says. “Apart from pressing, the flowers are kept in their natural state—no chemicals or dyes are added, so their form and character is preserved, but the exact color can evolve over time.”
The timeline varies, but for custom wedding artwork (Murphy creates all of the glass wall-hanging and tabletop art by hand, as well as cuts the glass to size in-house), expect a turnaround time of four to six months.
Julio Quispe’s food truck Pachamama Peru offers authentic empanadas and more. Photo: John Robinson.
City Market-goers know where they oughta get empanadas. Julio Quispe’s Pachamama Peru offers some of the market’s best prepared eats, and his baked and fried Peruvian pies, filled with local meats and veggies, are the standout.
But empanadas are only the beginning—not only of the menu at Pachamama, but of what Quispe does for the local food community. In addition to operating his food truck, he runs Earlysville-based Pachamama Farm, which recently received a mid-Atlantic Food Resilience & Access Coalition grant to give food to those in need.
C-VILLE: How did you get into farming?
Julio Quispe: I used to work at Sylvanaqua Farms in Earlysville. It all started with me farming, and then I started the food truck. When I was working with Sylvanaqua Farms, we were trying to make local food more accessible to the community. When I started the food truck, I thought another way to do that would be to prepare food using the meat we raised, and try to source local ingredients, as well.
How do you cook with quality ingredients while keeping prices down?
That is the struggle, but empanadas are a great fit. I try to use cuts that are a little bit cheaper and at the same time make it tasty. We use a lot of ground meats. And it’s the same thing when we make special dishes. But it’s not easy, and I’m still figuring it out.
It seems like you get some help from your family.
Yeah—so, we all come from Lima in Peru. And I mostly grew up in New York, so it has always been a learning experience, trying to do a lot of the things we are doing. I never expected to be farming and doing these things with animals. My grandma and grandpa came from the Andes, and they had a background in farming. They would keep animals in the back space of their house in Lima. So, I did grow up with some of that.
How does your background influence the menu at Pachamama Peru?
A lot of the recipes are traditional Peruvian, and some are a mix. One of the things that’s been a hit is our pulled pork, which I season with Peruvian ingredients. Pulled pork is not something you get in Peru. My favorite empanada is the beef, egg, and olive. That’s the traditional empanada. But there are so many options. On the veggie side, I like the mushroom.
How have you been getting through the pandemic?
It has been good, and I can’t really complain. I have been working with Local Food Hub, and that’s been really helping. We’re looking into frozen empanadas, getting them into retail. We’re still figuring out the details. Being able to sell our own meats—ducks and chickens—has been really helpful, and we’re doing a few markets and small catering events.
Signs like the one above have popped up on Dick Woods Road, as residents register their discontent with the opening of a new vineyard nearby. PC: Supplied photo.
By Danny O’Dea
All along Route 151, breweries and wineries dot the sides of the road. This beautiful, hilly stretch of Nelson County highway is known around the state for its picturesque watering holes.
Take a turn down the more residential Dick Woods Road, however, and you’ll see signs with bold letters that read “NO MORE ALCOHOL, EVENT VENUES, AMPLIFIED MUSIC, INCREASED TRAFFIC IN OUR RURAL AREAS. KEEP ALBEMARLE BEAUTIFUL.” Something has ruffled the feathers of nearly every homeowner on the narrow, windy road, and they want you to know it.
The object of residents’ ire is a new vineyard and event space called Hazy Mountain Vineyards & Brewery, which has been under construction for the last two years and finally opened its doors this month. Neighbors say the property poses traffic, noise, and congestion concerns for their quiet rural street, and that the developers pushed the limits on their construction permits when planning their facility.
Hazy Mountain did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“Part of the reason the community got upset is how they went about it,” says Dick Woods Road resident Don Fender. From a seat on Fender’s porch, the newly planted grapevines can be seen covering the mountain. A narrow, winding driveway cuts its way up to the peak through the rows.
Hazy Mountain’s developers bought the 167-acre property for $5 million in 2018. It didn’t take long for them to fell the mountaintop’s trees to make room for grapevines, and set up two event barns, each over 7,000 square feet. The property also has a parking lot with the capacity to hold multiple 200-person events simultaneously.
“We had no idea what was going on up there,” Fender continues.
Hazy Mountain was allowed to construct such a large spread because the project is classified as a farm winery, a designation with looser rules than a standard commercial business. The idea is to make life easier for small farmers looking to sell their products.
