Fifty-one years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education ruling, clearing the way for the eventual desegregation of the nation’s schools. But, the transition was far from easy, according to Michael Klarman, a professor of history at the University of Virginia and the author of From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality.” On May 9, Klarman spoke at the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library on Market Street as part of UVa’s Engaging the Mind series.

We hear so much about globalization that it’s become just another word that many Americans tune out as soon as they hear it uttered.

Yet, many political scientists have serious concerns about how globalization affects the lives of Americans and people around the world. There’s a laundry list of developments that affect every human being including: the effects of an international economy on wealth for some and poverty for others, the threat of international terrorism, global pollution, to name just a few.

Four political scientists from across the country met in UVa’s Minor Hall on April 21, 2005, for a public forum called “Inequality and Difference in Developing Societies: How do Recent Trends Affect Americans?”

The panel includes Susanne Rudolph of the University of Chicago, Evelyne Huber of the University of North Carolina, and Valerie Bunce of Cornell University. This forum last 67 minutes, and is moderated by U-V-A political scientist John Echeverri-Gent.

How prepared is Virginia to deal with a possible biological or chemical attack from terrorists?

That’s just one of the questions that Doctor Chris Holstege spends his time trying to answer. Holstege is the director of medical toxicology at the University of Virginia, and an assistant professor of emergency medicine. He’s also the medical director of the Blue Ridge Poison Center.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, health and public safety departments across the country have struggled to come up with a response plan for what to do, and what NOT to do, in the event of a bioterror incident.

Holstege spoke at Woodberry Forest School in Orange on April 14th, 2005, as part of UVa’s Engaging the Mind series. This forty-minute lecture gives an overview of some of the possible biological and chemical agents that have been used as weapons in the past, as well as a basic rundown on what officials have learned from previous biological attacks.