Author: James A. Bacon
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Don’t Get Too Fired Up About UVa’s FIRE Ranking
by Allan Stam The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) recently gave the University of Virginia a 6th-place ranking in a national survey assessing the state of free speech on college campuses. Provost Ian Baucom cited the recognition during Wednesday’s Board of Visitors meeting, noting that it was the highest ranking the university had ever…
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Hey, Preppers, Check Out Virginia!
I always suspected this might be the case, but now there is hard data to back it up. Non-coastal Virginia is one of the lowest-risk areas in the country for natural disasters. Sure, we get the occasional tornado or flood, but, really, how often? And when was the last time we experienced a deadly wildfire,…
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UVa’s Ever-Expanding Bureaucracy: Student Advising Edition
by James A. Bacon University of Virginia old-timers (like myself) remember what it was like to find help in picking courses and deciding majors. We’d latch ourselves onto a professor who took an interest in us, and he or she would walk us through the process. It did require some initiative on our part to…
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Let Me Get This Straight…
by James A. Bacon Wyatt Gordon writes about smart growth issues for the Virginia Mercury and Greater Greater Washington. Sometimes, he’s worth reading. But, then, sometimes, he’s not. As an example of the latter, he recently posted this on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter: So, let me get this straight. If…
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Bacon Meme of the Week
In case you were wondering, there is such a thing as International Bacon Day. Read about it here. The day brings together the diverse peoples of the world in reverent appreciation of God’s greatest gift to mankind. Bacon fun fact: In the 12th century, a church in the English town of Great Dunmow created a…
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How Many UVa Students Feel Sense of “Belonging”?
by James A. Bacon As the University of Virginia Board of Visitors grapples with contentious issues such as equity, inclusion and racial preferences, it could benefit by knowing how well the policies of the Ryan administration have succeeded or failed in making UVa a more welcoming place for students across “every possible dimension” of diversity,…
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Last Year’s SOL Performance — Meh
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Education is running two weeks late in releasing Standards of Learning (SOL) testing data for the 2022-23 school year. The reason cited by state Superintendent Lisa Coons, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is to process retake data and appeals. The SOL results, as they appeared on a Richmond…
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Virginia Has Lost Its Mojo — Appalachia Edition
A new report, “The Future of Appalachia,” outlines economic development strategies for one of the most intractably poor regions in the country. Drawing a distinction between “southern” and “northern” Appalachia, the study observes that southern Appalachia has achieved far more economic success than its northern counterpart. Unfortunately, for purposes of this analysis, Virginia is deemed…
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UVa Spending on Staff Surges, Spending on Students Trails
by James A. Bacon Always alert for opportunities to arm the University of Virginia Board of Visitors members with statistics they don’t see in their board presentations, The Jefferson Council presents the table above, compiled from data published by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The takeaway: UVa boosted overall E&G (educational &…
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Blue on Blue
Monica Lisle, a long-serving Alexandria police captain, has charged the city’s police chief with denying her a promotion to assistant chief by stacking the deck against her in favor of Black candidates in order to “fill certain unannounced racial quotas.” As Lisle wrote in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint last year, according to The…
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Broken Doorknobs, Broken Locks
Last year Jwanta Scarbor, a resident of public housing in Norfolk, was found shot to death in her apartment. Now her mother has filed suit against the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority on the grounds that it failed, despite repeated requests, to fix broken doorknobs, locks and windows. “My family is destroyed,” Tawanda Scarbor told…