“The things they’ve done on the property regarding sight lines, traffic, and building limitations are things that residential developments would never be allowed to do,” Fender says.
“My husband and I live directly across the road from Hazy Mountain Vineyard and have had serious concerns about it since [they] began clearcutting in March of 2018,” says Cathy Robb, another Dick Woods resident.
Robb feels the developers took advantage of a loophole and that the county should have intervened. “Despite our requests for intervention and oversight, every single person in authority in Albemarle County has turned a blind eye to what is clearly a commercial operation,” she says.
Residents are also concerned about the traffic issues the new vineyard could bring. According to Bruce Snerling, who can see the exit from his front porch, the turn onto Dick Woods has already been the site of a handful of fender benders. In the past, the bulk of the traffic on the road was the Western Albemarle cross country team doing weekend runs.
Ann Mallek, who represents the White Hall District on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, has heard plenty of complaints about the project.
“A lot of times it feels like we on the local government side of things end up playing defense when we wish we could play offense,” she says. Traffic is one of those issues: She says Albemarle County had the most highway deaths of any county in Virginia in 2017.
“We tried to get [the Virginia Department of Transportation] to approve signs at a four-way intersection in Earlysville for years,” Mallek continues. “The day after a fatal car accident is the day they finally were put in place. …We don’t want to be put in the spot of waiting for a tragedy again.”
With the vineyard now open, angry Dick Woods Road residents are hoping to see the rules change going forward.
“There were many issues and concerns from the start of this project but…it is somewhat of a moot point since they are now open for business,” Fender says. “I think people in the rural areas should be concerned if such large enterprises as Hazy Mountain can be developed under the zoning rules and regulations of agricultural zoning.”
Mallek says the Board of Supervisors is looking into the situation.
“Just last week we had a meeting to discuss our priorities for the next year, and we moved to the top of the list looking into changing the legal definitions of what constitutes an agricultural enterprise,” she says. “Starting to separate out things like cows and corn from things like wineries.”
“The people who live here have already made an investment in the land and in themselves,” Mallek says. “We need to be smart about the land. Our quality of life depends on others.”
The statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee came down early in the morning on Saturday, July 10. Photo: Eze Amos.
Elation, joy, frustration, heartache—for community activist Don Gathers, watching the removal of Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statues stirred up a wide range of emotions.
“This moment is truly surreal. In spite of everything, I wasn’t sure if we would actually get to this point,” he said on Saturday morning, shortly after the statues came down. “I’m completely awash with [happiness], but also a tinge of sadness over what it’s taken to get us to this point.”
Just one day after the city formally announced its plans to take down the racist monuments, construction crews got to work unscrewing the Lee statue from its stone base. At 7am, community activist Zyahna Bryant—who first petitioned City Council to remove the Lee statue in 2016—addressed the small crowd of activists and community members gathered in the early morning light for the historic occasion.
“This is a crucial first step in the right direction, to tell a more historically accurate and complete story of this place, and the people who call this place home,” said Bryant, who is entering her third year at UVA. “The work did not start here, and it will not end here…To the young people out there, I hope that this empowers you to speak up on the issues that matter and to take charge in your own cities and communities.”
“The work of removing the statues is only the tip of the iceberg,” she added. “There’s so much work left to do to address affordable housing, policing, [and] the wealth gap.”
After thanking city officials and activists for their hard work and dedication, Mayor Nikuyah Walker echoed Bryant’s words. “Taking down these statues is one small step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Virginia, and America grapple with the sin of being willing to destroy Black people for economic gain,” she said.
Walker spoke of the deadly Unite the Right rally and the long, painful fight to remove the Confederate statues, which were erected in the 1920s during the Jim Crow era and at the height of Ku Klux Klan membership. She also discussed the many more steps that need to be taken to dismantle and eradicate white supremacy.
“The real work has always been, and will continue to be, the willingness to accurately teach history [and] eliminate wealth gaps,” said Walker.
Applause and cheers rang through the air as a crane lifted the bronze man and horse onto a flatbed truck a little over an hour later. The growing crowd moved over to the Second Street sidewalk to get a better view and take pictures, before the truck drove off at 8:30am. “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye!” sang a few Black community members.
Shortly after 9am, the crew got to work on the Stonewall Jackson statue a few blocks away. Workers were able to strap the Confederate general to a truck and haul him away by 11am, as the crowd once again rejoiced.
