Tag: UVA

On April 15, the University of Virginia football team returned to Scott Stadium for the first time since the murders of three players in November. 

Memorials to Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler, and D’Sean Perry were present throughout this year’s Blue-White spring game, from the opening remarks to the field itself. The end zone beneath the hillside was emblazoned with the players’ names, numbers, and “UVA STRONG,” written boldly in the university’s iconic blue and orange.

Fans were ecstatic to see Mike Hollins—who was wounded in the same attack that killed his teammates—on the field. Despite pre-game concerns about Hollins’ health, the running back was a force to be reckoned with in the scrimmage: He was instrumental in several plays, running the ball early, and later scoring a touchdown for the Blue team in the UVA Strong endzone.

In an emotional celebration of the touchdown, Hollins hugged his younger brother Deuce and placed the football on Perry’s name.

Hollins’ heartfelt gesture reflects the team’s broader goal of “moving forward, but not moving on” after November’s shooting. Throughout the Blue-White game, the team honored the lives of Davis Jr., Chandler, and Perry, but still had fun on the field.

“Once the whistle blows, they put the ball down, nothing else matters,” said Coach Tony Elliott in a post-game interview. “It’s where you can … find peace, where you can find solace. It’s when you step off the field … that reality comes back into perspective.” 

Coming together off the field has been an important part of the team’s recovery process. “We would have board game nights. … We didn’t [want to] be alone,” said running back Jack Griese.

“No one else is going through this, only us,” added Griese, who teared up when he spoke about the team’s unique bond.

The players’ strong connection was apparent throughout the game as the teams cheered and taunted one another.

But it was the atmosphere that was most important for them during Saturday’s contest. “We have a chance to change the world today,” Elliott explained, “because a lot of people are tuning in to see … how are the Cavaliers [going to] respond.”

Although some fans fled for cover from mid-game rain, the team continued playing and celebrating, to the delight of the orange-clad faithful who remained in the stands.

From snow angels to land-swimming to elaborate handshakes, there was no shortage of happiness from the UVA football team. Beyond good football, this was exactly what Elliott wanted to bring to Scott Stadium.

“I feel like [the team] did a really good job letting everyone see … their spirit, and their joy, and their fun, and their passion for playing the game, and their appreciation,” Elliott said.

UVA team’s dengue fever discovery

Dr. Mariano A. Garcia-Blanco, UVA’s chair of microbiology, immunology, and cancer biology, had been in his new lab for only a week when he and his team released groundbreaking findings on the deadly dengue virus—results that could pave the way for an effective treatment against the illness.

Dengue virus is a mosquito-borne, single positive stranded RNA virus from the flavivirus family. It is usually transmitted between humans and mosquitoes. While typically found in South America, South Asia, and Africa, dengue virus has become increasingly common and has reached the United States in the past two decades. 

Garcia-Blanco grew up in the Caribbean, and he and his sister had dengue fever, caused by the virus, when they were young. While Garcia-Blanco had mild symptoms, his sister was very ill.

“The syndrome looks very similar to the flu, like people are really sick for a couple of weeks,” says Garcia-Blanco. “And in severe cases, it can be fatal. It can lead to hemorrhagic fever, shock, etc.”

Humans and mosquitoes can infect each other. If a mosquito bites a human carrying the pathogen, it takes it on, and can pass it to its next drink. “It grows very well in humans, but it also grows very well in mosquitoes,” says Garcia-Blanco. “We’re very far apart species and yet this virus is capable of moving back and forth between mosquito and human.”

The discovery at UVA is a culmination of years of research, and was an international effort. Duke-NUS Medical School spearheaded Garcia-Blanco’s work, which largely took place in Singapore and attracted Ph.D. students from France, the United States, and other places.

Garcia-Blanco and his associates found that the virus has an accomplice. Infected mosquitoes are not just filled with dengue virus cells, but RNAs. “Whenever you get infected with dengue, the virus makes certain proteins, the virus looks like it’s really an RNA genome that looks like one of our messenger RNAs,” he says. “And then it makes a bunch of proteins and those proteins work to inhibit the innate immune system.” 

