How to Encourage Millennials to Vote

Third-year Zaakir Tameez is a UVa student representative
in the Governor’s Millennial Civic Engagement Task Force,
which aims to get millennials civically engaged throughout
the Commonwealth. / Photo courtesy Zaakir Tameez 

Over the summer, Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an Executive Directive setting up a Millennial Civic Engagement Task Force. Its goal: get millennials more engaged throughout the Commonwealth. The Task Force held a summit last Friday in Richmond, and WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini talked to one of the participants.

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Zaakir Tameez is one of two students from UVa to be part of the Governor’s Task Force, which is composed of all public colleges and universities in Virginia and one private college. Forty  students showed up on Friday's Summit and met with the governor. One theme: better information about what’s happening close to home.

ZAAKIR TAMEEZ: A lot of students feel like they don't really know what's going on or that they don't really understand what matters - especially in the national news cycles: they always talk about national elections, but so much is happening in Virginia. And a lot of students feel like they're not hearing that.

Throughout November, the Task Force will continue working on these ideas - such as setting up a list of best practices that universities can take to ensure civic engagement. They will then present a set of recommendations to the Governor in December.

TAMEEZ: Another major theme that came up was the institutional challenges to voting. For example, a lot of schools' students don't have cars, and the polling locations are very far so they're unable to walk there. As a result, they don't vote, so that's part of the problem.

UVa's Student Council, where Tameez is also active, has managed to make  student access to polling stations easier for this year’s  election.

TAMEEZ: So for example the University of Virginia, through the work of Student Council advocating for this in previous years is using the safe ride vans that UVa use at night for student safety and having those bring students to the polls in the daytime.  Because again, there is for example the Northline, which is a bus service for UVa, but it's going to be completely crowded and as a result many students can't get on the bus.  So the University expands public transportation options to the polling location to adjust for student traffic on Election Day. It will be done this election at UVa because Student Council demanded it.

Tameez hopes that success will provide an example for students around the state.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Kristof on the Empathy Gap and Discrimination

Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for the New York Times since 2001, is the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, and is a regular CNN contributor. / Picture: Marguerite Gallorini

In an event organized by the University of Virginia and the Miller Center, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, himself the son of a World War II refugee, reflected on the reasons of the white supremacist violence in August and in the nation. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini has more.

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Nicholas Kristof talked to a mostly white crowd at UVa about issues linked to the current political climate. One of his central ideas was a lack of empathy leading to a lack of actions taken against discrimination or poverty.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF:  I guess I’ve come to think over time that it’s less about a lack of resources as such and that in some ways it’s about what might be called the ‘empathy gap.’  I think it goes back in part to our tendency to "otherize" people on the basis of race or religion or whatever it may be.

The New York Times journalist then addressed the issue of systemic racism itself, beyond all the current focus on white supremacists.

KRISTOF: To me it seems that the big problem we have in 2017, in terms of discrimination, is of well-meaning people who consciously believe in equality, and yet, because of unconscious bias, act in ways that perpetuate that inequality. Frankly, one of the basic problems with discussions about race is that they're awkward, and so we don't tend to have them. African Americans talk a lot about race; whites don't talk very much about it. It may be that people like Richard Spencer force whites to have some difficult conversations about race and racism and racial bias in ways that are kind of helpful.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Diversifying the STEM Pool

Jude Fairchild, Graham Lenert and Iya Feggans 

are all studyingengineering with Brendan Martin at Buford. / Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

Increasingly, Virginia schools are getting financial support to seek a more diverse population in STEM programs -- that's science, technology, engineering and math. In Charlottesville, grants are funding a partnership between Piedmont Virginia Community College, the University of Virginia and Buford Middle School to make that dream come true. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini has this report.

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Let’s start with Piedmont Virginia Community College – their goal is to use $170,000 in grant money to build a pipeline of underrepresented students in STEM programs. The money comes from the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance, a consortium of 12 institutions, including historically black colleges and universities.

JOANNA VONDRASEK: At least historically with this grant, it has been African-Americans, Hispanic students, and Native Americans and Pacific Islanders. We're also looking to increase the number of women in the engineering degree as well.

That’s Joanna Vondrasek, a professor of biology and the college site coordinator for this grant.

VONDRASEK: We have a lot of first-generation college students as well who don't fit necessarily the demographic of traditionally under-represented minorities.  However, first-generation students of all backgrounds have generally a harder time making it through college than folks who have parents who went to college. And so I feel like all of this support has helped our students across the board.

The grant allows PVCC to reinforce funding for more resources such as tutors in a few core classes, take students to conferences, and build up their course called Science 299.

VONDRASEK: If a student is interested in transferring to a 4-year school as a chemistry major, they would complete a chemistry capstone research project - biology, physics, geology are offered as well. So the students are designing and then implementing their own experiment doing data analysis and then at the end of the semester they're presenting their work in a mini-scientific conference that we hold on campus.