Shortly after Lee was trucked away, a crew took down the Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson monument in Court Square Park. Photo: Eze Amos.
The statues will be stored at a city facility on Avon Street Extended until council votes on what to do with them permanently. Ten entities have expressed interest in the monuments, but councilors are not required to give them away, and could vote to demolish them. At press time, the city had begun removing the plinths where the generals stood for nearly a century.
Gazing at the statue-less Court Square, community activist and UVA professor Jalane Schmidt, who has led walking tours contextualizing the monuments with Jefferson School Executive Director Dr. Andrea Douglas, felt a wave of relief. “[It’s] very gratifying after all the work that we did to see this day finally arrive, and that it happened so quickly and so smoothly,” she said.
Schmidt emphasized that the city should not rush to replace the statues. The space where they stood, the area around Court Square, has a deep history that won’t be easily expressed in a new monument. In 1914, Albemarle County seized the land, known at the time as McKee Row, from its majority Black residents, and later tore down their homes and businesses. White philanthropist and segregationist Paul Goodloe McIntire bought the land and deeded it to Charlottesville to be used as an all-white public park in 1919. He funded the erection of the two Confederate monuments, as well as statues of George Rogers Clark and Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea, which were also removed this weekend.
“I hope that going forward we can be more democratic in our process. The process is just as important as whatever might go in there,” Schmidt said. “And in that conversation, we need to hear from folks, and the descendants of folks, who were not listened to the first time around.”
Schmidt also stressed the importance of continuing the fight against systemic racism. In addition to working on a book, she is currently producing a short documentary about the city’s Confederate statues, which she hopes will be used in schools.
“Those values that kept [the statues] there, they are still here and operative,” said Schmidt. “We have a lot of work to do. We can’t just pat ourselves on the back and say, ‘We undid a racism.’”
“This is by no means the end,” added Gathers. “This particular battle has been won—but the war continues.”
How it happened
April 9, 1865—Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army surrender at Appomattox, sealing victory for the Union Army in the Civil War.
October 19, 1921—Charlottesville’s statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson is unveiled. The statue is funded by Paul Goodloe McIntire, a philanthropist, businessman, UVA dropout, and segregationist.
May 21, 1924—The Robert E. Lee statue, also donated by McIntire, is dedicated. The Confederate Veterans, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy are in attendance at the ceremony.
March 2016—Charlottesville High School student Zyahna Bryant starts a petition to remove the Lee statue from its prominent position in the city park. “When I think of Robert E. Lee I instantly think of someone fighting in favor of slavery,” she writes.
May 2, 2016—The city forms the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces to study the history of the statues.
February 6, 2017—City Council votes 3-2 to remove the Lee statue. Kristin Szakos, Wes Bellamy, and Bob Fenwick vote in favor of the statue’s removal. Kathy Galvin and Mayor Mike Signer vote against.
March 2017—Statue defenders sue the City of Charlottesville, accusing the city of breaking a law against removing war memorials by voting to remove the Lee statue.
August 11 and 12, 2017— White nationalists gather in Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally. A terrorist attack kills counterprotester Heather Heyer, and two state troopers die in a helicopter crash.
March 9, 2020—The Virginia General Assembly passes a law allowing localities to “remove, relocate, contextualize, or cover” war memorials.
April 1, 2021—The Supreme Court of Virginia kills the lawsuit aimed at protecting the statues, declaring that the statues never should have been considered war memorials and that the city is allowed to remove them.
June 7, 2021—City Council votes 5-0 to take the statues out of the city parks.
July 9, 2021—The Lee and Jackson statues are removed and transported to a secure location.
Summer of Drag heats up IX Art Park on Saturday. Publicity image.
Dragging your heels: The Summer of Drag celebration at IX Art Park features Virginia queens such as London Bacall, Christina Doll, and Enya Salad, who bring the glitz, glam, and body-ody-ody, as well as awe-inspiring death drops you never would have thought possible in stilettos. With hearty doses of lip syncs and laughs, summer is anything but a drag. Saturday 6/26. $10-15, 8pm. IX Art Park, 522 Second St., SE. ixartpark.org.
When Sally Rose and her band Shagwüf take the stage for Fridays After Five at the Ting Pavilion on June 18, they’ll be the first musicians to play the venue since Jeff Tweedy and Wilco came to town on November 8, 2019.
Wait, the what pavilion?
A lot has changed in 19 months—including C’ville’s largest outdoor venue landing a new sponsor.