RNA viruses have proved their dangerousness time–and-time again, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic. “They are a global threat,” says Garcia-Blanco. “If you look at the pandemics of the last 120 years, all the big ones have been caused by RNA viruses.”

All aboard

Polluting planes, trains, and automobiles no more! FlixBus’ “green fleet” has rolled into Charlottesville, offering direct transportation to 12 cities nationwide, including New York, Washington, D.C., and Gainesville.  

With only 36 grams of CO2 released per kilometer when traveling by FlixBus, passengers will be doing the environment a solid with every trip they take. (For comparison, trains, cars, and planes release 63, 168, and 231 grams, respectively.) Germany-based FlixBus has partnered with atmosfair, a German nonprofit that offers offsets for greenhouse gases emitted by long-distance buses.

FlixBus tickets can be purchased online, and start at $17.99—the company manages costs by partnering with local, often family-owned, bus companies.

In brief

Shots fired

On April 4, the Charlottesville Police Department responded to a shots fired report near Tonsler Park on Cherry Avenue at around 7:51pm. There were no injuries, but one residence was struck. Anyone with information regarding the shooting should contact Crime Stoppers at 977-4000.

Break in

The CPD received a report on April 7 of a man breaking into the University of Virginia Kappa Delta sorority house on Chancellor Street, and assaulting several residents at around 4:12am. Police intercepted the suspect, 18-year-old Harry Benjamin Sedwick, while he was walking back to his vehicle. Sedwick has been charged with one count of burglary and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.

Mother arrested

Eleanor Hunter Hoppe, a Charlottesville mother of two, has been charged with distribution of child pornography, among other federal charges. On March 20, FBI agents arrested Hoppe, 45, at a Warrenton motel, where she reportedly agreed to meet with a man—an undercover agent she communicated with on a fetish website—to participate in the sexual abuse of who she was told was the man’s 8-year-old daughter, reports The Daily Progress. Hoppe—who has worked for and supported child advocacy organizations, as well as been a victim’s advocate in the Richmond commonwealth’s attorney’s office and a UVA event planner—also allegedly sent the agent images and a video appearing to show minors being sexually abused. Hoppe, who has pleaded not guilty, told police she traveled to the motel to help the 8-year-old, but officers found lubricant, among other items, in her vehicle. 

A University of Virginia first-year engineering student has developed a smartphone app that enables high school students to more efficiently alert administrators to crises on school grounds. 

The Safeline app was built by Alexander Halpern, who designed the software around an anonymous reporting system. Using a map of their school, students can pinpoint specific locations to report incidents ranging from vandalism, fights, and mental distress, to strangers and active shooters.

The app is planned to roll out as a pilot this spring, free of charge, at a public high school in Connecticut, and as a beta at a private school in Virginia.

Halpern was inspired to create Safeline after experiencing the many lockdown drills that have become the norm at schools across the country. “As I matured, those 30 minutes of silence gave me time to grapple with the unnerving reality that school shootings had become a commonplace occurrence in our society,” he said in a press release.

“I started to think about what resources students could have in the event of an incident occurring at a school,” Halpern told C-VILLE. “I found that it could be really interesting to add an element of location-based reporting, because that could greatly reduce the incident response time.”

Students who download the Safeline app are presented with a blueprint of their school overlaid on a satellite image. In the event of a crisis scenario, users can tap a location on the map or simply report their phone location to indicate where an incident has occurred or is developing. School administration and security then receive instantaneous alerts through text or email notifications, in addition to a beeping sound if they have the Safeline Administrator Dashboard open.

Halpern says his app is designed to be anonymous, but, to prevent abuse, students must enter their phone number to log in.

“The reports will be anonymous in that their name is not tied to the report whatsoever,” says Halpern. “But if a student keeps abusing the service or keeps reporting incidents that are not actually occurring, the administration could try to figure out who the student is by their phone number or they could set limitations … on which students can report.”

Halpern began development of Safeline over the summer, before arriving at UVA in the fall. He built the prototype entirely by himself in his free time, using Meta’s React Native for the app and ReactJS for the Administrator Dashboard. Halpern fine-tuned the app during his first year at UVA between classes and on weekends. 