This gives students a head start when they want to transfer to a four-year school such as the University of Virginia. UVa actually leads this project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and asked PVCC to join.

JOHN GATES: It's a natural partner for us. Piedmont produces great students. We know that the majority of underrepresented students and women, in fact, start their educational careers at community colleges.

John Gates is the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at UVa. He says this kind of STEM funding really benefits the whole nation.

GATES: We're in this real period of change in America, in 25 years from now America will be majority minority. The National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense have declared that the paucity of underrepresented scholars in engineering is, in fact, a national security threat to the nation. We are not producing enough engineering scholars to meet the growing and more complex needs of our nation.

To help meet those needs, UVa also recently received a $15 million grant from the Clark Foundation - and was able to match it dollar for dollar to make a total of $30 million. Besides college, these grants are also helping to reach into secondary schools, including summer classes for high school students.

GATES: We have a great partnership with Albemarle County High School and the schools generally, as well as Charlottesville high schools. We provide summer programs for high school students every summer, and bring quite a number onto Grounds - I think last summer we had over a hundred underrepresented students from the high schools both in Virginia and nationally here doing the study and research. We work in partnership with a middle school just around the corner from here that has a majority minority population.

[Children at school]

That school is Buford Middle School. Engineering teacher Brendan Martin is a former UVa graduate student in Systems Engineering.

BRENDAN MARTIN: I think engineering is an awesome opportunity for kids where they can not only just learn the content of engineering and science but also how to learn and how to problem-solve effectively and how to be resourceful when they're given really challenging tasks.

Buford Middle School’s curriculum is based on UVa’s Laboratory School for Advanced Manufacturing; Buford also has an after-school club meeting every Monday, as well as a partnership with the IT giant Cisco with credentials integrated into the school's curriculum. One opportunity for the middle school students is using a program called Solidworks, a professional design tool used by major engineering companies. That’s what young Iya Feggans is doing.

IYA FEGGANS: I'm working on Solidworks right now - it's like where you have to make these different parts and then at the end, you put them all together on the computer, and I'm on part 6 right now, and it's fun but it can be super hard. But it's nice when you finish it, and the feeling of it.

Last year, Charlottesville City Schools sought to reach even younger students.

MARTIN: We have this great program from 7 to 12 now - from Buford all the way to CHS, we offer engineering 1 through 5 - but what we found is "Wait, we really want to get kids interested and involved in this earlier, and we need to get kids ready for 7th grade engineering." So we built out what's called the iSTEM program which is placing teachers in all the elementary schools and at the upper elementary school, to do some of these STEM activities, to engage them.

What’s the ultimate obstacle to these kids’ success? According to young Jude Fairchild from Buford, it’s only himself.

JUDE FAIRCHILD: The only barrier I really have is if I don't try. I can reach my goals, I can reach my potential if I work hard enough.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Northam Campaigns in Charlottesville

Ralph Northam (left) speaks with former Democratic representative
for Virginia's 5th congressional district Lewis F. Payne, Jr. / Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam met with Charlottesville residents on Sunday.  Northam is the Democratic candidate for governor.  WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini talked with him.

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[Crowd chatting]

Three Notch’d Brewing Company in Charlottesville was packed with people – including Mayor Mike Signer and other city council members. Ralph Northam’s spirits were still high from the event in Richmond on October 19th.

RALPH NORTHAM: I think people were just longing for leadership and civility, and there was so much excitement and enthusiasm, it was a real honor to have President Barack Obama come and help us campaign.

Familiar concerns for Democrats came up: health care, the environment, gun laws, an education policy for  a 21st century workforce – and inclusion.

NORTHAM: Our daughter, Aubrey, had graduated from the University of Virginia in 2013, and just a wonderful experience she had. To watch these White Supremacists that came in to Charlottesville spewing their hatred and bigotry, bringing torches and semi-automatic weapons, that's not what this country is about. We don't condone that.

After the meet-and-greet, Northam was later joined by Tom Perriello, the former Congressman who had challenged him for the Democratic nomination, and they went for a round of canvassing in the city.

NORTHAM: There's so much enthusiasm across Virginia right now, we just want to make sure that we harness all this energy and take it to the polls on Election Day. We feel like it's going to be a good day on November the 7th for Democrats. I really encourage everybody to get out there and vote.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Alternative Learning for Students with Special Needs

Park School is special in another way: students are the ones taking care of the house, each student having an assigned task every week - whether it is taking the trash out, sweeping the floor, or putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher. / Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

Children with disabilities are some of the most frequently suspended students in public schools, according to a recent report. What does that mean for the future of special education? More and more attention is given to alternative education programs. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini visits a special kind of school in Charlottesville.

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Students with disabilities are suspended two and a half times more often as other students in Virginia, according to a recent report from The Legal Aid Justice Center. One of their recommendations is to provide Social and Emotional Learning programs (or SEL).