By the time the pandemic hit in spring of 2020, Sprint Pavilion General Manager Kirby Hutto had a full slate of bands lined up for the venue’s Friday night concert series. He was forced to put the dates on hold and hoped that 2021 would harmonize with live music.
Fortunately, it has. With Governor Ralph Northam lifting distancing, masking, and gathering restrictions as of May 28, in-person jams are back—mostly. For its part, Fridays returns at full tenor. Hutto has booked 12 of the weekly dates, starting with opener Shagwüf and headliner Chamomile and Whiskey. September 10 and 17 are the only remaining open slots.
“That’s where I started, with reaching back out to those [2020] artists and seeing if we could get them a date for 2021,” Hutto says. “But you also had to ask the question if they were still a band, had they been rehearsing and ready to play. It made it a little more complicated.”
Take Shagwüf, for instance. Sally Rose’s rock ‘n’ roll trio wasn’t scheduled to play Fridays in 2020, but her Sally Rose Band, with its somewhat softer, singer-songwriter vibe, was. Rose has been more focused on the rock outfit the last several years, though, and the switch made sense.
Shagwüf completed a record, Dog Days Of Disco, just prior to the pandemic and was forced to release the LP digitally. After going into strict lockdown for a few months, dispensing with hopes of touring, and tracking down COVID tests as often as possible, Rose and her bandmates eased back into practicing in person. The band came up with another album’s worth of tracks by October 2020 and put out an EP on Halloween—“the most politically-charged album we’ve made, which is saying a lot for Shagwüf,” Rose says.
Then, another coronavirus surge hit and forced the band back apart.
“There are so many layers to unpack,” Rose says. “Just being able to see each other again, fully vaccinated and being able to hug each other—that takes 20 minutes to process.”
Shagwüf was also recommended by friend and Chamomile and Whiskey frontman Koda Kerl.
Much like Rose and company, Chamomile and Whiskey took its lockdown licks but came out creating (with a new bass player). The band’s latest record, Red Clay Heart, dropped last fall, and Kerl says he’s ready to get out and play—even in front of a crowd that might be as interested in socializing as listening to every note.
“Fridays is a really unique audience. It’s a really broad group,” Kerl says. “When [Kirby] called us to do the first one in almost two years, we viewed it as a challenge. We’re lucky to have fans in town, and we think we can connect with the audience and get people down to the stage.” Rose and Kerl both said their bands would be riffing new material most people haven’t heard.
Other notable 2021 Fridays acts are headlining newcomers Ebony Groove—a Charlottesville High School pep band-cum-gogo-troupe playing July 2—and indie rockers Dropping Julia, due on July 9. Mainstay Erin & the Wildfire will bring power pop on July 16, and veterans The Skip Castro Band will anchor the lineup with uptempo blues-inflected rock on September 3.
Both of the latter bands will have played the pavilion under all three of its sponsored names. “That’s part of the puzzle, getting some of those familiar bands that are going to pop off the schedule, and rotating in the new names and some you haven’t seen in awhile,” Hutto says.
Still, it won’t be all vaccines and rainbows. While Northam’s lifted the mask mandate, public health guidelines are still in effect statewide. That means the vaccinated are welcome with open aisles—though encouraged to wear masks in crowds—while the non-vaccinated must wear masks in all venue areas.
The Ting Pavilion offers the standard post-COVID suggestions to keep problems to a minimum: Stay home if you’re sick or in contact with the sick, respect others, and know the concert organizers have done everything they can to prevent the spread of the virus. That includes installing a new HVAC system in the pavilion loo, regularly cleaning high-touch areas, and adding hand sanitizing stations and no-touch food and drink ordering and payment options.
Hutto admits getting back into the swing of things might be a challenge, but he expects the spacious Pavilion grounds to make folks comfortable.
Kerl says he doesn’t mind the restrictions, and Rose just wants to see her Charlottesville friends.
“During the lockdown, I wasn’t playing shows or touring—I wasn’t seeing people,” she says. “Just being able to play loud, fun rock-and-roll with my boys again, nothing touches it…I can’t even begin to imagine what it is going to feel like stepping onto that stage.”
Local no-kill sanctuary Caring for Creatures says it’s been a banner
year for adoptions. Photo: Zack Wajsgras
The past year has been one of unforeseen circumstances and challenges. But an unexpected outcome worth celebrating is that pet adoptions around the country—and right here in the Charlottesville area—are at an all-time high. And now, almost a year into the pandemic, it seems like these adoptions are sticking.