The prototype was completed in about a month, after which he presented the project to the director of digital learning and technology for the Connecticut high school. He and the director have worked together for the past six months to further develop and pilot the app.

“I’ve been going back and forth with him for a long time,” says Halpern, “securing the Safeline platform, and making sure it’s secure to outside threats as well as upholding the concerns [and regulations] of a public school.”

A key feature of Safeline is its ability to facilitate swift and clear communication during potential active shooter situations. He personally experienced an active shooter scenario in November 2022, when three UVA student-athletes were shot and killed on Grounds, and UVA police urged students to “RUN. HIDE. FIGHT.”

More than a dozen incidents of gun violence have already occurred at schools and universities across the United States since the start of 2023, including a deadly shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville and another at Michigan State University. According to an article in The Washington Post last updated on April 3, 377 school shootings have happened in the United States since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999—and 2022’s 46 school shootings marked the highest annual total across that same timespan.

Halpern says that he is committed to stopping gun violence in schools nationwide. 

“It would be amazing for [Safeline] to be in thousands of schools across the country, and helping students to be able to play a role in keeping their school environment safe and potentially saving lives across the country,” he says. “That would be the ideal goal.”

The app is currently on iOS devices only but will be available on Android soon. To learn more, visit yoursafeline.com. 

Just three months into 2023, and the amount of gun violence in Charlottesville has already surpassed that of previous years. The University of Virginia held a panel on Tuesday, March 28, to address the concerns of students, parents, faculty, and community members. University President Jim Ryan, University Police Department Chief Tim Longo, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer JJ Davis, and Vice President for Student Affairs and the Chief Student Affairs Officer Robin Hadley fielded questions from the nearly 800 attendees. 

Longo, who served as chief of the Charlottesville Police Department from 2001 to 2016, said no more than five homicides occurred annually in his near-16-year stint with the CPD. “They’ve had five just in the first three months of this year,” he said. 

Optimistically, Longo pointed to the arrests that have been made for all five murders, and said suspects are awaiting criminal prosecution.

The March 18 Elliewood Avenue homicide is the most recent firearm-related incident. The victim and perpetrator had an altercation at The Biltmore that made its way onto the street, and ended in the shooting of 26-year-old Cody Brian Smith. “That particular night there were some seven university police officers in the area. Some six city police officers in the area, and countless university ambassadors,” Ryan said. “Nonetheless, it happened.” The UVA alert system quickly informed community members of a campus-wide shelter in place. The suspect was arrested the following day. 

In light of increasing violence, UVA is building on its already-complex security system. The Community Oriented Policing Squad—a task force established in October 2021 to work off Grounds—is expanding. “I will be adding an additional member to that squad sometime next month,” said Longo. “And I will be placing a police lieutenant over that squad. So they have a command oversight. And by the beginning of next school year we’ll be expanding the number of those officers that are part of that squad as well.” 

In addition, Longo said he will hire more ambassadors for the UVA ambassadors program. “We are also expanding the footprint of those ambassadors just south of the university’s Medical Center in an area adjacent to Cherry Avenue, where another homicide occurred in the city just a couple of weekends ago,” he said. Established in 2015 after the disappearance of Hannah Graham, the program provides “personal safety escorts and makes requests for medical and police assistance on behalf of our [UVA] community members.” 

Administering precautions would be impossible without technology. Nearly 2,000 cameras are nestled throughout Grounds, and that number “is growing almost daily, because of the number of buildings that are being constructed here on Grounds and the number of buildings that we’re acquiring off Grounds,” Longo said. 

Social media platforms like Yik Yak, Twitter, and Instagram, where kids are free to speak their minds, foreshadow a lot of criminal activity on Grounds. UVA police have adapted to this new digital era, and check these sites regularly. 

While widespread and complex, the efficacy of UVA’s safety measures relies on students. “We would just like to underline continuing to be cognizant about our surroundings,” Ryan said. “I happen to live on Grounds and, likewise, I’m cognizant about my surroundings. I live just up the hill from where the shooting occurred last weekend. And so, I use a buddy system. I’ll let folks know when I’m moving around or going somewhere.”   