[Children at Park School]

BROOKE MCCOY: If students aren't socially or emotionally healthy, it's hard to expect a lot academically. So really we put a lot of emphasis on the social-emotional growth of each of our students, and academics always falls in place.

Brooke McCoy is a history teacher, and the head of Park School in Charlottesville. Created in 2009, it grew from its initial base of only two students, to up to 16 students. They have a partnership with American High School, a fully accredited, private online high school.

Kate Ciszek is now the Learning Coordinator at Park School, but she was a special education teacher in the public school system – and she is concerned by the high suspension rate for students with disabilities.

KATE CISZEK: I got so frustrated in the public school where there's so much pushing through just to get through, to get on to the next academic checkpoint, so that the behavioral teachings, and checking in with wellbeing, mental health of students, it has to fall by the wayside, just because of the sheer number of kids and the goal being primarily academic.

Suspended students then enter a spiral: they miss class, and then they fall behind, and then their whole academic achievement is at stake. Sixteen-year-old Liza Phillips says it's different at Park School.

LIZA PHILLIPS: I've had times in where I've missed something, and I've gone back to a teacher later and said "Hey, can we find time when we're both free so I can get a better grasp on it." You just don't have that access in other schools.

[English class]

To address the suspension issue, the Virginia Association of School Superintendentsis working to put forward some recommendations for the Department of Education. Tom Smith, the Legislative Liaison for the association, says they would like more funding for alternative education programs, and a better utilization of the Virginia Tiered Systems of Supports, an alternate education process based on what researchers are learning about behavior in schools.

TOM SMITH: Right now, they are limited in utilizing that because of funding, approximately 30 percent of school divisions out of 132 school divisions have been able to participate. We would like to see funding so that more could do that, so that we can work with these children that have difficulty before the situation gets to a point where they have to be suspended or placed and all that.

Back at Park School, Brooke McCoy says they are focused on variables that are harder to measure. 

MCCOY: The hard thing is monitoring progress: the kind of progress we see here isn't always numbers, it's not always scores. It might be a student is anxious going to math class for the last couple of days: those are the kind of progress monitoring that we see here.

That was the case of Carly for instance – Liza’s twin sister.

CARLY PHILLIPS: I used to be really bad at math, but I'm actually getting good grades now because I have teachers who can actually stop and explain what everything means and give me the attention I need to actually learn how to do it correctly.

And this nurturing environment does not mean children have no responsibilities.

MCCOY: They have chores everyday - since our school is a house, we do not have anyone who comes in and cleans and things so that's up to the kids. They take a lot of responsibility for this place. We don't clean: they do it themselves.

Another big emphasis is community service: they have a requirement of 25 hours each semester.

MCCOY: Some of the kids are going to do a Defend Love project, and start kind of an art gallery project to raise money for the things that transpired here in Charlottesville.  Our kids really take a lot of initiative when it comes to their volunteer work.

According to Tom Smith, who has also been a superintendent in Fluvanna County and was Director of Special Education Programs for almost 40 years, such an engaging environment is really the key ingredient.

SMITH: To be honest with you, the best discipline-reduction process is to have children engaged in learning. When they're engaged, they're moving forward, and discipline does go down. I think programs like that, if they’re structured, if they're well planned and funded, I think alternative education programs can be very productive.

This story appeared on WMRA News.

Slavery and Public Memory

Panel topics at the UVa and Slave Dwelling Project symposium include slavery, public memory and their relationship with the built landscape, ending with a field trip to Monticello, Montpelier and Highland on Saturday. / Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

The University of Virginia and its Commission on Slavery teamed up with the Slave Dwelling Project to organize a symposium called “Universities, Slavery, Public Memory and the Built Landscape.” This four-day conference will end with a field trip to Montpelier, Monticello and Highland on Saturday. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini was at the opening reception Wednesday [October 18] and filed this report.

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This symposium on slavery started with a little history of the cadaver trade. Texas Professor Daina Ramey Berry talked about this trade where big medical schools like Harvard and New York purchased the corpses of slaves for dissection for anatomy classes.

Professor Berry is the author of a book 

on the topic of the trade of slaves' 

cadavers and body snatchers: 

"The Price for their Pound of Flesh."/ 

Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

DAINA RAMEY BERRY: One of the things I kept stumbling against is “How did enslaved people live knowing that there was a commodification beyond the grave?” One of the things that I came up with was they had this notion of their soul. It was something that nobody else could take from them, and it enabled them to survive, to separate their bodies from their souls. No better quote than this here, of an enslaved woman that says “Yes, honey, I was in slavery, but wasn’t no slave. I was just in it. That’s all.”

The evening continued with the Slave Dwelling Project experience, for which some attendees slept on the Lawn of UVa like slaves did. The university’s Black Voices Choir was invited to sing for the introduction to this overnight experience.

This story appeared on WMRA News.