In 2020, the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA processed 3,758 pet adoptions—more than any previous year in the organization’s history. Chief Executive Officer Angie Gunter says, “We are incredibly grateful to have continued to place animals with families despite the extraordinary circumstances brought on by the pandemic.”
Another no-kill sanctuary in town, Caring for Creatures, saw a similar increase in adoption applications, particularly in the early months of the pandemic. “In April, we easily did four times the adoptions that we normally do,” says CFC President and Founder Mary Birkholz. “We couldn’t keep up with the adoption applications.”
These facilities don’t expect the pace to slow any time soon. “We are optimistic that pet adoptions will continue to remain steady throughout 2021,” Gunter says. “We have placed 47 more pets in homes so far this year compared to the same time last year.”
Increased pet adoptions haven’t just benefited shelters and sanctuaries. For pet adopters, their new furry companions are the bright spots in otherwise tumultuous times. Charlottesville resident Lauren Goetzinger adopted Beatrice, a 15-year-old black cat, from the CASPCA in May 2020. “Life has greatly improved,” says Goetzinger. “The first few months of the pandemic were really hard in general, but especially living alone in quarantine. I needed a companion during this tough time.”
Goetzinger had considered adopting a pet for some time, but her work schedule kept her out of the house for long stretches. After transitioning to working from home in March, she saw it as a perfect time to adopt. “It gave me an opportunity to bond with her,” says Goetzinger. “I really urge anyone who is looking at animals to not overlook a senior. I don’t think I could have gotten a sweeter cat.”
For those who may find the long-term commitment of adoption to be overwhelming, fostering is a great alternative that provides temporary solace for both the person and pet, say the shelter directors. Similar to the upward trend in adoptions, more people in the community have volunteered to foster dogs and cats in the past year.
Increased fostering has been especially vital, as shelters have had to limit volunteering for safety reasons related to the pandemic. More fostering has also been a wonderful development for the animals, who benefit from being in home environments rather than institutions. At the CASPCA, more than 70 percent of pets have been placed into foster care since March 2020. “Not only did they thrive in their foster homes, but they were also more likely to be adopted due to promotion by their fosters,” says Gunter.
“This has been the type of sheltering that has needed to happen for years,” says Humane Society/SPCA of Nelson County Director Lindsey Huffman. “Integrating fosters into the community and having them be part of everyday lives while they’re waiting for permanent homes has been the most beautiful thing to come out of the past year.” The HS/SPCA is working to expand its adult dog fostering program in 2021 to get even more pets out of the shelter and into temporary homes.
While increased adoptions and fosters have been good things during COVID-19, there has been concern about the possibility of a rise in animal surrenders and returns. Potential factors include financial hardship brought on by the pandemic and hasty decisions to adopt pets.
Fortunately, area shelters and sanctuaries have not reported increases in surrenders or returns. In fact, these numbers have decreased. At the CASPCA, for example, 204 fewer pets were surrendered in 2020 than in 2019, according to Gunter.
While Caring for Creatures has also not reported an increase, it has received calls from concerned pet owners about behavior changes. “People being home with their animals can be a positive thing, but it is also a shift in routine for the animal. Some are acting out a little bit, reflecting the state of mind of their humans,” says Birkholz. (You’re not imagining it: Your cat really does want you to get out of its way.) In most cases, these behavior shifts can be managed without the animals having to be rehomed.
While it has been a banner year for pet adoptions, the needs of these nonprofit organizations remain great, particularly for supplies and monetary donations. “We are incredibly appreciative of the support from our community, as none of the work that we do would be possible without their continued support,” says Gunter.
If you are interested in adopting a pet, the CASPCA, CFC, and HS/SPCA are accepting adoption applications online. Each facility is open by appointment only. Check their websites for details about adopting, fostering, and donating (caspca.org; caringforcreatures.org; nelsonspca.org).
Caicos the Doodle as envisioned by Lesli Devito. Courtesy artist.
By Madison McNamee
Ten years ago, Lesli DeVito created a unique birthday gift—an original painting of
a friend’s dog. Things went from there, and now DeVito paints a dog a day.
These aren’t traditional, stuffy pet portraits. DeVito, who is based in the area, has an
eccentric style, blending bright colors to exemplify each pooch’s personality.