“I am telling you, impressing upon you, how incredibly sensitive I am to belief in that responsibility,” Ryan added. “And how seriously we take that responsibility.”

In brief

Rent relief

City residents in need of rental assistance can apply to Charlottesville’s housing voucher program waitlist on portal.cvillerha.com until April 7 at 4pm. Albemarle County’s waitlist applications will open on housing portal.albemarle.org on April 6 at 10am, and close April 13 at 4pm.

New management

Longtime Ting Pavilion General Manager Kirby Hutto will retire next month, after running the downtown venue since ground was broken on it in 2004. Jefferson Theater business manager Jonathan Drolshagen, who also manages restaurants Mas and Ten, will take over for Hutto, who will serve in a consulting role through the end of the year.

AHS student charged

An Albemarle High School student has been charged with a criminal offense after administrators found a knife in the student’s possession on March 28, according to The Daily Progress. The unnamed student also allegedly vandalized a door in the school’s performance art wing with racist, antisemitic, and homophobic graffiti sometime between March 25 and 27. 

School board bid

Reclaimed Hope Initiative board member Allison Spillman is vying for the at-large seat on the Albemarle County School Board, and will face off against University of Virginia psychology professor Meg Bryce in November. Current at-large member Jonno Alcaro is not running for re-election.

Human remains found

On March 30, Albemarle County police found human remains at a campsite in a wooded area outside of Agnor Hurt Elementary School. Authorities are in the process of identifying the deceased person, but shared that the person had not died recently.

Bottoms up

Good news, beer lovers—Devil’s Backbone is coming to Charlottesville. In May, the award-winning Nelson County brewery will open Devil’s Backbone Backyard at 1000 W Main Street, the former home of Skipping Rock Beer Company. The new location will serve a limited food menu, the brand’s canned Smash cocktails, and a variety of beers brewed on-site.

Person stabbed

On March 28, the Charlottesville Police Department responded to a report of a stabbing on 12th Street NW between Rosser and Preston avenues at around 5:45pm. Officers found a victim with multiple lacerations, who was taken to the hospital. A suspect was arrested on the scene, reports CBS19.

On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, followed by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake the same day—and more than 10,000 aftershocks in the weeks that followed. The devastating quakes killed more than 50,000 people, and left millions homeless.  

After helping the University of Virginia’s Turkish Student Association fundraise several thousand dollars for emergency relief, Turkish American students Aleyna Buyukaksakal and Deniz Olgun wanted to do more for the millions of victims. Thinking of the numerous ways the United States could help Turkey recover—both in the short and long term—from the disaster, the classmates decided to lobby Congress for aid. 

In the weeks following the earthquakes, the students reached out to several UVA administrators and professors about lobbying, including Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato. Sabato connected the students with the center’s staff, which assisted them in crafting a proposal to present to members of Congress. Meanwhile, Olgun called all of Virginia’s congressional offices, requesting meetings with representatives and senators. Staffers from the offices of Representatives Abigail Spanberger, Morgan Griffith, and Jennifer Wexton, and Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, agreed to meet with the students in Washington, D.C. (None of the Congress members could meet with them personally.) 

“There was a congressional staffer [at the center] who was able to give us insight on what we should put into our proposal,” explains Buyukaksakal, a second-year English and neuroscience major. “Deniz and I both did a lot of research.”

On February 28, March 1, and March 2, Buyukaksakal and Olgun met with the staffers, discussing both the humanitarian and fiscal needs in Turkey. In addition to pushing for stronger search and rescue measures, additional rehousing funding, and other humanitarian aid, the pair stressed the need for long-term financial relief. As of March, the U.S. has provided $185 million in aid to Turkey and Syria—however, rebuilding and restoring Turkey’s impacted areas will cost an estimated $80 billion.

“The economic impact of this is so big,” explains Olgun, a second-year neuroscience and computer science major. “All of these people are out of work. … And it’s very expensive to not only put up new buildings [but also] inspect all of the ones that are still standing, to ensure people can return safely.”

“[We proposed giving], in three- to four-year slow-diffuse payments, money to restore buildings, cultural sites, schools, hospitals,” adds Buyukaksakal. “Things that would need rebuilding in the future but aren’t necessarily a part of the emergency funding.” 

