News Briefs

Take Heart

The University of Virginia Medical Center’s reputation as one of the best for cardiovascular care was reconfirmed in a recent study of 1,000 hospitals throughout the country. The 2007 “Thomson 100 Top Hospitals: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success Study” recognizes the hospitals that are producing the best clinical outcomes and are treating heart patients in less time and at a lower cost. UVA was the only hospital in Virginia and one of only a few in the Southeast to make the list.

Knocking at the Door

For the second consecutive year, UVA has received a record number of applications for admission. This year’s 18,776 applications represent a 4 percent increase over last year, when applications increased by more than 12 percent. According to Jack Blackburn, dean of admission, the target for the Class of 2012 will again be 3,170 students.

This is the first year since the 1960s that UVA has not had a binding early decision program. Applications increased in all four undergraduate schools, and the increase was reflected in both in- and out-of-state applications. Fifty-four percent of the applications came from women and 46 percent from men.

Tackling the Mortgage Mess

In light of the subprime mortgage crisis, Darden School professor Greg Fairchild’s three-year $850,000 MacArthur Grant is particularly timely. The grant will support Fairchild’s research of Community Development Financial Institutions, which are financial intermediary organizations dedicated to fostering the development of communities through financial and advisory assistance.

“One of the big things CDFIs do is provide housing loans for people with low and moderate income,” Fairchild says. “They can be a counter to subprime lenders. Some of the big CDFIs have started bundling and securitizing their loans. So one of the things we’ll be looking at is how they’ve done that and who they’ve sold these loans to.”

Getting Greener

The University’s growing commitment to green initiatives was recognized for its outstanding achievement for pollution prevention for a state agency by Businesses for the Bay, which works to prevent pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The award recognized the University’s promotion of sustainability and pollution prevention. In 2006, UVA recycled 48 percent of its waste stream, diverting a total of 4,883 tons of material from landfills. Nearly 90 percent of its lighting systems have been replaced with energy-efficient lights.

One of the Greatest

A Richmond Times-Dispatch and Library of Virginia survey has listed law professor A. E. Dick Howard among the greatest and most influential Virginians of the 20th century. Howard was singled out for authoring Virginia’s current constitution and “is recognized as one of the nation’s premier constitutional lawyers and scholars,” wrote Brent Tarter, a historian and editor with the Library of Virginia.