“I’m more trying to get the painting not to look exactly like the dog, but to kind of come alive, so that you feel like you can sort of see a little bit of your own,” she says.
To achieve that
effect, customers send DeVito photographs of their pets—but also describe the pup’s personality. From there, she creates life on canvas. She often adds personal touches like tennis balls or favorite toys. She was once asked to paint a sleeping bulldog, because the customer said that’s all the dog ever did.
But even when painting a dozing animal, DeVito creates excitement. She says she was drawn to bright colors from her earliest days as an artist, when she worked with simple house paint. Over the last decade, she’s upgraded to acrylic paint, and her work has continued to improve.
“I felt like I was painting with mittens on and all of the sudden I got fingers,” DeVito says. “That growth process, I wouldn’t trade
it for anything.”
And her business has grown, too. Her art Instagram (@lesli_devito_art) has 7,000 followers. She’s expanded her range to include other
animals like cats—and, on a few occasions, cows. DeVito had tons of time on her hands
this past summer, and ended up painting more than she ever had. It was a way of connecting with others in a time of isolation.
UVA detected 1,300 cases of COVID among students, faculty, staff, and contract workers this semester. Photo: Skyclad Aerial
It’s 11am on Thursday, November 19. The U.S. has reached an all-time high for COVID-19 infections in a single day. Colleges have reported record-high numbers as well, contributing to around 2 percent of national infections, according to the New York Times.
And UVA President Jim Ryan has declared victory.
In a video posted to the school’s website, Ryan said the university had accomplished “what many said couldn’t be done,” and showed the world “what being a great and good university looks like.”
It’s true that UVA has largely avoided the uncontrolled spread that worried community members in the summer, when the university first announced its plan to welcome students back to Grounds. At the time, Virginia was experiencing a Memorial Day spike in COVID-19 cases and inching out of its initial Phase 1 restrictions. After college students gathered en masse for the traditional Midsummer’s party weekend, some community leaders sounded the alarm.
“I, for one, don’t understand why the students are coming back into the community, from all over the globe, and why we’re taking that chance,” Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker said at a virtual press conference over the summer.
Some at the university also pushed back against in-person classes. The United Campus Workers union and Student Council both petitioned for an all-virtual semester. In early September, student and community activists held a die-in demonstration where 50 people protested by feigning dead on the Rotunda steps and the Lawn.
Three months later, the semester is in the books. (Students left Grounds before Thanksgiving, a little earlier than usual.) Since August, the university has identified just under 1,300 COVID-19 infections among students, faculty, and staff, a number the administration has deemed a success. Those cases resulted in zero deaths and zero hospitalizations, reports university spokesman Brian Coy.
This graph from UVA’s COVID dashboard shows cases detected at the school over the course of the semester.
“There were a lot of people who were skeptical that students, or the rest of our community, would follow those behaviors closely enough to avoid a major outbreak,” says J.J. Davis, UVA’s chief operating officer. “However, as a whole, this community showed that we were capable of coming together and doing the right things to protect each other and keep the semester on track.”
Provost Liz Magill says the university faced “impossible odds” when the coronavirus pandemic halted operations in March. She cited measures such as the high amount of isolation and quarantine beds, increased testing, and restrictions on gatherings when cases spiked. The measures “weren’t easy” but ultimately the university “overcame historic obstacles,” Magill says.
Final exams
An aggressive testing operation lies at the center of the school’s COVID prevention plan. As the semester wore on, UVA instituted a mandatory testing policy, periodically calling all students living in the area to report to the Central Grounds Parking Garage for a spit test. From November 15-21, as the semester wrapped up, the school conducted 9,453 tests. Virginia has 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students living on Grounds this fall; for comparison, Virginia Tech, a school of 34,000 students, conducted 4,910 tests during that same week in November. This semester, Tech has detected around 1,600 cases.
At the beginning of the semester, UVA created 1,500 quarantine beds for students who had been exposed to the virus. The ability to shift students into this quarantine housing proved pivotal in the early fall. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had to send students back home during the first week of in-person classes, when cases shot up and quarantine rooms dwindled to the single digits. UVA experienced a similar spike in cases during its first week of in-person classes (UNC had 130, UVA 199) but the school’s supply of quarantine beds was large enough to weather the storm.
Additionally, testing allowed UVA to monitor residence halls and identify clusters in places like the Balz-Dobie and Hancock residence halls. Regular dorm wastewater testing combined with mandatory dorm resident testing kept infections from exploding on Grounds.