Sending relief over the years can also help Turkey—one of the most seismically active countries—implement preventative measures, such as building more disaster management centers. The country currently has only 23 centers, each housing up to 270,000 people.

The legislative correspondents and assistants largely reacted positively to the proposal, especially the calls for long-term relief, according to the students. “We did get a couple of comments about congressmen wanting to advocate for this cause,” says Buyukaksakal. However, “we were told mostly that a lot of things couldn’t necessarily be brought up in conversation until [President Biden released his 2024 federal budget] on March 9.”

Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget includes a request for $70.5 billion in discretionary funding for USAID, state department, and other international programs, and for $100 million in Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance funding, which has been used to assist earthquake victims—but the budget does not specifically mention relief for Turkey and Syria. 

When asked about Congress’ plans for additional earthquake relief, Legislative Assistant Jooeun Kim said one of Wexton’s “priorities for FY23 [state, foreign operations, and related programs] appropriations is supporting the funding level of $4.7 billion for USAID’s International Disaster Account.”

In a statement to C-VILLE, Kaine expressed general support for assisting earthquake victims. “My heart is heavy for the countless families that have been impacted … and I’m grateful for the Turkish American students at [UVA] who reached out to my team to discuss this important topic,” he said. “The perspectives they shared … underscore why it’s critically important that the United States provides robust emergency aid to Turkey during this difficult time.”

Staffers from Spanberger, Griffith, and Warner’s offices did not respond for comment before press time.

The death and devastation inflicted by the earthquakes hit close to home for both students. While their family members in Turkey were not directly affected by the disaster, many friends of Olgun’s family were displaced. Buyukaksakal also knows many Turkish American people in her hometown whose families’ homes were destroyed.

“It’s just a feeling of a grand devastation in a country that we both really love that’s made this a really important cause,” says Buyukaksakal.

The students plan to continuously follow up with the staffers they met with, and hope Congress will take steps to provide additional earthquake relief soon. 

“If we are able to just move the scales a little bit, even if it’s hard to … say we’re responsible for X amount of funding,” says Olgun, “that is a nice way to have an impact.”

On March 14, the University of Virginia women’s swimming & diving team made its way to Knoxville to compete in the 2023 NCAA championship meet. Energy levels were high, and, as UVA fourth-year Ella Nelson put it, the teammates were just trying to contain their excitement.

UVA’s swim team wasn’t the only one housing Olympians and American record holders. Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin brought their best to compete, too. But Virginia Head Coach Todd DeSorbo went into the meet with confidence. “I think arguably, we’ve got the best team that we’ve ever had here at UVA, so I feel really good,” he said. 

Over the course of the meet, the UVA women’s team won every single relay, took down six new NCAA and American records, captured first in 12 out of 21 events, collected almost three times as many All-American performances, and scored over 100 points more than any other team. By Saturday, the Cavaliers won their third-straight NCAA championship title. 

Prior to its NCAA championship win in 2021, UVA consistently floated in the top 10 college women’s swim teams, but wasn’t at the forefront. Current fourth-year swimmers experienced a rise to national dominance since they arrived, going from being in the mix of good teams to blowing the rest out of the water. 

Lexi Cuomo, an American record holder and fourth-year swimmer, says that despite the swimmers’ ascension in national rankings, the team culture stayed the same over the past four years—with a focus on working hard for each other. “I went from kind of benefiting from having the team culture already set up like that, where I have to really put in the work to contribute to this, and now I’m the one leading it or trying my best to lead it,” she says. 

Even without a change in team culture, the mark these athletes left in the world of swimming evolved over these past four years. Fourth-year Kate Douglass is leaving the women’s team with six American and NCAA records, spanning multiple strokes and distances. But while having fast times holds weight, she also considers her impact outside the water. “I just wanna be known as someone who was a good teammate, and obviously I’ve left my legacy on the record boards here and I’m really happy with that,” she says. “But I definitely think one of the main reasons why I chose UVA was because I knew I had a chance to help make this program one of the top programs in the country.”

Multiple swimmers mentioned their goal of making UVA a team that younger swimmers can look up to. “This could potentially be our third NCAA win in a row,” Nelson said a few days before the swim meet. “But I think our goal is to create the UVA legacy for all of the little girls who are little swimmers and looking up to all of us college athletes and wanting to hopefully come to UVA.”  

Nelson says that “legacy” has become a motto for the team. “The easy part is setting the legacy in the pool,” she says, “but it’s also the legacy of who we are as a team and the team culture that we wanna build for the years to come.”

The end of the 2023 season means saying goodbye to a handful of elite swimmers on the team, including Douglass, Cuomo, and potentially Nelson if she doesn’t take a fifth year. Between Douglass’ individual American and NCAA records in the 100 butterfly, 200 individual medley, and 200 breaststroke, and Douglass and Cuomo’s shared American and NCAA records in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays (plus Nelson’s top-tier national performances in individual medley and breaststroke events), it’s safe to say the Cavaliers are losing some of their highest-performing swimmers.

But DeSorbo isn’t nervous for future seasons. “You can’t fill the shoes of those people. And that’s the challenge that we’ll face heading in the next year. But the way I look at it is I think you want that. You want that every year,” he says. “You want people graduating from your program that are irreplaceable.”

After a third national title, Douglass closes her collegiate chapter with nothing but positive things to say. “It’s very important to me—the third national championship of this team—because I feel like, coming into UVA, that was just all I ever wanted for the program was to be a part of a growing program, and then my second year we won our first one and then we just kept winning after that,” she says. “So yeah it’s pretty cool to see a third one now.”

DeSorbo won’t forget what these swimmers have done at UVA any time soon. “I’m forever grateful that they took that leap of faith,” he says. “And certainly they’ve come in and bought in immediately. They believed and trusted immediately, and were just really excited to be a part of the potential rise of our program. And they’ve all just been such great people and influences and leaders on our team that they’re definitely gonna leave a lasting legacy, and they play a significant role in where we are today.”

When Sen. Bernie Sanders took the stage at the University of Virginia on March 2, he told the crowd that “real politics” is about understanding who’s winning in American society and which team is losing ground. To Sanders, the answer is plain to see: The top 1 percent is winning, and the working class is losing.

It’s a familiar refrain for the senator, and one that forms the thesis of his new book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, which the senator had been invited to speak about at UVA as part of a promotional tour. The university’s Center for Politics organized the event, and put Sanders in conversation with interviewer and center resident scholar Robert Costa, who has worked as chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News since 2022.

“There’s only one person who could stuff Old Cabell the day before spring break starts,” said Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato as he introduced Sanders.

Sanders is currently serving his third term in the U.S. Senate as the longest-sitting Independent member of Congress in American history. Before his three terms as senator, Sanders served for 16 years in the House of Representatives. He’s been steeped in American politics for a long time—long enough to write a book about what’s wrong with the system.

“I wanted to break through a lot of the irrelevant discussion that takes place regarding politics in America,” said Sanders.

In his book, Sanders argues that unfettered capitalism is undermining democracy, as it has caused an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality. On his website, angryaboutcapitalism.com, the Vermont senator articulates that his book presents a vision for a society that provides a decent standard of living for all—”one that is not a utopian fantasy, but is democracy as we should know it.”

Costa and Sanders sat beside each other on stage, but that dynamic didn’t last long. Whenever Costa asked his guest a question, Sanders would stand up to deliver his answer to the audience. Each time, the crowd laughed. “You look like somebody who’s going to run again,” Costa joked.

Costa asked Sanders to explain the immorality of capitalism that he asserts in the book. The senator compared a kid robbing a 7-Eleven to the head of ExxonMobil, who knew that carbon emissions would have disastrous effects on the planet 60 years ago, but persisted in the business of fossil fuels in pursuit of profit. “Which crime is worse,” Sanders asked the crowd, “people who are knowingly destroying the planet for short-term profits or the kid who robs the 7-Eleven at gunpoint?” 

In his reflections on student loan debt, Sanders referenced Franklin D. Roosevelt and his assertion that political rights are meaningless if the American people lack “economic rights.”

“You have power,” Sanders said. “You’ve got to run for office yourself—you have a right to say, ‘That is not right.’”