Dr. Taison Bell, a pulmonary and critical care physician and graduate student who also works in the UVA hospital’s COVID-19 ICU, thinks the university learned its lesson from other colleges across the country.
“A lot of peer institutions were having issues with large-scale COVID outbreaks,” Bell says. “So maybe it was a combination of learning lessons from those institutions and effective messaging at the university.”
Laying down the law
Even with that containment structure in place, videos periodically surfaced during the semester that showed troubling scenes for those who had hoped to see social distancing.
In October, an anonymous student sent a video to CBS19 of students packing, mask-less, into the first floor of Trinity Irish Pub on the Corner. Weeks before, Ryan signaled out bars specifically in a video message sent to the UVA community, saying “If you can’t stay six feet apart, don’t go in.”
“It seems hypocritical to me that the administration tries to pretend like they’re enforcing these rules when in reality there are these events that are happening,” an anonymous student told CBS19 at the time.
Days later, students were seen waiting in long lines to enter bars on Halloween weekend.
Davis concedes there were “some issues of noncompliance,” but the school responded by laying down the law, tightening restrictions after the potential super-spreader weekend.
“There were a couple times where more strict messaging had to go out to the university community,” Bell says. “But it seems like, after that happened, the prevalence [of the virus] overall went down and the system wasn’t strained…I think overall they did a really good job.”
The Balz-Dobie and Hancock clusters prompted new gathering restrictions early in the semester, barring students from gathering in groups of more than five people. The university’s ambassadors, a school-run safety force that patrols areas on and off Grounds, enforced the rules strictly, and violations could result in academic punishments.
In a September video, Ryan alluded to several interim suspensions of students failing to adhere to social distancing policies. The university’s policy directory states that students cannot hold an event, indoors or out, that includes multiple groups from different households. The policy also outlines the face mask and social distancing requirements.
Fourth-year Hallie Griffiths says the stricter penalties had a real effect. “I know friends that would have gathered in bigger groups regardless of safety because they felt that if they got sick, they would be fine,” but they didn’t want to get expelled, she says.
The looming terror of the virus made it a strange time to be a student, Griffiths adds. In addition to the interruption of extracurricular activities, classes, and Greek life, students had to cope with ever-changing rules, the complexities of online classes, and fears of infection.
Constant safety adjustments were a whirlwind as well. The university has updated and added information to its Return to Grounds plan at least 24 times since August 4, an experience Griffiths says was “confusing and frustrating.”
“Every week there was a new email and a lot of people’s lives were turned to chaos,” she says. “And then we would adjust and then there’d be a new email.”
“It was scary in the sense that all of us came into it not really knowing what to expect and then it very quickly became very real,” Griffiths says. “All the traditions are gone. Time is stopped in one place but also going very fast. …Especially with classes ending this week, I’ve realized that time is gone and I’ll never get it back.”
Community containment
A central concern for observers in town was the possibility of community spread, especially for vulnerable communities surrounding the university. Although cases spiked at UVA in September and October, the numbers don’t suggest that on-Grounds cases resulted in large numbers of city and county residents getting sick.
But while UVA was cracking down on restrictions, the city was as well.
“Coronavirus ordinances in Albemarle and Charlottesville that were passed were aimed at being in conjunction with UVA returning,” says City Councilor Michael Payne.
In the summer, Charlottesville imposed more severe gathering restrictions than the rest of the state, in part to mitigate the effect of students returning. In Charlottesville, restaurants were unable to operate at more than 50 percent capacity and people weren’t allowed to gather in groups of more than 50.
“I think UVA was taking a huge risk in terms of having all these students come back,” Payne says.
“They have been able to prevent a massive community spread in a worst-case scenario. So in that sense it’s definitely been successful,” the city councilor continues. “But there’s no way around it: When you have that many people coming into the community, you’re going to see a big spike in cases, and that’s what we did see.”
And of course, the story is far from over. Students will return for the spring semester in February. As cold weather drives groups inside and students travel back to Charlottesville from COVID hot spots, the university could once again become dicey terrain. Referencing the cold weather and spring semester, Magill said that “vigilance will be more important than ever.”
“I’m never going to say that I feel comfortable with where things are, because there’s always the possibility that things can break loose,” says Bell. “But what I will say is that, in general, our area has done fairly well with controlling the pandemic compared to a lot of areas of the country…I think this means that, going forward, we have to keep that same diligence up.”