FDR wasn’t Sanders’ only influence; he also cited Martin Luther King Jr. as one of his heroes. He told the crowd that he was present for King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and reminded everyone that the title of the event was March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

“King looked the establishment in the face,” he said, “and continued to fight.”

Costa asked Sanders if he would support Pres. Joe Biden in 2024. The senator, in discussing the American Rescue Plan, said that Biden was there “all the way” in supporting the progressive agenda. “I like and respect him,” Sanders said of the president.

Center for Politics interns were seated close to the stage and had prepared a few questions for Sanders. A first-year student asked him to assess whether economic issues or cultural issues had influenced voters’ preference for Trump in 2016.

“There are Trump supporters who are outright racists, sexists, homophobes,” said Sanders, “but there are many more who are not any of that—they are working-class people falling behind.” 

“Nobody is talking to these people who are struggling. They are bitter and disappointed.”

Sanders claimed that he and his team were doing the opposite, by traveling the country and listening to the people whom Congress and the corporate media were ignoring.

The final student to ask a question asked the senator what he thought about burnout among young people, as social media and digital fatigue may prevent them from participating in politics and the upcoming election.

Sanders stood up once again.

“Let me be a hard ass,” he said. “You don’t have the right to be fatigued.”

The crowd gave him a standing ovation. “Change comes from the bottom up,” he said. “You are part of the struggle for justice.” 

The event was recorded and can be watched via the Center for Politics YouTube channel at youtube.com/@UVaCFP.

By Sofia Heartney

Sen. Bernie Sanders is coming to the University of Virginia this week as part of his book tour for the recently published It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism. A former presidential candidate who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, Sanders will appear at Old Cabell Hall at a UVA Center for Politics event on Thursday, March 2. 

Several factors had to align for the Vermont senator to visit UVA.  

“It just happened that someone we knew had access and offered him to us,” says Glenn Crossman, director of programs at the Center for Politics. That person knew that UVA was looking for a speaker and that Sanders “wanted to make sure that he did one free event [during his book tour], and he wanted to make sure that it was at a university.”

Sanders, who’s serving his third term in the U.S. Senate, will be interviewed by Robert Costa, a CBS News political reporter and a resident scholar at the Center for Politics. The senator will arrive in Charlottesville from Washington, D.C., for the event, and go back to D.C. immediately after it ends. Therefore, there won’t be time for an audience Q&A or a meet-and-greet with him. His next stop is Los Angeles.

Tickets for the event were free, but sold out quickly, exceeding the center’s predictions. There will be a stand-by line for those who weren’t able to get tickets to fill any unexpectedly vacant seats.  

Sanders’ visit to the university comes near the middle of his book tour, which consists of six stops, and began in Brooklyn, New York, on February 20, and ends on March 13 with a virtual event. His publisher describes It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism as “a progressive takedown of the uber-capitalist status quo that has enriched millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the working class, and a blueprint for what transformational change would actually look like.” 

Getting speakers to UVA is arduous, and requires extensive planning. People often agree to speak at the university “because we’ve worked on their office for a couple of years,” says Crossman. The center starts by creating a list of potential speakers, including some “wish-list” folks. According to Crossman, if they start by trying to get just one particular person, “you’d never have any speakers.” Once they decide on potential guests, the department calls their offices to get to know the people who work the phones, and build connections through the reputations of both the Center for Politics and Larry Sabato, who founded it in 1998.

The Center for Politics has several other programs “to educate citizens to be better citizens,” says Crossman. It creates free civics materials for K-12 classrooms through the Youth Leadership Initiative; hosts overseas delegations hoping to learn more about democracy and civic participation through the Global Perspectives on Democracy program; and produces election predictions through its Crystal Ball newsletter. 

Nonpartisanship is a priority for the center, and it tries to have “diversity in every possible way there is,” including in ideology, says Crossman. Last year’s keynote speaker was former vice president Mike Pence. And “it didn’t seem crazy to us that we would host Bernie Sanders a year later,” Crossman says of the March 2 event, which won’t be livestreamed, but will be recorded, and is expected to be made available near the end of Sanders’ book tour.